Social Code II

As of 01/06/2022, pursuant to section 24, displaced persons with a probationary certificate and/or residence permit have access to Unemployment Benefit IV (Hartz IV) or Unemployment Benefit II (Arbeitslosengeld II, or ALG II for short). ALG II is the basic security benefit in Germany. Its purpose is to cover the basic financial needs of people who are able to work but have not yet found a job. The legal basis for this is Social Code II (SGB II).

The standard rate of this basic security benefit (approx. €446) is somewhat higher than that set out in the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act (approx. €364). In addition, there is a kind of building block principle used here, according to which the benefits can be topped up depending on the declared additional needs (equipment, school supplies, increased hot water costs, Education and Social Participation (Bildung und Teilhabe) package, etc.). 

The respective Jobcenter is responsible for approving these benefits. To receive these benefits in Leipzig, displaced persons must submit some forms to the Jobcenter Leipzig, such as the main application (Hauptantrag). The Jobcenter then has approx. one month to process the application. 

There are many advantages to switching to basic security benefits:

• Access to basic healthcare (health insurance)
• Access to German and integration courses
• Higher financial benefits
• Access to work
• Access to the Education and Social Participation (Bildung und Teilhabe) package for children
• Help dealing with the authorities

If you are in receipt of benefits under Social Code II, you must expect to be contacted by the office on a regular basis. You are required to be contactable if you are receiving basic security benefits. You will find further information on this topic here.

Address: Jobcenter Leipzig

Georg-Schumann-Straße 150

04159 Leipzig

Postal address: Jobcenter Leipzig

Postfach 100831

04008 Leipzig

Opening times: Monday: 08:00–12:00

Tuesday: 08:00–18:00

Wednesday: By appointment only

Thursday: 08:00–12:00

Friday: 08:00–12:00

(ATTENTION: VARIES!)

Link: www.jobcenter-leipzig.de (general)

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/aktuelles/informationen-fuer-gefluechtete-aus-der-ukraine/ (UKR)

Appointment request (DEU/ENG/UKR/RUS): 

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/aktuelles/informationen-fuer-gefluechtete-aus-der-ukraine/zwischenseite_terminvereinbarung/

Email: Jobcenter-Leipzig.Application-Service@jobcenter-ge.de

jobcenter-leipzig@jobcenter-ge.de

jobcenter-Leipzig@jobcenter-ge.de-mail.de (encrypted)

Fax: 0341 913 11111

Jobcenter.digital: www.jobcenter.digital

General hotline (DEU/ENG): 0341 91310540 // 0341 91310705 (Mon–Fri 08:00–18:00)

Hotline (DEU/UKR/RUS): 0911 1787915 (Mon–Thu 08:00–16:00; Fri 08:00–13:00)

(Once your application for benefits under Social Code II has been checked and approved, you will receive information about your personal caseworkers a few weeks later. Their contact details appear in the top right of the letterhead. From this point onwards, it is better to contact them directly.)

General information about basic security benefits:

Unemployment Benefit II (ALG II) factsheet (DEU):

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Kurzinformation-Deutsch.pdf

Unemployment Benefit II (ALG II) factsheet (UKR):

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Kurzinformation_SGB_II_Alg_II_ukrainisch_RZ_BF.pdf

In general, anyone aged between 15 and 65 who can work a minimum of three hours a day and has a valid residence title (e.g. probationary certificate) can apply for benefits under Social Code II (SGB II).

You will find an overview of the locations and directions here.

Jobcenter Leipzig – General Contact Details

Address: Jobcenter Leipzig

Georg-Schumann-Straße 150

04159 Leipzig

Postal address: Jobcenter Leipzig

Postfach 100831

04008 Leipzig

Opening times: Monday: 08:00–12:00

Tuesday: 08:00–18:00

Wednesday: By appointment only

Thursday: 08:00–12:00

Friday: 08:00–12:00

(ATTENTION: VARIES!)

