Certificate of German for work

The concept of the Sprachprüfung Zertifikat Deutsch für die Beruf (ZDfB) was developed in the early 1990s in joint working groups of the German Adult Education Association (DVV) and the Goethe Institute and has been carried out worldwide as a standardized test since 1995.

ZDfB builds on the B1 examination Zertifikat Deutsch and is classified at the European Council level B2. As a rule, this means that learners should have continued to study German for around 120 hours of instruction after a successful certificate exam in order to achieve the goal of ZDfB.

The development on the part of the DVV took place in the pedagogical work center of the DVV and the examination center of the DVV. The institution that supervises, develops and organizes the DVV test is now called telc GmbH. It is the successor to the examination center and WBT Weiterbildungs-Testsysteme GmbH (1998–2006).

The ZDfB has a comprehensive description of the learning objectives and several sets of model or practice tests.