German Employment Law (Arbeitsrecht): The Complete Hub

German employment law, or Arbeitsrecht, is federal. Every rule described on this page applies the same way in Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and every other Land, with no state by state variation to check, unlike the United States, where employment law splits between federal statutes and fifty different state codes.

That does not mean employment law is simple, only that it is uniform. A handful of federal statutes, the BGB (Civil Code), the Kündigungsschutzgesetz (KSchG, dismissal protection), the Bundesurlaubsgesetz (BUrlG, vacation), the Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz (EFZG, sick pay) and the Arbeitszeitgesetz (ArbZG, working time), carry almost the entire employer employee relationship. This hub maps how those pieces fit together and routes you to the page with the depth you need. For the wider picture of German courts, statutes and other legal topics, see the Germany law hub.

Information last verified on 19 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

How the system is organized

The 16 Bundesländer do not run separate labour codes. What varies locally is which specific Arbeitsgericht has jurisdiction over a case, not which rules apply.

Nearly every dispute involving a private sector employee, a dismissal, unpaid wages, a disputed reference, goes to the Arbeitsgericht first, then on appeal to the Landesarbeitsgericht for that region, and in the final instance to the Bundesarbeitsgericht (BAG) in Erfurt. Civil servants, or Beamte, are a distinct category. Their relationship with the state is a public law appointment rather than a private contract, so their disputes go to the administrative courts (Verwaltungsgerichte) instead.

One procedural rule is worth knowing before anything else. Under § 12a ArbGG, at first instance before the Arbeitsgericht, each side pays its own lawyer regardless of who wins. That single cost rule is a large part of why most cases settle rather than reach judgment.

Two private institutions sit alongside the statutes and often matter more day to day than the law itself. A Tarifvertrag is a collective agreement negotiated between a union and an employer or employer association, and it can set pay, hours and notice periods more generous than the statutory minimum. A Betriebsrat is an elected works council with statutory co-determination rights over dismissals, working time arrangements and workplace policy. An anglo reader used to at will employment should expect both to be far more present in ordinary German working life than any US equivalent.

Starting a job

A German employment contract is not required to be in a specific form for most terms, but § 2 NachwG requires the employer to set out the essential terms in writing shortly after the start date. Contracts are commonly open ended (unbefristet) or fixed term (befristet), and under § 14 TzBfG a fixed term contract without an objective reason is capped at a total of two years, including any renewals.

Most contracts include an agreed probation period, Probezeit, of up to six months. During probation, notice from either side is just two weeks and can be given to any calendar day rather than the calendar month end that applies afterward. See notice periods for the full scale.

Two figures move together every January and both matter to anyone starting low wage or part time work. The Mindestlohn, the statutory minimum wage, rose to EUR 13.90 an hour from 1 January 2026, up from EUR 12.82 in 2025, with EUR 14.60 scheduled for 1 January 2027. The Minijob earnings ceiling is not set independently. It is calculated from the minimum wage and stands at EUR 603 a month for 2026, up from EUR 556 in 2025. See minimum wage and Minijob for how the ceiling is derived and what it means for taxes and pension contributions.

During the job

Working time is governed by the ArbZG, which caps the ordinary working day at eight hours, extendable to ten only where the average over six months or 24 weeks stays at eight. Overtime has no general statutory pay rule. Whether it is paid, banked as time off, or priced into the salary depends on the contract or the Tarifvertrag. See overtime for how that plays out.

The statutory minimum holiday entitlement under § 3 BUrlG is 24 Werktage a year on a six day working week, which converts to 20 days on an ordinary five day week. The full entitlement is only earned after six months of continuous employment. Carryover, forfeiture and payout rules are more layered than they first appear; see vacation entitlement for the detail.

An employer keeps paying full wages for up to six weeks of illness under § 3 EFZG, after which statutory health insurance takes over with Krankengeld. See sick leave for the notice and certificate rules, including telefonische Krankschreibung.

Parents can take Elternzeit, unpaid job protected leave, and separately claim Elterngeld, an income replacement benefit paid by the state rather than the employer, for a period around the birth of a child. The two run on different rules and different bodies administer them. See parental leave and benefits for the income caps and how the two interact.

Leaving the job, or being dismissed

Notice periods for an ordinary resignation or dismissal are set by § 622 BGB. An employee resigning gives four weeks to the 15th or the end of a calendar month, no matter how long they have worked there. An employer's notice period grows with tenure, from one month after two years up to seven months after twenty years. The full scale, with worked date examples, is on notice periods.

If an employer dismisses you, general protection against unfair dismissal under the KSchG only applies once you have worked for that employer for more than six months, per § 1 KSchG, and only at businesses above a minimum size. § 23 KSchG sets a dual headcount threshold rather than one number: businesses with five or fewer employees are exempt for anyone hired on or before 31 December 2003, and the exemption widens to ten or fewer employees for anyone hired after that date, with part time staff counted as 0.5 or 0.75 of a person depending on their hours. See termination by employer for what a valid dismissal must look like and which employees carry extra protection.

Whatever the size of the business and whatever you think of the dismissal's merits, the deadline in § 4 KSchG governs everything that follows. A written challenge, a Kündigungsschutzklage, must reach the Arbeitsgericht within three weeks of receiving the dismissal. Miss it, and the dismissal is generally treated as effective from the outset even where it should not have been. See unfair dismissal claim for how to file one and what the hearing looks like.

Some employers propose ending the relationship by mutual agreement instead of dismissing, an Aufhebungsvertrag. It can look like the easier path, but signing one is the classic trigger for a Sperrzeit, a twelve week suspension of unemployment benefit, and it forfeits the three week window entirely once signed. See termination agreement before signing anything.

There is no general statutory right to a severance payment, an Abfindung, in Germany. It typically comes from a negotiated settlement, a Sozialplan, a Tarifvertrag, or the narrow § 1a KSchG mechanism tied to an unchallenged operational dismissal. The commonly cited benchmark of half a month's pay per year of service is a negotiating reference point, not an automatic entitlement. See severance pay for how the figure is actually calculated and taxed.

Every departing employee can request a written reference, an Arbeitszeugnis, under § 109 GewO. The statute requires clear wording with no hidden codes, but decades of case law layered a widely used grading vocabulary on top. See job reference for how to read the code.

Your situation, and the right page

Two calculators sit inside this cluster rather than as separate tools. A notice period calculator lives on the notice periods page and works out the exact date a resignation or dismissal takes effect. A severance benchmark calculator lives on the severance pay page and estimates the commonly used reference figure for a given salary and length of service.

Frequently asked questions