Link: www.jobcenter-leipzig.de (general)

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/aktuelles/informationen-fuer-gefluechtete-aus-der-ukraine/ (UKR)

Appointment request (DEU/ENG/UKR/RUS): 

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/aktuelles/informationen-fuer-gefluechtete-aus-der-ukraine/zwischenseite_terminvereinbarung/

Email: Jobcenter-Leipzig.Application-Service@jobcenter-ge.de

jobcenter-leipzig@jobcenter-ge.de

jobcenter-Leipzig@jobcenter-ge.de-mail.de (encrypted)

Fax: 0341 913 11111

Jobcenter.digital: www.jobcenter.digital

General hotline (DEU/ENG): 0341 91310540 // 0341 91310705 (Mon–Fri 08:00–18:00)

Hotline (DEU/UKR/RUS): 0911 1787915 (Mon–Thu 08:00–16:00; Fri 08:00–13:00)

(Note: Once your application for benefits under Social Code II has been checked and approved, you will receive information about your personal caseworkers a few weeks later. Their contact details appear in the top right of the letterhead. From this point onwards, it is better to contact them directly.)

In the Jobcenter responsible for your place of residence. In Leipzig, that is the Jobcenter Leipzig. If you are resident outside Leipzig, you can find the Jobcenter that is responsible for you here. Simply enter your postcode (Postleitzahl).

The application can be made during opening hours in the respective Jobcenter, by post or email or at Jobcenter.digital. You will find a guide to using Jobcenter.digital here.

Jobcenter Leipzig – General Contact Details

Address: Jobcenter Leipzig

Georg-Schumann-Straße 150

04159 Leipzig

Postal address: Jobcenter Leipzig

Postfach 100831

04008 Leipzig

Opening times: Monday: 08:00–12:00

Tuesday: 08:00–18:00

Wednesday: By appointment only

Thursday: 08:00–12:00

Friday: 08:00–12:00

(ATTENTION: VARIES!)

Link: www.jobcenter-leipzig.de (general)

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/aktuelles/informationen-fuer-gefluechtete-aus-der-ukraine/ (UKR)

Appointment request (DEU/ENG/UKR/RUS): 

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/aktuelles/informationen-fuer-gefluechtete-aus-der-ukraine/zwischenseite_terminvereinbarung/

Email: Jobcenter-Leipzig.Application-Service@jobcenter-ge.de

jobcenter-leipzig@jobcenter-ge.de

jobcenter-Leipzig@jobcenter-ge.de-mail.de (encrypted)

Fax: 0341 913 11111

Jobcenter.digital: www.jobcenter.digital

General hotline (DEU/ENG): 0341 91310540 // 0341 91310705 (Mon–Fri 08:00–18:00)

Hotline (DEU/UKR/RUS): 0911 1787915 (Mon–Thu 08:00–16:00; Fri 08:00–13:00)

(Note: Once your application for benefits under Social Code II has been checked and approved, you will receive information about your personal caseworkers a few weeks later. Their contact details appear in the top right of the letterhead. From this point onwards, it is better to contact them directly.)

In Leipzig, you can apply for benefits under Social Code II by completing the main application and submitting it to the Jobcenter Leipzig.

Complete the application preferably on your computer or by hand and attach the required documents. Alternatively, you can use the Jobcenter.digital portal for this.You can then submit the application online via the Jobcenter.digital portal, by post or email or at the reception of Jobcenter Leipzig at Georg-Schumann-Straße 150, 04159 Leipzig during opening hours.

Unfortunately, the portal is not available in Ukrainian.

To use the portal, you need to register online with the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Jobcenter). After registration, you will receive access to all the online features of the Jobcenter and will be able to submit all future applications, forms, supporting documents, etc. online. This will save you a lot of time and effort.
A good guide in Ukrainian that will help you with your registration can be found on this website.

Help completing forms in Ukrainian is available to you. You will also find very good support on the website www.leipzig-ua.com.

You can also go to the Jobcenter Leipzig – with or without an appointment – and ask for help. Note: the opening times vary.

If you want to make sure there is an interpreter available on site and that you don’t have to wait for an eternity, it is best to make an appointment and request an interpreter or linguist by email or phone (UKR: 0049 9111 787 915).
If you require further assistance, take a look here.

You will receive benefits backdated to the 1st of the month in which you made your application, provided that you already had a right to benefits at this time. 

Following approval, payment is usually always made on the last working day of the month for the following month. The dates are noted on the approval notice.

