Notice periods in Germany: quitting, being dismissed and the dates that count

How much notice do I have to give if I want to leave?

Four weeks, ending either on the 15th or on the last day of a calendar month. That is § 622 (1) BGB, and it is the default for both sides of the contract unless something else displaces it. Your contract may set a longer period, a collective agreement may set a different one, but nothing shortens it below four weeks except the two narrow cases in § 622 (5) BGB.

Does four weeks mean one month?

No. Four weeks is 28 days, and on top of that the end date has to be a 15th or a month end — the two requirements stack, which is where most people lose a fortnight.

Count it out for March. Hand your notice over on the 17th and 28 days are up on 14 April, so 15 April works and you are out mid-month. Hand the same letter over on the 20th and 28 days are up on 17 April, the 15th is gone, and the next permitted end date is 30 April. Three days of hesitation cost you two weeks of working. This is arithmetic from § 622 (1) BGB, not a figure from a source, and it is why you count backwards from the date you want to leave rather than forwards from today.

How much notice does my employer have to give me?

More than you owe, once you have been there a while, and only the employer's side grows. § 622 (2) BGB sets it by length of service in the establishment or undertaking, always to the end of a calendar month.

• Two years: one month. Five years: two months. Eight years: three months.
• Ten years: four months. Twelve years: five months. Fifteen years: six months. Twenty years: seven months.
• Below two years the employer is on the same four weeks to the 15th or the month end as you are.

Does that longer period apply to my own resignation too?

Not automatically. The ladder in § 622 (2) BGB is written for a dismissal by the employer; your own notice stays at four weeks unless your contract says otherwise. Where a contract does extend your side, § 622 (6) BGB caps it: your notice period may never be agreed longer than the employer's. A clause giving you three months while the firm keeps four weeks fails on that sentence.

What applies during the probation period?

Two weeks, from any day to any day, with no 15th-or-month-end rule attached. § 622 (3) BGB allows this for an agreed probation period of at most six months; without an agreed Probezeit in the contract there is no shortened notice at all.

One thing the two weeks do not tell you: whether a reason is needed. That question runs on a different statute and a different clock, and it is set out in our guide to the German employment contract.

Can a contract set a shorter notice period than four weeks?

Only in the two cases § 622 (5) BGB lists, and both are narrow. The first is temporary cover, which stops applying once the job runs past three months. The second is a small employer with no more than 20 employees excluding trainees — and even there the agreed period may not fall below four weeks, it only loses the 15th-or-month-end restriction. Part-timers count as 0.5 up to 20 hours a week and 0.75 up to 30.

A collective agreement is the other route. § 622 (4) BGB lets a Tarifvertrag depart from the statutory periods entirely, and those terms apply between an untied employer and employee where the two of them have agreed to use them. Check your contract for a sentence referring to one; the periods it points at can be shorter or longer than anything above.

Is a dismissal by email, PDF or WhatsApp valid?

No, and neither is your resignation sent the same way. § 623 BGB requires the written form for ending an employment relationship by notice or by termination agreement and expressly excludes the electronic form. A scan, a photographed signature and a PDF attachment all fail it; what counts is a paper document with an original signature.

Read that sentence twice before you quit by message. People who emailed their resignation and stopped showing up are still under contract, still owe their working time, and have handed their employer a reason for a dismissal without notice.

When does the notice period actually start running?

On receipt, not on the date printed in the letter and not on the day it was posted. § 130 (1) BGB makes a declaration addressed to an absent person effective at the moment it reaches them, and a notice of termination is exactly that.

Keep evidence of the day it reached you and of the day yours reached the employer: a signed acknowledgement, a witness, or delivery by courier. Every deadline below counts from that day.

Can I be dismissed on the spot, without any notice?

Only for good cause, and only quickly. § 626 (1) BGB requires facts that make continuing until the end of the notice period unreasonable for the party giving notice, weighing both sides' interests. § 626 (2) BGB then gives a window of two weeks from the moment the person entitled to dismiss learned the relevant facts, and on request they must state the reason to you in writing without delay.

The two weeks cut both ways: a dismissal without notice for something the employer knew about a month ago is out of time.

Can I leave a fixed-term contract before its end date?

Usually not. § 15 (4) TzBfG makes a fixed-term employment relationship subject to ordinary notice only where that was agreed in the contract or in an applicable collective agreement. Without such a clause, neither side can give ordinary notice, and the contract runs to its date. One exception: under § 15 (5) TzBfG, a relationship entered into for life or for more than five years can be terminated by the employee after five years, with six months' notice.

The opposite mistake is cheaper and more common. Under § 15 (6) TzBfG, if you carry on working after the end date with the employer's knowledge and they do not object without delay, the relationship counts as extended for an indefinite period.

Does the works council have to be involved in a dismissal?

Where one exists, yes, and skipping it is fatal to the dismissal. § 102 (1) BetrVG requires the works council to be heard before every dismissal, requires the employer to give it the reasons, and states in the third sentence that a dismissal pronounced without hearing the works council is ineffective.

