Visa-ready plans from $721 per adult, billed annually · see your exact price by age.
The rule in writing
“For Germany’s national visa, health insurance must include the benefits statutory-insured persons are entitled to under §11(1–3) SGB V, and the contract must be open-ended — no expiry or cancellation clauses tied to age, employment, or residence status. Travel insurance is insufficient.”
Official source: German Federal Foreign Office — health insurance in the national visa procedure — Last verified:
The rule in writing
“US and UK domestic health plans are generally not structured to cover treatment abroad for residents and are not accepted for long-stay visa applications in France or Italy.”
Based on: Consulate guidance & documented applicant reports — Last verified:
Private and public hospitals in Frankfurt
Universitätsmedizin Frankfurt — the university hospital of Goethe University, also known as Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt — is the city's university hospital. It sits at Theodor-Stern-Kai 7 on the south side of the Main, on the Niederrad campus, and covers more than thirty clinics and clinical institutes. In the west of the city, varisano Klinikum Frankfurt Höchst is the municipal maximum-care hospital; it moved into a new building in early 2023.
What is unusual about Frankfurt is the layer underneath. Several of the city's hospitals are non-profit foundations or church-linked institutions rather than commercial groups: Krankenhaus Nordwest, run by the Stiftung Hospital zum Heiligen Geist; Agaplesion Markus Krankenhaus on Wilhelm-Epstein-Straße; and the Bürgerhospital Frankfurt with the Clementine Kinderhospital, both operated as non-profit companies. Separately, BG Unfallklinik Frankfurt am Main in Seckbach is one of the acute hospitals of the BG Kliniken, the network attached to Germany's statutory accident insurance.
The practical consequence for a new arrival is worth stating plainly: in Frankfurt, "private" mostly describes how you are billed and booked inside these hospitals, not a separate chain of private ones. Which of Germany's two insurance systems you belong to therefore decides more about your experience than the name over the door. We set the two systems out on Germany public vs private health insurance.
Where new arrivals settle
Westend sits next to the banking district and is one of the most expensive residential areas in the city; it is the default for people working in finance who want to walk to the office. Nordend, immediately east of it, is quieter and more family-oriented, and is the usual second stop for the same households once children arrive. Sachsenhausen, on the south bank of the Main, has the museum embankment and the river promenade, and puts you on the same side of the water as Universitätsmedizin Frankfurt at Niederrad. Ostend has grown on international arrivals since the European Central Bank moved there.
Transferred families with children at Frankfurt International School mostly do not live in Frankfurt at all. The school's main campus is in Oberursel, roughly 17 kilometres north-west of the city at the edge of the Taunus, and the towns around it — Bad Homburg, Kronberg, Königstein, Bad Soden — are where much of that population settles. All of them are in separate districts from the city of Frankfurt, which matters more for your paperwork than it does for your commute.
What it costs
Frankfurt is a compact city with an expensive core. Westend is at the top of the residential market, Nordend and Sachsenhausen sit below it, and the Taunus towns trade a longer commute for space — although once international school fees are in the picture, the Taunus is not the cheap option either. Outside housing and schooling, costs behave much as they do elsewhere in Germany.
Insurance does not follow any of that. Regency prices by rate region rather than by city or country, and Germany is in the same EU region as every other destination we cover, so a Frankfurt address changes nothing. A 40 year old on the recommended Comprehensive plan is $2,475 a year, billed annually, on Regency's 2026 EU-region rate card. Age, plan tier and household make-up set your real figure.
If an employer is paying for your cover, it is worth establishing exactly what it is paying for and for how long before you rely on it. Run your own numbers on the pricing calculator, or read the full table on the Germany cost page.
What your policy needs to cover here
More than in Berlin or Munich, people arriving in Frankfurt are covered by a policy somebody else chose. A corporate group plan arranged by an HR team in another country is the classic Frankfurt file, and it is also the classic Frankfurt refusal. Germany names no euro amount. It asks for benefits equivalent to those statutory-insured people receive under §11(1–3) SGB V, and — the clause that does the damage — a contract that is open-ended, with no expiry or cancellation tied to age, employment or residence status. A global employee plan usually passes the benefits test comfortably and fails the contract test outright, because ending when employment ends is exactly what it is designed to do.
So read the termination wording, not the benefit schedule. The questions that decide this are: does the policy name your employer as the contracting party, does it terminate on the end of employment or of the posting, and does it carry a fixed end date. If any of those is yes, it is the wording that needs fixing before the appointment, not the cover level. Our guide to Germany visa insurance certificate wording shows what a caseworker is looking for, and the common rejection reasons shows what happens when it is missing.
If you settle in the Taunus, write the certificate for Germany. Oberursel, Bad Homburg, Kronberg and Königstein are outside the city of Frankfurt and in different administrative districts, so your address registration and residence permit are handled by your district's authority rather than Frankfurt's. The insurance standard itself is federal and identical; a certificate limited to a named city is an avoidable problem.
One thing your health cover is not for. Work and commuting accidents in Germany run through statutory accident insurance rather than health insurance — that is the system BG Unfallklinik Frankfurt am Main belongs to. It is a separate track, and it only applies once you are employed here, so it does nothing for the period your visa cover has to bridge.
Which visa route fits
Frankfurt runs on transfers and international hires, so the general starting point is Germany expat health insurance. If you are coming to look for a role before you have a contract, see jobseeker visa insurance; if you are self-employed or consulting, see freelance visa insurance.
Nationality changes the file rather than the standard: Americans and UK citizens both tend to arrive holding a domestic plan that was never built to do this. If you are relocating from the United States, the moving to Germany from the US guide covers the wider sequence, and if you already hold an employer policy, put it through our free policy check before your appointment.
Honest limits: Cover is worldwide but excludes treatment in the United States. Pre-existing conditions are excluded, including conditions you did not know about. We disclose this before you request a quote. Consulates keep discretion, and requirements can change. We show the published rule and its source; the final decision is the consulate’s.