The advice you will find is that Americans moving to Germany need an FBI Identity History Summary, apostilled by the U.S. Department of State and translated into German by a certified translator. That is a real chain of costs: the report, the federal apostille, the courier, then a beglaubigte Übersetzung on top.

The document German authorities normally ask for is the Führungszeugnis, the certificate of conduct issued by the Bundesamt für Justiz, the Federal Office of Justice.

You can get one without ever having lived in Germany

This is the part that surprises people. The Federal Office of Justice states that anyone aged 14 or over can apply. Applicants living outside Germany apply in writing, with the signature on the application officially certified by a German diplomatic or consular representative, a public authority, or a notary. A US notary public qualifies.

The fee is 13 euros, paid by bank transfer.

Why it is the better document

• It is already in German, so there is no translation to buy
• It is a German document, so no U.S. apostille applies to it
• Thirteen euros, against a few hundred dollars for the apostilled FBI route
• It is the document the authority is expecting to see

One genuinely useful feature

You can ask for the certificate to be sent to a German embassy or consulate so you can review it in person before it goes to the authority, and ask for it to be destroyed if you would rather not submit it. There is no equivalent for the FBI route.

German missions cannot apostille anything

Worth knowing before you queue. German missions do not issue apostilles. Final authentication of a German document is handled by German authorities, and a US federal document is apostilled only by the U.S. Department of State in Washington.

When the FBI report is genuinely the right answer

• Your employer or professional body specifically asks for a US criminal record check
• The Ausländerbehörde handling your case names the FBI report
• Your permit category requires records from every country you have lived in, and you have lived in the US

In those cases the process is the ordinary federal one: fingerprints, the Identity History Summary, the federal apostille from the State Department, then a certified German translation. We can do that. Ask which document is wanted before ordering either.

Source

Bundesamt für Justiz, Certificate of Conduct, read 2026-08-04. Read it yourself →

Requirements vary by permit type and by the office handling your case. This is not legal or immigration advice, and we are not affiliated with any German authority.