Your German employment contract: the lines that decide the next two years

What makes a document a German employment contract?

The way the work is actually carried out, not the heading on the page. § 611a (1) sentence 6 BGB states that where the actual performance of the relationship shows it to be an employment relationship, the description used in the contract does not matter. A paper titled Freier Mitarbeitervertrag or Dienstvertrag does not convert employment into self-employment.

The test in the same provision is direction and personal dependence: § 611a (1) sentences 1 to 3 BGB define an employee as someone bound to work under instruction, in personal dependence, where the instructions may cover the content, the performance, the time and the place of the work, and who cannot in essence organise their own activity and working hours.

This matters more to arriving workers than to anyone else, because a freelance contract offered to someone who will in fact be told when to arrive, where to stand and what to do is a construction that collapses later — and it collapses at the worst moment, when social-security contributions are recalculated. If the job description says shifts and a place of work, the contract should not say freelance.

There is also no requirement that the contract itself be in writing. An employment relationship comes into existence by agreement, which is why people who started work on a handshake still have every statutory right described below. What the law does require in writing is something different — the employer's record of the terms, covered next.

What has to be in writing, and by when?

The employer must set out the essential terms, sign them and hand them over, and § 2 (1) sentence 9 NachwG staggers that duty across three deadlines: the names and addresses, the pay and the working time by the first day of work; the start date, any end date, the place of work, the job description, the probation period, on-call terms and overtime terms by the seventh calendar day; everything else within one month of the agreed start.

The list itself has fifteen items in § 2 (1) sentence 7 NachwG, and two of them are worth checking against your payslip later. Number 7 requires the composition and the amount of pay — overtime pay, supplements, allowances, bonuses and special payments each stated separately. Number 14 requires the termination procedure including the written-form requirement, the notice periods, and the deadline for bringing an unfair-dismissal claim.

That last point carries a sting the same provision spells out: § 7 KSchG applies even where the deadline for the claim was recorded incorrectly. A wrong figure in your contract does not extend the three weeks you actually have.

Textform is permitted for the record — § 2 (1) sentence 2 NachwG allows an electronically transmitted document as long as it is accessible, can be stored and printed, and the employer asks you to confirm receipt. Two exceptions sit right next to it: sentence 8 rules out the electronic form for the written statement under sentence 1, and sentence 6 disapplies the Textform route entirely for the sectors listed in § 2a (1) SchwarzArbG, construction among them.

Failing to hand it over on time is an administrative offence, and § 4 (2) NachwG sets the fine at up to two thousand euros. The duty is the employer's alone; the fine does not compensate you, so the practical move is to ask in writing on day two rather than to wait. A separate guide covers what else changes hands in the first days on a German site.

What changes if your contract has an end date?

A fixed term needs either an objective reason or a statutory allowance, and § 14 (2) sentence 1 TzBfG permits a calendar fixed term without any reason for up to two years, within which the contract may be extended at most three times. Beyond two years, or on a fourth extension, the employer needs one of the objective reasons listed in § 14 (1) TzBfG — a temporary business need, covering for an absent colleague, a trial period and five others.

One sentence in that provision catches people who return to a former employer. § 14 (2) sentence 2 TzBfG forbids the reasonless fixed term where a fixed-term or permanent relationship with the same employer already existed before. If you worked there as a working student and come back on a two-year fixed term with no objective reason, the fixed term is open to challenge.

The form requirement is strict and often missed. § 14 (4) TzBfG provides that the fixed term requires written form to be effective, meaning a signed document — the fixed term specifically, not merely the contract. Where it fails, § 16 sentence 1 TzBfG treats the contract as concluded for an indefinite period.

Two further provisions decide what happens around the end date. § 15 (3) TzBfG requires any probation inside a fixed-term contract to be proportionate to the expected duration and the type of work, so a six-month probation in a nine-month contract is questionable. And § 15 (6) TzBfG turns the contract into a permanent one if you keep working after the end date with the employer's knowledge and they do not object without delay.

Can you resign from a fixed-term contract before it ends?

Only if the contract says you can. § 15 (4) TzBfG provides that a fixed-term employment relationship is subject to ordinary notice only where this has been agreed individually or in the applicable collective agreement. Where the contract is silent, neither side can give ordinary notice, and the person tied down is usually the employee — the employer wanted the fixed term, and a better offer six months in cannot be taken.

