Vivre ensemble au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg: course, exam and certificate

The "Vivre ensemble au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg" certificate is part of the file for naturalisation and for most option routes. You earn it by attending the free 24-hour course or by passing the free exam, both organised by the Service de la formation des adultes (SFA) of the Ministry of Education.

Who needs the certificate

The law of 8 March 2017 on Luxembourg nationality asks for the course or its exam in these cases:

• naturalisation (article 14);
• option as the parent of a Luxembourg minor (article 24);
• option through marriage to a Luxembourg national (article 25);
• option after the Welcome and Integration Contract or the introduction modules of the citizens' pact (article 29);
• option for adults settled in Luxembourg before age 18 (article 30);
• option for stateless persons, refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection (article 31).

The 20-year option route (article 28) replaces the Vivre ensemble certificate and the Sproochentest with a 24-hour Luxembourgish introductory course.

The three modules

The course lasts 24 hours in total. Half of the exam questions concern institutions, the module that also has half of the course hours. Exam questions can be multiple-choice or binary (law, article 16).

Three ways to earn the certificate

1. The 24-hour course, without the exam. The SFA director issues the certificate on the basis of attendance lists showing 24 hours (regulation of 7 April 2017, article 3).
2. The 18-hour course. lifelong-learning.lu lists an 18-hour course for people who already hold a certificate of attendance at citizenship training under a reception and integration contract.
3. The exam only, without the course. You pass the exam and receive the certificate.

Guichet.lu adds that you are exempt from the history module, automatically and with no procedure, if you hold a certificate of attendance at the civic education courses of the Welcome and Integration Contract, or a certificate of the minimum 6-hour overview module of the citizens' pact for intercultural living together. Candidates who sit only the exam take the history module test, and special exam sessions are organised for that.

Format, languages and places

• Exam format. A computer-based multiple-choice test held in Esch-Belval, according to the Ministry of Education. The regulation limits the exam to one hour.
• Languages. The course and the exam are organised in the administrative languages set by the law of 24 February 1984 on languages, and in English (regulation, article 2).
• Course locations. Luxembourg-Hollerich, Esch-Belval and Diekirch, with more courses planned in the north of the country from late 2026. Online courses are offered in English.
• Study material. The minister publishes the course programme and documentation that lets you prepare for the exam (regulation, article 1).

How to register

Registration is free, open to all adults and made online, from within the Grand Duchy, through the SFA course portal at ssl.education.lu/ve-portal. Guichet.lu states that registration is definitive and cannot be modified, so choose your date with your calendar open. For questions, the SFA answers at sfa@men.lu or on +352 8002-4488, Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 12:00 and from 13:00 to 17:00.

Candidates who need adjustments can ask for reasonable accommodations: the SFA director decides on a motivated request (article 16). The minister can exempt a candidate whose physical or mental state makes it impossible to acquire the knowledge, on a specialist medical certificate.

Vivre ensemble and the Sproochentest side by side

Fit it around your Sproochentest date

Both certificates go into the same nationality file and neither depends on the other, so you can work on them in parallel. Registration for the course and the exam is free, and Guichet.lu notes that it is definitive and cannot be modified. If you cannot attend, a new registration is possible only once the dates of the course or exam have passed, so choose dates you can keep. Use the weeks around them to practise Luxembourgish for the Sproochentest.

Prepare module by module

Build your study around the official programme and the exam weights:

If you take the exam in a language you are still learning, build the vocabulary alongside the facts. MoienLab's B1 lessons teach civic vocabulary in Luxembourgish: how Luxembourg is governed (the Chamber, the government, elections, the administration), history and identity, and living in several languages. Those lessons sit inside the complete Sproochentest route, which many Vivre ensemble candidates also need for their nationality file.

Start with the free level test: 12 questions across A1, A2 and B1 in under 8 minutes with no account. Full Access then gives you 57 lessons from A1.1 to B1, 570 exercises, A2 oral practice, photo description, four B1 listening sets and a timed mock exam for 59 € over 12 months, with one payment and no subscription. See Full Access.