Before Your Departure

• Arrange an appointment with the Guesthouse Administration approx. 2–3 days before your departure to have the apartment inspected before moving out and to arrange the delivery of keys.
• Arrange for your mail to be forwarded to your new address. A mail forwarding order can be issued both at any post office branch of the Deutsche Post or online.

• Make sure that you terminate your accommodation in due time (usually three months’ notice; please refer to your rental agreement for the exact notice period).
• Since utilities and operating costs are only charged once a year, you may receive a request for additional payments or a refund even if you no longer live in Germany. Make sure that the landlord is familiar with your home address and bank account as it may also occur that you will be reimbursed utilities that you paid in advance.
• Arrange for your mail to be forwarded to your new address. A mail forwarding order can be issued both at any post office branch of the Deutsche Post or online.

Before returning your ecUM Card, please visit the Infothek (information counter) of the Studierendenwerk at the Mensa am Schloss to have the remaining amount of money loaded onto the ecUM Card paid out.

Afterwards, you can return the ecUM Card at the counter of the University IT at the InfoCenter (Schneckenhof West).

If you have registered your residence in Germany at the beginning of your stay, you must also de-register it when you leave Germany.

If you are not going to leave Germany and only move within the country, you must register your new residence at the residents’ registration office of your new place of residence.

Depending on your respective place of residence, you can visit one of the citizens’ service offices of the city of Mannheim. If you do not live in Mannheim, please inquire about the responsible residents’ registration office at your place of residence.

Appointments:

In order to avoid long waiting times, we recommend making an appointment online with the citizens’ service offices of the city of Mannheim. The Welcome Center is happy to provide support.

Required documents:

• Passport or ID
• De-registration form (available at the Welcome Center or on the website of the city of Mannheim)

If you have registered your residence in Germany, you have to pay the public broadcasting license fee (Rundfunkbeitrag). Therefore, you should de-register from the public broadcasting fee before leaving Germany. If you are going to move within Germany, you should state your new address. For more information please read steps 3 and 4 of our instructions on the public broadcasting license fee.

If you are a member of the statutory health insurance scheme, you should get in touch with your health insurance provider before your departure and terminate your membership. In order to do so, you must send the health insurance provider a confirmation of your de-registration of residency in order to prove that you will no longer be a resident in Germany.

If you have taken out private health insurance, you should check your notice periods and terminate your membership as early on as possible and in writing.

If you have opened an account with a bank in Germany, you should consider closing it before leaving. Please consider whether you expect further incoming payments after your departure, for which the account should remain open for a while, e.g. for the last salary or the final utilities statement of your apartment. Please make an appointment with your bank while you are still in Germany. In a personal consultation with your bank advisor, you should clarify how you can close the account, at what time the closure will become valid and how the remaining money on account can be transferred to another account without incurring high additional costs.

Did you conclude any other contracts during your time in Mannheim? Then please check the notice periods for these contracts. Usually, you will have to cancel the following contracts:

• Bahncard (BC) from Deutsche Bahn
• Insurance agreements (private liability insurance, home contents insurance etc.)
• Cell phone contracts
• Fixed-line and Internet contracts
• Electricity and gas supply contracts
• Job Ticket
• Child care / school
• Sports clubs
• Newspaper subscriptions
• Automobile insurance
• ...and many more!

If you are employed at the University of Mannheim, you should report your new address to the Human Resources division before leaving in order to ensure that you will receive the final letters from the Human Resources division and the Landesamt für Besoldung und Versorgung (LBV). Please note that you have to sign a specific form. Unfortunately, it is not sufficient to simply inform the Human Resources division or the Welcome Center via e-mail. Please contact the Welcome Center. We will send you the appropriate form and help you to fill it in.

If you are employed at the University of Mannheim or appointed as a civil servant, you have been granted access to the client account of the Landesamt für Besoldung und Versorgung (LBV) at the beginning of your employment. There you can view all pay roles and other letters you have ever received as PDF files. This is even possible for two years following the expiry of your employment contract. Especially with regard to your tax return it can be helpful to have access to these documents even after your time in Mannheim. So please make sure that you know your log-in data in order to be able to use your client account.

If you are enrolled as a doctoral student at the University of Mannheim, you should disenroll before your departure.

If you have an employment contract in Germany and are now leaving the country, you should also take account of the pension entitlements you have acquired during your stay and be mindful of differing conditions if you move to another country. You should bear in mind that claims arising from the various pillars of the pension scheme (German compulsory pension scheme Deutsche Rentenversicherung DRV and occupational pension VBL) may also be treated differently.

If you work in several countries in the course of your professional life, your payments to the respective pension insurance funds are generally recognized for pensions in every EU/EEA member state as well as in Switzerland and in countries with bilateral social security agreements. Your pension entitlements will remain unaffected. This means that, as soon as you have reached the legal retirement age, you can receive pension payments from any of these countries if you meet the requirements in accordance with the respective national regulations.

Please read the information on this topic provided on the website of EURAXESS Germany carefully. They contain important information, FAQs, and additional links.

Please also refer to the VBL website “Find your Pension” as this web page was developed specifically for incoming and outgoing researchers and thus is adapted to their particular situation.