This is the single line to look for before you sign a fixed-term German contract, and it is the one clear recommendation of this guide: find the sentence that permits ordinary termination during the term. If it is not there, ask for it in writing before signing rather than after, because afterwards you are asking for a favour instead of negotiating a term.

What remains available without such a clause is termination for cause under § 626 BGB, which requires a serious reason and is not a route out of a job you have simply outgrown. Long contracts have one statutory escape: § 15 (5) TzBfG lets the employee terminate with six months' notice after five years where the relationship was entered into for life or for longer than five years.

Where the fixed term itself is invalid, the picture flips. § 16 sentence 2 TzBfG allows ordinary termination even before the agreed end where the fixed term failed only for want of written form — which is one more reason to check whether anyone actually signed that page.

How long is the probation period, and is it the same as having no protection?

No, and conflating the two is the most common misreading of a German contract. § 622 (3) BGB allows an agreed probation period of at most six months, during which either side may terminate on two weeks' notice. That is a notice rule and nothing else; it says nothing about whether a reason is needed.

Whether a reason is needed comes from a different statute with a different clock. § 1 (1) KSchG makes a socially unjustified dismissal ineffective once the relationship has existed in the same establishment or undertaking for longer than six months without interruption. The two periods usually run together, but a contract with a three-month probation still leaves you without unfair-dismissal protection until month seven.

There is a second gate, and for people joining small firms it is the one that bites. § 23 (1) sentence 3 KSchG disapplies the protective provisions for employees whose relationship began after 31 December 2003 in establishments with ten or fewer staff, excluding trainees, and sentence 4 counts part-timers as 0.5 up to 20 hours a week and 0.75 up to 30. In a firm of eight, no length of service creates unfair-dismissal protection.

Where the protection does apply, it shifts the burden of proof. § 1 (2) sentence 4 KSchG puts the facts justifying the dismissal on the employer, and § 1 (3) KSchG requires social selection for redundancies to weigh length of service, age, maintenance obligations and severe disability.

After probation the notice periods lengthen on one side only. § 622 (2) BGB extends the employer's notice with service — one month to the month's end after two years, two months after five, three after eight, rising to seven months after twenty. Your own notice stays at the four weeks to the 15th or the end of a calendar month set by § 622 (1) BGB, unless the contract says otherwise, and § 622 (6) BGB forbids agreeing a longer notice period for the employee than for the employer.

Which clauses are worth reading twice before you sign?

An Ausschlussfrist or Verfallklausel is the one that costs money quietly. It makes claims lapse unless asserted within a stated period, and the German courts police it hard. In BAG, 18 September 2018 — 9 AZR 162/18 the Federal Labour Court held that an employer's pre-formulated forfeiture clause which, contrary to § 3 sentence 1 MiLoG, also covers the statutory minimum wage breaches the transparency requirement of § 307 (1) sentence 2 BGB and is invalid in its entirety where the contract was concluded after 31 December 2014.

A second defect makes many such clauses unenforceable on their face. § 309 no. 13 b) BGB invalidates a standard term that binds notices or declarations to a stricter form than Textform, so a clause requiring you to assert claims schriftlich — signed on paper — fails. Art. 229 § 37 EGBGB limits that rule to obligations arising after 30 September 2016, which covers every contract an arriving worker signs today.

A non-compete for the time after you leave is only binding if it is paid for. § 74 (2) HGB requires the employer to undertake to pay compensation reaching at least half your last contractual remuneration for each year of the ban, and § 74 (1) HGB requires written form plus handing you a signed deed. § 74a (1) sentence 3 HGB caps the ban at two years from the end of the employment, and the same provision makes it non-binding where it does not serve a legitimate business interest or unreasonably impedes your career.

Arbeit auf Abruf clauses need numbers in them. § 12 (1) TzBfG requires the agreement to fix a specific weekly and daily working time; where the weekly figure is missing, twenty hours are deemed agreed, and where the daily figure is missing the employer must call you in for at least three consecutive hours. § 12 (2) TzBfG permits calling up at most 25 percent above an agreed minimum or 20 percent below an agreed maximum, and § 12 (3) TzBfG obliges you to work only where the timing was communicated at least four days in advance.

