Working while studying: where the rules actually live

What you need to do

The main thing to grasp before arrival: what allows you to work is your residence status, not your university and not your employer. The limit is written into the rules of the permit under which you live in the country, and different statuses carry different limits — a candidate, a student and a graduate looking for work are three separate regimes.

From this follows something non-obvious: exceeding the limit is a breach of residence conditions, not an employment dispute. The consequences land on the renewal of your permit — that is, on your ability to stay — and cost incomparably more than what you earned.

And third: the limit is usually counted in time rather than money. But the unit of time differs between countries, and that matters more than the number itself.

How the limit is built

Four different mechanics for one and the same right:

1. Days per year. A full working day and a half day are counted separately, and the conversion between them is set by rule, not by your convenience.
2. Hours per week. The most common form. In some countries the weekly limit is hard; in others it can be accumulated across the year up to an overall ceiling — the difference between "no more this week" and "no more this year".
3. Hours per year. A single ceiling for the whole year, distributed as you like.
4. No hourly limit at all. For some statuses there is no time restriction — but that is a property of the status, not of the country, and it does not carry over to another mode of study.

After graduation the regime changes: in some countries the hourly limit is lifted or doubled, in others a separate job-search permit is issued — for a fixed term, once only, and without extension.

What goes wrong

The limit is treated as a property of the country. It is a property of your permit. The same country gives different limits to a full-time and a part-time student, to a candidate on a preparatory course and to a graduate.

A weekly limit is confused with an annual ceiling. If hours can be accumulated, a dense week is allowed; if they cannot, that week is already a breach, even when you are nowhere near the annual ceiling.

People work on a visa that does not allow work. Tourist status and a family visit carry no right to work, and a side job on them is not a minor infringement but grounds for consequences to your residence.

People assume a work permit is always required. In some countries a student with a study permit works without a separate document, and a trip to collect an unnecessary paper costs weeks. In others such a document is mandatory. This is checked once — against the conditions of your own permit.

People take work without a contract. Moldova's agreements on service record and contributions apply only to legal work with official deductions: without a contract, what you earned turns into neither a record nor future entitlements.

People assume a permit, once granted, cannot be taken away. A permit rests on the conditions it was granted under. Once those stop being met, the country is entitled to withdraw it — and exceeding the work limit is exactly that kind of case.

Where this is stated officially

• Study in Germany — the official portal: requirements and conditions for prospective students.
• Your Europe — rights and obligations while residing in the union, employment included.

How to check the requirement is still current

What you need to check is not "work rules for students in country X" but the conditions of your permit: the limit lives there. The second address to check is the immigration authority of the country where you live, because limits change by decisions at that level.

Current limits by country are collected below, each with a link to its primary source and a verification date. A limit changed a year ago lives on in retellings for a long time — navigating by them is a reliable way to end up in breach.