Before you start

An employment contract or proof of self-employed income
Meldebescheinigung from your Anmeldung
Steuer-ID and, once issued, your social security number
A German bank account for contributions

Step-by-step

1
Establish which system you are actually eligible for
Employees below the compulsory insurance threshold — around EUR 77,400 gross per year for 2026 — must be in the statutory system. Above it, and for freelancers and the self-employed, private cover opens up. Eligibility is not a preference; check where you actually fall before a broker frames the question for you.
OnlineWho: YouFirst month
2
Choose a statutory fund if there is any doubt
Statutory funds differ modestly in their supplementary contribution rate and in extras such as osteopathy or travel vaccinations, and moving between them is straightforward. Starting statutory keeps every option open; starting private closes most of them.
OnlineWho: You
3
Let payroll handle the contribution
Once your employer has the fund's details, health, pension, unemployment and long-term care contributions are deducted from gross pay and split roughly evenly with the employer. There is no separate bill. Employees who arrive from countries where insurance is bought individually often look for one that does not exist.
Via employerWho: Employer and you
4
Get the Mitgliedsbescheinigung for the Ausländerbehörde
The immigration office requires proof of valid health cover before issuing or activating a residence permit. Your insurer issues a membership confirmation on request within days. Have it in the file before the permit appointment rather than discovering the requirement there.
OnlineWho: You
5
Register with a Hausarzt while you are well
Your general practitioner is the practical gateway to specialists. Many Düsseldorf practices have closed lists. Ask colleagues, call rather than email, and note that the city's Japanese community has produced a genuine cluster of Japanese-speaking doctors around Immermannstraße and Oberkassel, which is unusual for Germany.
In personWho: You
6
Learn 116117 before you need an emergency department
For urgent problems outside surgery hours that are not emergencies, 116117 is the national medical on-call number and will direct you to an out-of-hours practice. Germans use it as a matter of course. Arriving at a hospital emergency department with something 116117 would have handled means a long wait at low priority.
Mobile appWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Employment contract or proof of income
Meldebescheinigung
Steuer-ID and social security number
Passport and residence permit
Bank details for contributions

Things most newcomers don’t know

Private cover is close to a one-way door, and the sales pitch is built on the wrong decade.

A broker will compare a private premium for a healthy 32-year-old against a statutory contribution and win the argument easily. What that comparison omits is that private premiums rise with age rather than falling, that every family member is a separate priced policy where statutory covers non-earning dependants free, and that returning to statutory cover is legally difficult and effectively closed above 55. Decide on the thirty-year view.

Source: Bundesministerium für Gesundheit

Statutory cover includes non-earning dependants at no extra charge.

A spouse without their own income and any children are covered under a statutory member's contribution with nothing further to pay. Under private insurance each is a separately underwritten policy with its own premium. For anyone who has or intends to have a family this single difference regularly outweighs the entire headline premium comparison, and it is the point brokers cover fastest.

Source: Bundesministerium für Gesundheit

Düsseldorf has an unusual concentration of Japanese-speaking doctors and clinics.

The city's Japanese community is large enough to sustain its own medical infrastructure — GPs, dentists and paediatricians consulting in Japanese, clustered around Immermannstraße and the left-bank districts where Japanese families live. Germany rarely offers care in anything but German, so if Japanese is your first language this is a genuine and underadvertised reason the city works. Ask the Japanese consulate or the community associations rather than searching a German directory.

Source: community-reported

116117 is the number that keeps you out of an emergency department queue.

The national medical on-call service handles urgent but non-life-threatening problems outside surgery hours and routes you to whatever is actually open. Newcomers default to the hospital, where a non-emergency is triaged accordingly and can wait many hours. Save the number before you need it, because you will look for it at a point when searching for anything is hard.

Source: Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung

Common mistakes to avoid

Choosing private insurance on the first year's premium without modelling age-related increases and family cover.
Not realising statutory cover includes non-earning dependants free while private prices each of them.
Turning up at the Ausländerbehörde without a membership confirmation from your insurer.
Waiting until you are ill to look for a Hausarzt in a city where many practice lists are closed.
Using a hospital emergency department for something 116117 would have routed correctly.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.