Yes, you should definitely have all of your ducks in a row before you go in, but they are willing to bend the rules on some things if you basically look like yo

Yes, you should definitely have all of your ducks in a row before you go in, but they are willing to bend the rules on some things if you basically look like you're going to make it. Here's what you want to bring: 1. Proof of Health Insurance. 2. Rental Contract 3. As many contracts or letters of interest from businesses as possible. Particularly if these are in English, they don't scrutinize them too much. If you simply have an open engagement letter for some hourly rate, perhaps an estimated (but not guaranteed) number of hours, they will look kindly on this, even if it doesn't actually obligate the other party to ever pay you anything. 4. Business Plan. I would generally shade this on the low side. You will look better on your renewal if you exceed your projections. It does need to be at the very least about 18k EUR/yr. 5. Historical income, particularly from self-employment 6. Bank statements, any evidence of assets you can dig up. Print these out for a couple of years. 7. Any degrees and transcripts you have 8. Personal references. 9. Any professional awards, etc 10. If you're married, an official marriage certificate. The main strategy here is to overwhelm them with paper. They love paper, particularly if it has some sort of official looking stamp on it. If you show up with 100-200 pages of documentation, you should be virtually guaranteed to get the visa. If you are worried or want to increase your chances, hire a lawyer and have them show up with you. The immigration people seem to see you showing up with a lawyer as evidence of seriousness and professionalism. I can say that I showed up with my wife, and unfortunately she didn't have any job offers when the appointment rolled around. Between our copious documentation and a lawyer present, they issued her visa without the (required) job offer.