The 10 apps you actually need in Berlin

Anyone arriving from Spain or Portugal spends a few weeks hunting for the German Bizum. There isn't one. People here settle up over PayPal or a bank transfer, and Germans will hand you their IBAN without blinking. Cross it off.

What Germany has instead is a set of resolutely unglamorous local apps that quietly decide how smooth your first year is. None are fun. Several will save you weeks. Nothing below costs anything, and nothing below is iPhone-only.

BVG Fahrinfo — Berlin transport, ticket included

Plans the journey and sells the ticket, which not every city manages in one app. U-Bahn, S-Bahn, tram, bus, your monthly or your Deutschlandticket, and a disruption feed the S-Bahn keeps well supplied.

The rule that costs people €60: buy before you board. A ticket half-loaded on a spinning screen is not a ticket, and the inspectors — plain clothes, usually two, usually just after the doors close — have heard every version of the story.

BVG publishes more than one app, which is a needless source of confusion. Fahrinfo is the one that does both jobs.

DB Navigator — the rest of Germany, and the delays

Deutsche Bahn's app and your route to anywhere outside the city. Learn one thing early: Sparpreis fares booked a few weeks out cost a fraction of the walk-up price. Hamburg is €18 if you plan and €90 if you don't.

It's also where you find out whether your ICE is running, late, or has quietly turned into a replacement bus. If you bought the Deutschlandticket through DB rather than BVG, it lives here rather than there.

BVG Jelbi — scooters, bikes and car-share in one

BVG's mobility app, bundling scooters, bikes, mopeds and car-share into one account rather than six.

Its moment comes when the U-Bahn line you need is closed for weekend engineering works, which in Berlin is less an event than a season. Per-minute pricing adds up quickly though, so it's for filling gaps, not commuting.

Doctolib — how you actually get a doctor's appointment

The most valuable thing on this list, and it isn't close.

Finding a Hausarzt in Berlin is hard in a way that surprises people: practices close their patient lists and the ones still accepting don't advertise. Doctolib lets you filter for practices taking new patients, taking public insurance, and speaking English — and that third filter turns a months-long project into an afternoon.

Cancellations show up in real time, so refreshing is a legitimate strategy. Specialist waits stay long regardless. And a good number of Berlin practices are still phone-only at 8am sharp, so keep that habit for the one you really want.

AusweisApp Bund — your ID card as an online login

Something most newcomers never find out: your electronic residence permit has an eID chip in it, and this official app is how you use it. The same goes for a German ID card if you get one later.

That converts a stack of in-person appointments into online ones. You'll need the PIN letter that arrived with the card — and if you binned it as junk mail, which people do, you can request a new one.

Hold the card still against the back of the phone. The NFC read is temperamental and moving it restarts the whole thing.

WG-Gesucht — where Berlin rooms live

Most people start in a WG (a shared flat) or a Zwischenmiete (a sublet while the tenant is away), and this is where both are advertised.

Be realistic about the odds: a good listing collects forty replies in an hour. A pasted paragraph goes nowhere. Two specific sentences about who you are and why that flat, and you're in the top handful.

Nobody legitimate asks for a deposit before a viewing. The Berlin versions of that scam are well rehearsed and the scams guide walks through them.

ImmoScout24 — whole flats, and a brutal education

For an unbefristet contract. Have the paperwork ready before you apply — SCHUFA report, three payslips, ID, all uploaded as a Bewerbermappe so one set covers many applications. Applying without it is applying to be ignored.

Viewings with sixty other people are standard. It's demoralising and it isn't personal.

The paid tier buys earlier alerts, which is openly paying to stand nearer the front of a queue. Some people swear by it. We'd spend a month applying properly first. The renting guide has the document checklist.

Kleinanzeigen — how Berlin furnishes a flat

Formerly eBay Kleinanzeigen, same institution. Furniture, bikes, appliances, and a permanent supply of people leaving the city who need it all gone by Sunday.

The filter to learn is "zu verschenken" — free, if you can get there and carry it. Given the turnover here that's a furniture strategy rather than a novelty.

Cash on collection. Anyone steering you towards PayPal Friends and Family is running the standard scam, and there is only the one.

Wolt — delivery that reaches the good places

Stronger in Kreuzberg and Neukölln than Lieferando, with courier tracking that's accurate rather than decorative. The thing that actually matters in Germany: it delivers on Sundays, when the shops are shut and you have once again failed to plan.

Lieferando reaches further out. Most people keep both and open whichever one the restaurant is on.

Too Good To Go — bags worth setting an alarm for

Berlin is one of its strongest cities anywhere. Bakeries and restaurants sell off what's left for €3 to €6, and participation across Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Mitte is enormous — enough that the good bakeries go before nine.

Also, quietly, a Sunday survival tool.

Skip these

Separate scooter apps. Jelbi already has them.

Bürgeramt appointment bots. They appear, they charge for free slots, they disappear. Refreshing the official site early in the morning still works better — the Anmeldung how-to explains the timing.

Supermarket loyalty apps, mostly. Lidl Plus and Rewe's do have real offers, but nothing like the weekly-shop cards further south in Europe. Add one later if you settle into a chain.

And the ones you'll acquire without a guide: Lieferando, Flink or Getir for groceries, and a cycling app, once you notice the city is flat and everyone is on a bike.