Yoga teaching opportunities in Regensburg Germany

I am a qualified Sri Sri  Yoga teacher having got my Yoga training in Bangalore India. I have moved to Regensburg to join my husband who is German and would like to start giving Yoga lessons here. While I would ideally like to be a freelancer, I really don't know where to start?  I don't know how things work here to start teaching Yoga on my own. Any tips on the possibilities and how to go about it would be really helpful.

If you want to do it informally as a hobby (not for regular profit), just go ahead and look for people who want to learn from you (you could possible insert classified ads or offer classes at the local Volkshochschule).
If you want to make a regular profit, you need to register a business and fulfil a number of accounting of tax rules that are difficult to understand for a foreigner. In this case you better engage a good lawyer, accountant, tax consultant and startup assistant.
Good luck!

Contrary to Beppi's answer, I think one can give private lessons without a lot of hassle. One can normally teach things as a “Freiberüfler” or free profession that is exempt from many of the normal requirements for a business or trade. Of course one will be expected to keep financial records of income and expenses and to make income tax statements each year. But the normal requirements of registering and getting what is called a Gewerbeschein should not apply.  See more information at this link:

http://erfolgreich-wirtschaften.de/kata … iberufler/

As a practical matter I think one should get to know the situation in your home town. Go to any local yoga schools and see how things are done, what kind of people attend etc. and then consider what market niche you might want to aim for, or what you can offer that others don't. Other than yoga schools it is possible that courses are offered through other places like Volkshochschule (a system of community colleges) or cultural centers.  All of these might be places where you could teach yourself or at least check out the competition. I don't know Regensburg but I know it is a University town so there should be a lot of interest.  I would certainly recommend trying to teach at other places or arranging to teach single people to small groups in some situation before actually considering opening a school yourself. That takes investment and undoubtedly lots of paper work.

Sorry, as Tom mentioned above, I may be wrong abot the formalitiesif unregistered work as freelancer is possible in this case.
Good luck!

Something I forgot to ask is what your residency permit allows. When I married my German wife, I as an American, got a 3-year “befristite Aufenhaltserlaubnis” or limited residency. This also allowed me to work but limited to my profession as a performer which I had previously told them about. This is also such a “free profession”. Does your residency permit work and if so for what professions? If you didn't present yourself as a yoga teacher before then it might not be allowed. I'm not sure if such a thing can be changed after the fact. After 3 years I was given the unlimited residency that also has no work restrictions. You should clarify this with the immigration authorities. One doesn't need a license to teach yoga in Germany but any profession has to comply with your residency restrictions.