Werkstudent CV: showing your hours, enrolment and availability

First, plan your hours for the next twelve months

Open your university's academic calendar and mark the lecture periods (Vorlesungszeit) and the breaks for the next twelve months. Next to each, write how many hours a week you can work. Then download a current enrolment certificate (Immatrikulationsbescheinigung) from your student portal. With those two things you can write the one block every Werkstudent ad reads first: when, how much, and proof that you are a student.

If you hold a German residence permit for study, do the hour plan before you accept any offer. Two separate limits apply, one from social insurance and one from residence law, and a plan that respects the first can still break the second.

What a Werkstudent job is

The DWDS dictionary of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy defines a Werkstudent as a student who works for pay alongside study or during the semester breaks. The legal meaning comes from social insurance. The statutory health insurer TK, in its employer guide dated September 2026, calls students Werkstudenten when they hold a job paid above the minijob level that is not short-term, and when study stays the main activity.

The 20-hour line and the 26-week exception

TK says study is the focus when the job takes at most 20 hours a week, whatever the pay. Within a year counted back from the planned end of the longer hours, a student may work more than 20 hours a week in at most 26 weeks. If short increases come every week or two, the employer checks the average, and an average above 20 hours ends the Werkstudent status.

A Werkstudent is not a HiWi

Jobs as a research or student assistant at a university count as studentische Nebentätigkeit. The Leipzig foreigners office lists them, together with tutors in student halls and similar posts, as work that does not reduce the 140-day account described below.

Working-time limits for international students

A residence permit for study under § 16b of the Residence Act allows work of up to 140 working days a year, which the law calls the Arbeitstagekonto. Student assistant jobs are not counted. Part-time work is counted in whichever of two ways is better for you, decided separately for each calendar week:

• By the day: a day of up to four hours counts as half a day, a longer day as a full day.
• By the week: during the lecture period, a week of up to 20 hours counts as two and a half days; outside it, part-time work counts as two and a half days however the hours are spread.

The Leipzig foreigners office (information sheet, May 2024) adds the practical rules: the account runs per calendar year, holidays and sick days do not count, and you must keep your own record of the days. Going over without permission is an administrative offence with a fine of up to €5,000 and can lead the office to examine revoking the permit. More days need permission from the foreigners office and BA approval.

Two limits, worked through

The 20-hour rule decides your social insurance; the 140-day account decides your residence. Here is how four plans come out on the account, with 44 lecture or ordinary weeks and 8 break weeks in a year.

The full-time break weeks are counted by the day here, the method the law gives for days over four hours. The weekly two-and-a-half-day method is written for part-time work; if you want to rely on it for full-time weeks, ask your foreigners office first.

Residence rules change. Check § 16b and your own foreigners office before you sign a contract.

The enrolment certificate and when the status ends

Employers who treat you as a Werkstudent keep proof in the payroll file. TK lists the Immatrikulationsbescheinigung, contracts or notes on other jobs (or your written statement that there are none), proof of the lecture-free periods such as the academic calendar, and for fixed-term jobs the start and end dates. Attach the current certificate to the application so the employer does not have to ask.

Your study, for this purpose, ends at the end of the month in which you are officially told your overall result in writing. TK also excludes these situations from the Werkstudent rule:

• a semester of leave (Urlaubssemester)
• the gap between a bachelor's and a master's when the master's does not follow directly
• more than 25 semesters in the subject
• part-time study taking at most half of a full-time load
• language courses preparing foreign applicants for study, Studienkolleg and preparatory seminars

What a Werkstudent Lebenslauf puts first

The BA calls a short application common for temporary and student jobs, with a CV of at most one A4 page. The reader's first questions are practical, so the order differs from a graduate CV.

1. Name, city in Germany, phone, email.
2. Availability: start date, hours per week in the lecture period and in breaks, fixed days if you have them.
3. Enrolment: degree, university, current Fachsemester, expected end of study.
4. Study focus: three courses or a project that match the ad.
5. Experience: earlier student jobs, internships, tutoring.
6. Tools and languages with levels.

Hours as numbers, not as adjectives

'Flexibel' says nothing a team lead can plan with. 'Bis 20 Std./Woche, Mo, Di, Do' can go straight into a rota.

Say when your study ends

Because the status ends with your studies, an employer planning a year ahead needs your expected end date. Give the month and year.

Residence status

How to write your residence permit on a CV, if at all, is covered on the page about photos and personal details.

Availability and enrolment block: two sample lines

Two fictional students in Germany. Mert studies computer science and can work 20 hours all year; Zeynep studies business and wants four short days in term and full-time weeks in the spring break, a plan that stays inside 140 days (plan 4 in the table above).

The numbers show the form only. Keep your own day count in a spreadsheet: the Leipzig office says the record is your job, not the employer's.

Proof: sources and the date we read them

Every rule above comes from one of these pages, read on 12 October 2026. Links are under Sources.

Limits: who this page does not cover

• Students enrolled at a university in Türkiye. The BA page for students enrolled abroad offers two routes, internships and holiday jobs, not term-time part-time work. Holiday jobs run at most 90 days within 12 months during your official semester break, for students up to age 35; the BA partner list includes an office in Türkiye, which sets its own application deadline.
• Students in a Studienkolleg or a pre-study language course: TK excludes you from the Werkstudent rule.
• Freelance work: the Leipzig office says self-employment needs separate permission.
• EU citizens: you have free movement and no day account, though the 20-hour rule still decides your insurance.

Next steps

• Search: XING's job pages list a Werkstudent·in category, and the BA job search filters by part-time and minijob. The job sites page compares the boards.
• For a placement your study rules require, read the internship page instead; a compulsory internship is not counted against the 140 days.
• Keep the cover letter to a few lines that repeat your hours and start date.

CitedCV writes a one-page German Lebenslauf from the facts you confirm and marks an ongoing enrolment with 'heute' as the end date. The availability line comes from the hours you enter, so enter them exactly.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Aufenthaltsgesetz, § 16b (Studium)www.gesetze-im-internet.de/aufenthg_2004/__16b.html
2. Stadt Leipzig, Arbeitstagekonto für Studierende aus Nicht-EU-Staaten (Mai 2024)static.leipzig.de/fileadmin/mediendatenbank/leipzig-de/Stadt/02.3_Dez3_Umwelt_Ordnung_Sport/32_Ordnungsamt/Auslaenderangelegenheiten/Information-Arbeitstagekonto-fur-Studierende-aus-Nicht-EU-Staaten.pdf
3. Techniker Krankenkasse, Beschäftigung von Studierenden und Praktikant:innen (09/2026)tk.de/tk/beratungsblaetter/beschaeftigung/beschaeftigung-von-studenten/107126
4. DWDS, Werkstudentwww.dwds.de/wb/Werkstudent
5. Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Bewerbung schreibenwww.arbeitsagentur.de/arbeitslos-arbeit-finden/bewerbungstraining/bewerbung-schreiben
6. Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Ferienbeschäftigung für im Ausland immatrikulierte Studierende (September 2025)www.arbeitsagentur.de/datei/info-ferienbeschaeftigung_ba036085.pdf
7. Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Praktika und Ferienjobs für ausländische Studierendewww.arbeitsagentur.de/arbeiten-in-deutschland/praktika-und-ferienjobs-fuer-auslaendische-studierende
8. XING, Jobswww.xing.com/jobs