What Germany's doctors union does for foreign doctors

Marburger Bund, Germany's trade union for employed doctors, will read your hospital contract for free, before you sign it. It checks your pay group, your night and weekend duty pay, and whether your contract follows the right pay table. It will not get you the licence or find you the job.

What is Marburger Bund?

It is the union for doctors who work as employees in German hospitals, not a recruiter and not the state medical chamber. Anyone working as a doctor in Germany can join, including doctors who trained abroad.

Members get free legal advice over phone or email. Staff answer in English often enough that language is not the barrier here.

What the contract check covers

• Your pay group matches your actual job title, not a lower one
• Night and weekend duty is paid by the rules, not a flat extra
• Your contract follows the pay table (Tarifvertrag) your hospital signed
• Your probation period and notice period are not longer than the table allows

When should you ask for the check?

Ask before you sign, not after your first shift. Once your contract is signed, a wrong pay group is much harder to fix, because the hospital has no reason to reopen it.

What it will not do for you

• It does not replace your state medical chamber (Landesärztekammer)
• It does not speed up your date for the knowledge exam (Kenntnisprüfung)
• It does not write your German CV or send your applications
• It does not find you a hospital job

How do you join?

You join through the Marburger Bund website, and pay membership dues as a percentage of your monthly pay once you are employed. You can start the paperwork as soon as you have a signed offer, before you ever set foot on the ward.

What to do now

1. Ask Marburger Bund in writing: does my offered pay group match my job title under the pay table?
2. Send your contract draft before you sign it, not after your first on-call shift.
3. Use the weeks before your offer to get the German CV and cover letter that bring you the contract in the first place.

Stand: 2026-11-07. This is a guide, not legal advice. Every German state has its own rules, and rules change. Check with your state's medical chamber (Landesärztekammer) before you act.