I have sifted through the previous posts and could not find a post that applies to mine and my wife's situation. We are both teachers at an international school and we signed 2 year contracts. In the contract, it states that we HAVE to stay for the 2 years and then once the 2 years is up our contract automatically continues indefinitely unless we decide to terminate it. So we are here a minimum of 2 years and can stay as long as we want. Even though we have continuing contracts, we were still put on L permits. How long will we be one L permits? 2 years, 5, forever? I thought that L was only for people who were here for a short, definite period of time. Maybe I was mistaken.

Your post is not very clear. Have you finished your two years here on L permits then got another L permit?

I believe the rule is you cannot go longer than 2 years on an L permit before you are put on a B permit.

Sorry about that....Yeah this is my first year on the L permit. I plan to stay here well past the 2 years. Thought that we would get B permits. There are 5 other new teachers this year. They are from New Zealand, Australia, UK, Germany and Canada. My wife and I came from the US. The other 5 all got B permits, we got L permits. All our contracts are identical. What is the deal with that? I understand the UK and Germany teachers, but why did the others all get Bs and the two Americans were stuck with the L. Is that a coincidence?

Did you all come at the exact same time and apply for permits at the same time. There is a limited amount of B permits given each year to non-EU people. Once that runs out you can only get an L, and once the L's run out then nobody gets permits until next year. So its highly dependent on your place in the line. It could also depend on who was processing your application. Someone might have given you an L even though there were B's available...maybe they didnt like your name

An american coworker and i (american) came in feb 07 and Feb 08 respectively to work for our company....she got a B and I got an L. (upgraded to B after 2 years)

There are really only 2 negatives to an L

1) its harder to get an apartment and certain service contracts

2) your 5 year clock for a C permit only starts when you have a B

We applied for permits in May to start work on August 1st. Hopefully we will get a B next time.