However, approval can only be granted once the core information to determine your individual needs has been submitted. At the moment, the completed main application suffices for this purpose.

Even after approval, you will highly likely be asked to submit documents. Unfortunately, such letters are often written in difficult-to-understand ‘officialese’ German. If you do not understand something, call the hotline (UKR: 0049 9111 787 915) for queries, write an email or make an appointment with a caseworker.

The only important thing is that you get back to them. Otherwise there may be payment issues and processing delays.

Here you will find a video explaining the assessment. Unfortunately, only English subtitles are available.

You will find an explanation of the approval notice in Ukrainian here.

It is important to inform Jobcenter Leipzig about changes to your key personal details (the most important information about you: residence, bank account details, income, contact details etc.) so that you continue to receive your post and get your money on time. To do this, you can either write an email, use Jobcenter.digital or in person during opening hours.

There is also a change of details form that you can complete, of course.

Unlike benefits under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act, the Jobcenter registers benefit communities in the legal scope of Social Code II.

Even though they are called benefit ‘communities’, it is not just several people, such as a mother and child, that are referred to as a benefit community, but also individual applicants.

The underlying idea of this official expression is that if several people live together, they take mutual responsibility for each other and share costs and funds. This is the reason why groups AND individuals are classified as benefit communities.

Benefit communities may be:

• married couples who are not permanently separated,
• registered same-sex civil partners who are not permanently separated,
• persons in a relationship of mutual responsibility (cohabitation)
• or the person making the application alone.

Children under the age of 25 are also part of a benefit community, of course, provided that they are unmarried, fit for employment and unable to cover their living expenses from their own income. A child’s income includes, for example, child benefit and maintenance payments.

If an unmarried child aged at least 15 but under 25, who is fit for employment, applies for benefits under Social Code II, parents living in the household are also part of the benefit community.

Example:

A mother with two children – one daughter (12) and one son (26) – and the son’s girlfriend (23) move into a flat together.

For the authorities, this situation means that there are two benefit communities:

1. the mother with the 12-year-old child
2. the son and his girlfriend

Therefore, both the mother and the son can make applications independent of each other.

Since they live together and in this example form a household community, some costs/benefits are adjusted, e.g. the rent or utility costs. Other benefits, such as training and child benefit, are assessed and offset independently for each benefit community.

If at least two benefit communities live together in one household, they either form a household community or residential community.

Household community

Example:

A mother with two children – one daughter (12) and one son (26) – and the son’s girlfriend (23) move into a flat together.

For the authorities, this situation means that there are two benefit communities:

3. the mother with the 12-year-old child
4. the son and his girlfriend

Both parties have made and had an application for benefits under Social Code II accepted.

This is an example of a household community. This means that the people are related to each other, for example. A household community is based on the idea that the people living in it share costs and benefits to a certain degree.

Residential community

Example:

A person in receipt of benefits under Social Code II moves into a room in a flat and signs a subtenancy agreement. They share a bathroom, kitchen and perhaps a communal living room with the other people living in the flat.

The authority generally refers to this as a residential community. In a residential community there are no relationships, neither familial nor marital, between the tenants. Each tenant is a benefit community in their own right.

If your application has been rejected, take your rejection notice to the Leipzig Social Welfare Office (Sozialamt) located at Prager Straße 128, for the time being in the new Welcome Centre.

They will advise you what to do next: are you of pensionable age, for example? In this case, you will currently (as of July 2022) receive two applications: one for benefits under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act and one for a basic old-age pension. Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to skip the first application. You will only receive a basic old-age pension in the second month.

If you are unable to work for other reasons, take your rejection notice from the Jobcenter to the Leipzig Social Welfare Office (Sozialamt) located at Prager Straße 128, for the time being in the new Welcome Centre.

If neither of these applies to you, or if you disagree with the rejection, you can appeal against it. Here you will find an appeal form, which you can complete and submit to the responsible Jobcenter.
In addition to the legal scope of Social Code II, there are also other ways to apply for assistance and benefits from the state or the local authorities, depending on your needs. For example, if you are disabled, you can apply for benefits under Social Code IX (Rehabilitation and Participation of People with Disabilities). If you are a pensioner, you can apply for benefits under Social Code XII. Please visit the corresponding links to find out more.