Overtime clauses are where translation hides the substance. § 2 (1) sentence 7 no. 10 NachwG requires the possibility of ordering overtime and its conditions to be stated, and no. 7 requires overtime pay to be listed separately from base pay. A contract that says overtime is covered by the salary and states no limit is worth questioning before signature, not after your first month of sixty-hour weeks.

What can a contract not take away from you?

Pay below the statutory floor, first of all. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs announced the statutory minimum wage rising to 13.90 euros gross per hour on 1 January 2026, and § 3 MiLoG makes agreements that fall below the minimum wage, or that restrict or exclude its assertion, ineffective to that extent — with waiver possible only in a court settlement and forfeiture ruled out altogether.

Annual leave has a floor too. § 3 (1) BUrlG sets it at a minimum of 24 Werktage a year, and § 3 (2) BUrlG counts as Werktage every calendar day that is not a Sunday or a public holiday. On the six-day basis the statute uses that is four weeks, which converts to 20 days for the five-day week most contracts run on. Anything above that is contractual and negotiable; the four weeks are not.

The end of the relationship has a form requirement neither side can drop. § 623 BGB requires written form for termination by notice and for a termination agreement, and expressly excludes the electronic form. A dismissal sent by email, WhatsApp, SMS or as a scan is ineffective — and so is your own resignation sent the same way, which is the half of this rule that surprises people who tried to quit by message.

One caution about the same sentence: a termination agreement, an Aufhebungsvertrag, is not a milder version of a dismissal. Signing one usually ends the job on the spot without notice protection, and it can affect unemployment benefit. Do not sign one in the meeting where it is handed to you.

How does the contract connect to your residence permit?

The contract is a precondition of the permit, not just paperwork alongside it. § 18 (2) no. 1 AufenthG requires a concrete job offer before a residence title for employment may be granted, and no. 4a of the same provision requires both you and the employer to declare that the employment is actually to be taken up.

The duration follows the purpose rather than a fixed rule. § 7 (1) sentence 1 AufenthG states that a residence permit is a temporary title, and § 7 (2) sentence 1 requires it to be limited in time with regard to the intended purpose of the stay — which is why the end date in a fixed-term contract is one of the facts the authority weighs when setting the validity period.

The sentence after it is the one to keep in mind if the job ends early. § 7 (2) sentence 2 AufenthG allows the authority to shorten the period retroactively where an essential precondition for granting it, extending it or setting its duration has ceased to exist. Losing the job is not automatically the end of the permit, but it is a change the Ausländerbehörde is entitled to react to, and it is one you report rather than wait to be asked about.

The practical consequence for the moment before signing: a two-year contract and a two-year permit are not the same instrument, and a probation dismissal in month four is a residence question as well as an employment one. Getting the sequence right — contract, visa, arrival, appointment at the Ausländerbehörde — is what our placement service exists to organise, and it is free for you because the employer pays.

What do you do if the contract is wrong, or a dismissal arrives?

Count three weeks and act inside them. § 4 sentence 1 KSchG requires an employee who wants to argue that a dismissal is socially unjustified or ineffective on any other ground to file a claim with the Arbeitsgericht within three weeks of receiving the written notice, and § 7 KSchG then treats a dismissal not challenged in time as effective from the outset.

The reach of that deadline is wider than the name suggests. It covers every ground of invalidity, not only social justification — a missing signature, a wrong notice period, a defect under § 623 BGB — and §§ 4 to 7 KSchG are expressly carved out of the small-business exception in § 23 (1) KSchG, so the three weeks apply in a firm of six exactly as in a firm of six hundred.

Who to ask is a separate question from what to argue. We are not lawyers and do not give legal advice on individual contracts; in Germany that is reserved work under the Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz. A Fachanwalt für Arbeitsrecht advises on your contract, a trade union advises its members free of charge, and where the workplace has a Betriebsrat it is the body to ask about the terms before you sign.

Before any of that, do the cheap thing: ask for what you are already owed. If the written statement of terms never arrived, request it in writing and keep the request — § 2 (1) sentence 3 NachwG obliges the employer to supply it without delay on request, and a dated email is the document that makes every later conversation shorter.