Guide to Getting Involved as an Expat in Düsseldorf

Your New Life as an Expat in Düsseldorf

Helpful resource to get you out there making some new friends

Getting to know your new life as an expat and finding ways to get involved isn’t always the easiest of tasks. As expats, we often arrive with a long list of things to do in order to get settled into our new city, including registering with the local Bürgerbüro (registration office), taking out health insurance, opening a bank account, finding a neighborhood to live in and swapping out your foreign license for a German one. While checking off this list of things to do may take time, most of these tasks don’t pose too much of a challenge. Getting involved and finding friends in your new city on the other hand, takes much more work.

As an expat, it’s up to us to make that first step into unknown territory to find new friends. If you’ve already found a job or know a couple locals, it may be easier for you to connect, but for many expats, getting involved can be a real struggle.

With that being said, I hope that this guide to getting involved as an expat in Düsseldorf will be a helpful resource to get you out there making some new friends!

Join the Online Communities in Düsseldorf

Whether you are looking for English or German communities online, there are a number of different groups you can join and start interacting in. Often times you will notice that many individuals within these groups plan their own fun nights out, sport meetups, BBQ’s and book clubs. Here are a few online communities you can join:

Düsseldorf Expat Meetups (where you can join events or even create your own)
Expat-preneurs Düsseldorf (where you can meet international and inspiring entrepreneurs)
Girl Gone International (a group of ladies who meet up for monthly events around town)
Düsseldorfer Toastmasters (a group where you can rid your fear of public speaking and meet new friends)
Couchsurfing Düsseldorf (a group where you can meet not just international locals, but people from all over the world)

Join in on Organized Meetups

The great thing about online communities is that many of them are active in creating monthly meetups or events offline as well. All of the communities listed above host either monthly regular events, or a number of mini-events throughout the month. If you want to keep updated regularly on upcoming events in German and English (and many other languages as well), meetup.com is a great resource!

Here are a few meetup.com communities that might interest you:

The Düsseldorf Expat Meetup Group

Düsseldorf Party Meetup

The Düsseldorf Boardgamers Meetup Group

Düsseldorf International Football Club

Sprachenstammtisch Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf Yoga Meetup

The Multinational-Intercultural Meetup Group Düsseldorf

Join a Sports Club

What better way to get involved and stay active than by joining a sports club in the city? There are a number of different sports clubs and a surprisingly few who speak English as well.

Here are a few in particular who speak quite a bit of English:

The Düsseldorf Curling Club

The Düsseldorf Dragons Rugby Club

The Düsseldorf Bulldozer Football Club

We’ve also put together an entire guide to sports teams in Düsseldorf on our Life in Düsseldorf web page if you’re interested in checking out another sport around town.

Join in on the Celebrations

No matter what kind of group or community you’re looking for, joining in on the local celebrations is a great way to meet new friends from all over the world. My tip to finding out what local celebrations are taking place, is to use Facebook’s event search function and narrow it down to the location you’re hoping to find some events in.

Here are a few of my favorite annual events:

Düsseldorf Karneval (in February)

Düsseldorf Japantag (in May)

Düsseldorf Rheinkirmes (in July)

Düsseldorf Craft Beer Festival (in July)

Düsseldorfer Büdchentag (in August)

Düsseldorf Christmas Markets (in December)

Hopefully, with a little bit of inspiration and a slight push you can get out there and start getting involved with local activities and events. Have fun!