German Tenant Law (Mietrecht): The Complete Hub

German tenancy law, Mietrecht, is one of the most tenant-protective systems in the world, and that is the single fact to hold onto before reading anything else on this hub. An ordinary residential lease cannot simply be ended by the landlord because a fixed term happens to run out or because the landlord would prefer a different tenant. A landlord needs a recognised legal reason, and in most cases a court order, before a tenant actually has to leave.

An anglo reader coming from a system built around an assured shorthold tenancy, or an at will lease that either side can end on notice for any reason, is carrying the wrong mental model into a German lease. This page maps the rules that make German tenancy law work the way it does, then routes you to the page with the depth you actually need for your situation.

Everything below concerns Wohnraummiete, an ordinary residential lease. Commercial premises run on a substantially different, far less protective set of rules, since most of the tenant-protective statutes cited here apply specifically to housing rather than to business premises.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

The core idea: no eviction without a real reason, and usually no eviction without a court

Start with what does not exist in German residential tenancy law: a landlord's general right to end a lease simply because the landlord wants to, or because a fixed term has expired. § 573 BGB requires a berechtigtes Interesse, a legally recognised interest, before an ordinary termination by the landlord is valid at all.

The two grounds that come up most often in practice are Eigenbedarf, where the landlord or a close family member genuinely needs the home to live in, and a material breach by the tenant, commonly persistent rent arrears or serious misconduct. A landlord who simply wants a higher-paying tenant, or who has sold the building to someone with no plan to move in, generally has no basis for ordinary termination at all under this rule.

Even where a valid ground exists and proper notice has been given, a landlord cannot act on it alone. Removing a tenant's possessions or changing the locks without a judgment is unlawful self-help, not a shortcut. A landlord who wants a tenant out who will not leave voluntarily has to bring an eviction claim and obtain a court order, a process covered in depth on the eviction suit page.

Notice periods run in only one direction

The most commonly searched question in this whole area, and one of the easiest to get backwards, is how much notice each side owes the other. § 573c BGB sets a scale, but it is not symmetric.

A tenant resigning an ordinary lease gives a flat three months' notice, and that never changes no matter how many years the tenancy has run. A landlord's notice period, by contrast, starts at three months and grows with the tenant's length of occupancy: three months up to five years, six months from five to eight years, and nine months once the tenancy has run more than eight years. Only the landlord's side scales. A calculation that lengthens the tenant's notice period with tenure has the rule backwards.

Worked example

A tenant has lived in a flat for seven years and now wants to move out. The tenant's notice is three months regardless of that history, the same period a tenant of seven months would owe. If instead the landlord wanted to end that same seven-year tenancy on the Eigenbedarf ground, the landlord would owe six months' notice, since seven years falls in the band above five years and up to eight. Had the tenancy run nine years, the landlord's notice would step up again to nine months. The tenant's side never moves from three months in any of these scenarios.

The full mechanics, including how the notice date itself is calculated, are on ending a tenancy, and the Eigenbedarf ground specifically is covered on owner move-in eviction.

Money going in: the deposit

§ 551 BGB caps a residential security deposit at three months' Nettokaltmiete, the base rent excluding service charges, however the deposit is structured. A tenant paying cash has a statutory right to spread the payment over three equal monthly instalments rather than paying it all up front, and the landlord has to hold the money in an account kept separate from the landlord's own assets. See security deposit for the interest rules, what can be deducted, and how long a landlord can reasonably take to return it.

Money going up: rent increases and the rent cap on new leases

Once a tenancy is running, § 558 BGB limits how far the rent can rise to catch up with the local comparison rent, the Kappungsgrenze: 20 percent over any three year period, tightened to 15 percent in areas a Land government has specifically designated as under particular pressure. A separate mechanism under § 559 BGB lets a landlord pass on the cost of a genuine modernisation, capped at 8 percent of the modernisation cost per year, with its own euro-per-square-metre ceilings on top.

Take a tenant paying 1,000 euro a month in an ordinary market. Under the general 20 percent Kappungsgrenze, the rent cannot rise past 1,200 euro over any three year window through this route alone, whatever the local comparison rent has done in that time. In a designated tight market the same starting rent is capped at 1,150 euro over three years instead. A modernisation surcharge runs on entirely separate math tied to what the landlord actually spent, not to the existing rent, which is why the two mechanisms have to be checked separately rather than added together casually. Full detail, including further worked maths, is on rent increases.

A new tenancy is a different question from an increase on an existing one, and it has its own cap. § 556d BGB, the Mietpreisbremse, limits the rent a landlord can charge a new tenant to 10 percent above the local comparison rent, but only in areas a Land government has designated under the scheme. The whole mechanism has been extended and now runs through 31 December 2029. See the rent cap page for which areas are covered and the exceptions that apply.

The one genuinely regional element in this entire area of law sits right here. The statutes themselves, §§ 558, 559 and 556d BGB, are federal and apply identically everywhere. What varies by location is only which specific cities and areas a Land government has designated for the tighter 15 percent Kappungsgrenze or for the Mietpreisbremse, done by a Landes-Rechtsverordnung, an ordinance issued at state rather than federal level. One further rule works the same way and is easy to miss. Under § 577a BGB, when a rented flat is converted into a condominium and sold, the buyer is blocked from terminating for Eigenbedarf for three years nationwide, and in areas a Land government has designated by ordinance that block can run up to ten years. Beyond those, notice periods, the deposit cap, the service charge deadline, and Mietminderung are uniform nationwide with no Land-by-Land variation to check.

When something is wrong with the home: Mietminderung

§ 536 BGB reduces the rent automatically, by operation of law, the moment a genuine defect makes the home materially less fit for its intended use. A tenant does not have to apply for this or wait for a court to grant it. The reduction exists from the moment the defect exists and is serious enough to matter.

The hard part in practice is picking the right percentage. The tables that circulate widely online, so many percent off for no heating, so many for mould, are built from decades of individual court decisions on their own specific facts, not a fixed statutory tariff a tenant can simply look up and apply with confidence. Reducing the rent by more than a court would later find justified leaves the tenant in arrears on the difference, which can itself become grounds for termination.

A tenant paying 900 euro who stops heating entirely fails partway through winter might see figures online suggesting a reduction anywhere from 10 to 100 percent depending on which room and how severe the failure is. Applying a number pulled from a table without matching it carefully to the actual severity and duration of the defect is exactly the mistake that can turn a legitimate Mietminderung into an arrears problem instead. See rent reduction for how to approach the estimate more carefully, including how a defect caused by a neighbour rather than the building itself is treated.

The annual reckoning: service charges

Most German leases charge a monthly advance for Betriebskosten, operating costs like heating, water, and building upkeep, reconciled once a year against the actual cost. § 556 BGB gives the landlord twelve months from the end of the billing period to send that statement. Miss the deadline, and the landlord generally cannot demand a back payment for that period at all, though a credit owed to the tenant is not affected by the same cutoff. See the service charge statement page for how to actually check one.

Two situations with their own dedicated pages

Subletting part of a home to someone else, and the cosmetic repair obligations many leases try to impose, are common enough points of dispute that they each warrant their own page rather than a short mention here. Subletting covers when a tenant can demand the landlord's consent, the narrow grounds a landlord can still refuse on, and why there is no free-standing landlord surcharge for allowing it. Cosmetic repairs covers why a great many Schönheitsreparaturen clauses are void as written, and what a tenant owes instead once a defective clause is struck down.

Your situation, and the right page

For the wider picture of German courts, statutes and other legal topics beyond tenancy, see the Germany law hub.