Currently (as of July 2022), the Jobcenter automatically deducts child benefit from the money you receive each month.

In order to claim the full benefits to which you are entitled, you must apply for child benefit for your children at the Family Benefits Office (Familienkasse).

The basic security benefits under Social Code II allow for the benefits of the standard rate to be topped up. For this purpose, there are so-called additional needs that must be declared in order to receive them. This means that you must apply for each additional need separately. In addition, you will have to prove that this particular need exists in your benefit community. If, for example, it relates to school supplies for your child, such proof can be a letter from the school.

Additional needs may be, for example:

• increased utility costs (hot water)
• help for mothers-to-be
• help for single parents
• increase in the standard rate for food where medically required
• and much more

The additional needs and regulations around them can vary. For example, it is currently possible to declare an additional need for a computer for educating children at home.

To find out which additional needs you can apply for and what evidence you need to supply, it is best to speak to the caseworker who is responsible for you at the Jobcenter. Their name is printed in the top right of the letterhead of your approval notice.

The application process is essentially nothing new:

Write an informal email to your caseworker, stating your benefit community number (‘BG-Nummer’, printed on your approval notice) and describing your request. State the expected costs and attach proof of your need. You then wait for a response from the office or the approval notice.

As a recipient of social benefits, you are fundamentally entitled to receive benefits from the ‘Education and Social Participation’ package for your child.

Benefits from the ‘Education and Social Participation’ package may be:

• money for school trips and class outings
• money for everyday school supplies
• covering the costs of school meals
• discounted entry to facilities such as museums, theatres, amusement parks and so on
• Ferienpass and FreizeitTicket travel tickets

If you receive money from the Jobcenter Leipzig, you should apply for these benefits there, like any other additional benefit. If you receive benefits under Social Code IX or the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act, you should apply for benefits from this package at the responsible Social Welfare Office.

This procedure is nothing new:

Write an informal email to your caseworker at the Jobcenter or Social Welfare Office, stating your benefit community number (‘BG-Nummer’, printed on your approval notice from the Jobcenter) or your identification number (found in your benefit notice from the Social Welfare Office) and describing your request. State the expected costs and attach proof of your need. You then wait for a response from the office or the approval notice.

The Contactability Order (Erreichbarkeitsanordnung) stipulates that a recipient of basic security benefits is obliged to attend appointments and comply with requests by the Jobcenter within a few days. You are therefore obliged to notify the Jobcenter if you leave your residence for an extended period (more than one weekday). The notification obligation does NOT apply in the case of weekend trips as the Jobcenter is closed at the weekend anyway. This applies to trips both in Germany and abroad.

You are allowed to take a total of 21 days per year (plus weekends) of ‘holiday’ from this regulation. To do so, write an informal email, call or speak in person to the responsible Jobcenter and obtain permission. You will either be required to complete a form and send it to your caseworker or you can do it online at Jobcenter.digital.

If you are away for longer than 21 days or do not properly deregister with the responsible Jobcenter, your entitlement to benefits under Social Code II will expire. Exceptions are possible by arrangement, however. If you are absent for more than six weeks, your entitlement will expire completely and must be reassessed, i.e. you must submit a new application.

A trip abroad, for example, to Ukraine to deal with urgent matters must therefore always be coordinated with the Jobcenter, regardless of your residence title, for as long as you receive benefits under Social Code II.

NOTE: Trips abroad

Regardless of the Contactability Order, before any trip abroad, you should check whether § 81.4 is marked on your probationary certificate. You can find where this remark is here. If this is the case, you do not have to worry about any legal restrictions. If § 81.4 is not crossed, please contact the Foreigners’ Registration Office in the Welcome Centre. 

The form for the notification and request of absence can be found here: https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/datei/anfrage-ortsabwesenheit_ba147389.pdf. 

From 01/06/2022 you have to register with the JobCenter for basic income benefits, even if you have already registered at Sozialamt Leipzig.

For assistance in filling out the form, please follow the link:

https://leipzig-ua.com/ru/jobcenter-ru/

For further assistance with the application:

https://jobcenter-leipzig.de/aktuelles/informationen-fuer-gefluechtete-aus-der-ukraine/finanzielle-unterstuetzung/