Gutachtenstelle für Gesundheitsberufe (GfG)

The GfG sits in the Central Office for Foreign Education (ZAB) in the secretariat of the Standing Conference of education ministers (KMK). It started work in Bonn on 1 September 2016 as a pilot and, according to the ZAB's 2023/24 report, was made permanent in 2019. It covers academic and non-academic health professions from every country, and the report counts 26 federally regulated professions in its remit, including nurse (Pflegefachfrau/Pflegefachmann), doctor, physiotherapist, pharmacist and dentist.

The decision on your recognition is still made by the state authority, such as LAGeSo or a Landesprüfungsamt. The GfG supplies the evidence.

• Equivalence reports (Gutachten). Detailed comparisons of your training with the German one, written by experts from the same profession, such as doctors assessing doctors.
• Reference qualification. Which German qualification yours should be compared with.
• Authenticity checks of diplomas and documents, by staff who often speak the language of the country of origin.
• Model reports. Its assessments are placed in the anabin database so authorities can decide similar cases consistently. The Nursing Professions Act asks authorities to take GfG model reports into account (section 40 PflBG).

Before the GfG, each of the 16 states carried out these specialist checks alone. The KMK's announcement says health and education ministers designed the office after decisions in 2013 so that experts from the ZAB and the state health authorities assess qualifications together, giving a uniform basis for decisions, faster procedures and better patient protection. It was planned to be financed entirely from the expenses reimbursed in recognition procedures. Demand has kept rising: orders grew by about 25 per cent from 3,188 in 2022 to 3,978 in 2023, most of them for medical qualifications. Authorities also send the GfG informal questions, for example on whether a foreign college is accredited, and it answered 1,053 such queries in 2024.

You do not apply to the GfG yourself. The state authority sends your file through the GfG's portal when it needs a report, a reference check or an authenticity check. In 2024 the GfG received 4,015 orders: 1,631 authenticity checks, 685 reference checks and 1,699 detailed reports.

The same report states that by 1 September 2024 orders for medical and dental qualifications had risen so far that the GfG could not accept new ones, and that this had not changed at the time of writing. Health ministers asked in October 2024 for a new concept for its role.

• Waiting without news. Ask your state authority, not the GfG, about progress.
• Documents that cannot be verified. Send certified copies and translations exactly as the authority asks, because an authenticity query adds time.
• Expecting a GfG report to be a decision. Only the state authority issues the recognition notice or Defizitbescheid.