How long to study for the German citizenship test: a study plan

We recommend allowing two to eight weeks of preparation for the German citizenship test (Einbürgerungstest), depending on where you're starting from. With confident German (B1 or above) and some background knowledge, two to four weeks at 20 to 60 minutes a day is usually enough. If you're still learning German, give yourself six to eight weeks. These are our recommendations, not official rules – what matters is that by test day you know all 310 questions that apply to you.

What decides how long you need

• Your German: the test is only held in German. If you still have to decode each sentence slowly, every question takes longer. You'll need B1 German for naturalisation anyway – see the language requirement for citizenship. If English is your stronger language, read our guide to the citizenship test for English speakers.
• What you already know: if you've done the orientation course (Orientierungskurs) of an integration course, many questions will be familiar. Its final test, “Leben in Deutschland”, uses the same catalogue – see Leben in Deutschland vs. the citizenship test.
• Your time per day: 20 minutes every day beats three hours once a week. What you review regularly is what sticks.
• Your test date: in big cities test dates are often booked up well in advance – in Berlin, for example, sometimes around three months ahead. Register early and plan backwards from test day; how to register for the test explains the steps.

Three study plans compared

All three of our suggested plans leave time for practice exams at the end. Pick the one that suits your German and your schedule:

On the two-week plan you get through every question in about twelve days and keep the last few for practice exams. On the four-week plan the whole final week is free for that. On the thorough plan, part of your daily time goes into vocabulary rather than new questions.

How to split the 310 questions

Our rule of thumb: 20 to 25 new questions a day plus review. That gets you through all 310 questions once in 13 to 16 days. Allow about a minute per new question, two for the harder ones: read it, understand it, and be able to say why the answer is right. Reviews go faster. A typical session looks like this:

1. Start with the reviews that are due – questions you got wrong before.
2. Then the new questions, ideally all from one topic.
3. After every mistake, pause: why is the correct answer correct?
4. Note down unfamiliar words and look them up in our citizenship test glossary.
5. Finish with a short mixed round of questions from the last few days.

Example: the four-week plan

This is how you can spread the topics (grouped as in the app) over four weeks:

Our suggested weekly rhythm:

• Monday to Saturday: new questions from that week's topics plus review – around 20 a day in weeks 1 and 2.
• Sunday: no new questions. Go over the week's mistakes and, from week 2, take a practice exam.

Week 3 is deliberately lighter so you have time for extra practice exams and for everything that went wrong in weeks 1 and 2. Week 4 is about three or four practice exams and your mistakes. Go over the coats of arms and maps once more too – our page of picture questions with answers shows them all in one place.

If you enter your test date in the study plan, the app works out your daily workload and adjusts it every day: new questions plus review at first, then practice exams and review instead of new questions in the last three days before the test. Without a date it suggests 20 new questions a day.

How to tell you're ready

Our recommendation: sit the test once all of these are true.

• You've answered all 310 questions correctly at least once.
• You consistently score 30 or more out of 33 in practice exams – for example three times in a row.
• You know your 10 state questions without thinking.
• You understand the questions in German without opening the translation.
• No topic in your statistics lags clearly behind the others.

For an extra check, try the official sample test in the BAMF online test centre – like the real test, it's in German only.

If you're short on time

• Learn your 10 state questions first – 3 of them come up in every test.
• Then work through all 300 general questions once, even if not everything sticks yet.
• Put the rest of your time into your mistakes, not into questions you already know.
• If it still isn't enough, you can retake the test; each attempt costs €25.

For strategies for the final days and test day itself, see how to pass the German citizenship test: 10 tips.