The council has one week to raise written objections to an ordinary dismissal and three days for one without notice; silence counts as consent (§ 102 (2) BetrVG). Where it objected properly and you have filed a claim, § 102 (5) BetrVG lets you demand continued employment on unchanged terms until the case is finally decided.

A dismissal letter arrived. What is the deadline?

Three weeks from the day it reached you. § 4 sentence 1 KSchG requires an employee who wants to argue that a dismissal is socially unjustified or invalid on any other ground to file for a declaration at the Arbeitsgericht within three weeks of receiving the written notice.

Those other grounds are the reason the deadline matters even in a small firm with no unfair-dismissal protection. A missing signature, a wrong notice period, a works council that was never heard — all of it has to go in within the three weeks. § 7 KSchG then treats a dismissal not challenged in time as having been effective from the outset, and no later argument reopens it.

When do I have to register with the Arbeitsagentur?

Three months before the job ends, or within three days if you find out later than that. § 38 (1) SGB III obliges anyone whose employment is ending to register as job-seeking at the latest three months before the end; where fewer than three months lie between learning the end date and the end itself, the registration is due within three days of learning it. The Federal Employment Agency states both periods on its own page on registering as job-seeking.

Sentence 3 of the same provision closes the obvious escape: the duty applies regardless of whether you are contesting the dismissal in court or the employer has hinted the job might continue. Register anyway; you can withdraw it later.

Will resigning cost me unemployment benefit?

It can, twice over. § 159 (1) sentence 2 no. 1 SGB III treats ending the employment relationship yourself, without good cause, as conduct contrary to insurance, and § 159 (3) SGB III puts the resulting Sperrzeit at twelve weeks — shortened to three weeks if the job would have ended without a Sperrzeit within six weeks anyway, or to six weeks in the case of a twelve-week period causing particular hardship.

The second half is the part secondary sources rarely mention. § 148 (1) no. 4 SGB III also cuts the total duration of your benefit entitlement, and in the case of a twelve-week Sperrzeit by at least a quarter. Losing twelve weeks of payment and a quarter of the entitlement are two separate consequences of the same decision.

Late registration has its own price tag, and it is small but avoidable: § 159 (6) SGB III sets the Sperrzeit for a late job-seeking registration at one week.

Should I sign an Aufhebungsvertrag instead?

Not in the meeting where it is put in front of you. A termination agreement ends the job by consent, which usually means the notice periods above no longer protect you and the three-week route in § 4 KSchG never opens, because there is no dismissal to challenge. It also carries the same Sperrzeit risk as a resignation, since § 159 (1) sentence 2 no. 1 SGB III covers dissolving the employment relationship however it is dressed up.

Take the paper away with you. It needs the same written form as a dismissal under § 623 BGB, so nothing is settled by a handshake, and an hour with an adviser costs less than twelve weeks of benefit.

What am I owed on the last day?

Three things, and you ask for all of them in writing before you leave.

• A written reference. § 109 (1) GewO gives you a simple Zeugnis covering the type and duration of the work, and on request a qualified one covering performance and conduct. Under § 109 (3) GewO it may only be issued electronically with your consent — ask for paper, because employers here expect it.
• Unused holiday paid out. § 7 (4) BUrlG requires leave that can no longer be taken because the relationship is ending to be compensated in money.
• The Arbeitsbescheinigung. § 312 (1) SGB III obliges your employer, on your request or the agency's, to certify the facts relevant to your unemployment benefit — the type of work, the start, end, interruptions and reason for ending, and your pay. It is transmitted electronically under the procedure in § 313a (1) SGB III, so there is nothing for you to carry over.

What does ending a job do to my residence permit?

It is a separate question with separate deadlines, and it does not run on the dates above. Reporting duties, the job-search period and the rules on changing employer sit in the Aufenthaltsgesetz, and we have set them out in the guide on losing your job and your residence permit rather than repeating them here.

One point of sequencing is worth making before you hand anything in: a notice period you can calculate is also the window in which you can look for the next job while still employed and still insured, and our placement service — free for you, because the employer pays — is built around that window rather than the weeks after it.

Who can advise me on my own case?

Not us. Advice on an individual contract or dismissal is reserved legal work in Germany under the Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz, and this guide sets out what the statutes say, not what you should do about your letter.

A Fachanwalt für Arbeitsrecht advises on your case. A trade union advises its members at no extra cost, which is worth knowing before a dismissal rather than after. Where the workplace has a Betriebsrat, it is the body that already knows how dismissals are handled in that firm.

What is the one deadline you cannot repair?

The three weeks in § 4 KSchG. Everything else on this page can be corrected afterwards — a notice period calculated wrongly gets recalculated, a late job-seeking registration costs one week under § 159 (6) SGB III, a missing reference can be demanded months later under § 109 GewO.

The three weeks cannot. Once they pass, § 7 KSchG makes the dismissal effective from the outset, however defective it was. So the honest recommendation for anyone who receives a letter is a narrow one: note the date it reached you, and get it in front of a specialist lawyer or your union inside the first week, not the third.