Without writing my entire life story, here are some pointers.

Best city: Leverkusen. Easy to get appointments, incredibly friendly personnel. Honorable mention for Potsdam.

Worst city: Saarbrücken. I was undocumented a couple months because they couldn't get hold of my documents and refused to give me anything saying it wasn't my fault. They called security to bring me outside, too. When I pointed out that without documents I could be deported they laughed and said "that almost never happens".

Worst delay: Köln. They sat on my documents for two years - not because they had to, mind you, but partially because they decided to proof from scratch documents that had already been vetted by Leverkusen. In the end I had to sue them.

Most improved: Berlin. By the time I left they went from overworked to quite okay. They also used to offer a queue for those who needed an appointment right now but couldn't get one the official way.

Generally speaking big cities are a nightmare and small cities are a delight.

Not an immigrant, but I still have to get appointments :D

It really depends on where you are. In some parts you can do a lot online, in other places you have to do everything in person. Sometimes you can book an appointment online and something will be available today; sometimes no appointments are available at all. Sometimes you just show up. I'm from Berlin and it was absolutely awful for years - nowadays you can usually book an appointment within the same week.

This was true about immigration offices because government did not invest in immigration offices, and when they did, in typical German fashion, they were very slow. Now, most cities are finally coming to terms with it. But in the mean time, the normal city services (not related to immigration services) are as bad as immigration service, because a lot of people are retiring and no one new to replace them.

True but also each day they open slots due to cancelations or often have a system where you can just go in the morning and wait for somebody to not show up. Or allow things to be done online.

It is as with all bureaucracy: you got to be crafty to navigate it. For instance they will tell you exactely what you need to bring for each type of appointment but it still requires you to carefully read and do the work of preparing those things.

It's both true and untrue.

It's true that finding appointments can be difficult if you just open the website once and see a calendar with no available slots for months; _but_; there are very frequent cancellations and some offices releases slots for the same day at midnight/7AM/etc; so if you're determined and flexible; it's quite doable to get an appointment ~soon.

For some things (apartment registration) you can also just show up on the day and just wait.

(My last interaction with a Bürgeramt was in Berlin in October 2023 though and was pretty similar for the previous ~8 years; things could have changed in the meantime!)

As an EU citizen, I can't tell you if it's true for the immigration office.

But for anything else? Kind of? If you want to move, you have to make an appointment in person to tell them. But it is also retroactive, so you can move and then make an appointment in 5 months and it's fine. The paper that says where you live is very important but it's also easy to get, you just have to show up. Not any time but the times for that are plentiful enough that it works out.

What makes my blood boil is the paperwork for when your kid is born. It feels like they should just be able to retrieve everything from their database but you have to submit a load of documents anyway and it has to be original.

Also, don't try to get married in Germany. Just go to Denmark, much easier, despite the delays if you get something wrong. You can do the whole thing in English and you don't have to translate anything for Germans after, if I recall correctly.

If you don't have to deal with the immigration office, it's fine. If you do, then good luck. I heard it's a pain. For example, in Bremen, it takes at least 2 years to process a citizenship application. It should take a year at most. So I guess if you ever wanted to sue someone and win a slam dunk case, you could do that in Bremen. In Berlin, the citizenship application takes only a few months.

Depends a lot on the period in the year, and which office you’re going to. You often have more than one location where you can go to, and the ones in less busy areas don’t have those long wait. But sometimes they do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