Nebenkostenabrechnung Explained: The § 556 BGB Deadline and What a Landlord Can Actually Charge

Every German tenant who pays Nebenkosten, the monthly advance payment on top of the base rent, is entitled to one annual statement showing what those advance payments actually covered. The statement is called the Nebenkostenabrechnung or Betriebskostenabrechnung, and the rules governing it sit almost entirely in one statute and one ordinance.

This page works through the twelve month deadline that controls the whole process, which costs the landlord is actually allowed to charge, how the allocation keys work, and a worked example of checking a real statement line by line. It also covers the tenant's own deadline to object once a statement arrives.

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

The twelve month deadline that controls everything

§ 556 Abs. 3 Satz 1 BGB requires the landlord to draw up the Nebenkostenabrechnung and communicate it to the tenant within twelve months after the end of the billing period, which for most leases is the calendar year. A billing period running from 1 January to 31 December 2025 therefore has to be settled by 31 December 2026.

§ 556 Abs. 3 Satz 3 BGB then does the real work: after that twelve month window closes, the landlord can no longer assert a back payment claim, unless the landlord was not responsible for missing the deadline. That non-culpability exception is read narrowly by the courts. A landlord who simply forgot, or was waiting on an accountant, is still culpable. A landlord genuinely blocked by a third party's late invoice, through no fault of their own, may fall inside the exception, but the burden of proving that sits with the landlord.

The forfeiture only cuts one way. If the final numbers show the tenant is owed a credit rather than owing more, that credit is not extinguished by a late statement. The rule exists to stop landlords from sitting on unresolved accounts and then springing a large demand years later, not to let a landlord keep money that was never theirs.

What actually counts as an allocable cost

Whether a cost can be passed on to the tenant at all is a separate question from how it gets divided up, and it is where most successful challenges start. § 1 BetrKV defines Betriebskosten as costs that arise regularly from the ownership or intended use of the building and its land. § 2 BetrKV then sets out the full catalogue, and only items on that list, or specifically agreed in the lease by reference to it, are allocable.

The line that trips up the most statements is the first one in the right hand column. Maintenance and repair are landlord costs by nature, because they preserve or restore the building's substance rather than running it day to day, and § 1 Abs. 2 BetrKV expressly excludes them from the Betriebskosten definition. A statement that folds a roof repair, a boiler replacement, or a general Instandhaltungsrücklage (maintenance reserve) into the service charges has stepped outside the catalogue, and a tenant can object to that specific line regardless of the twelve month deadline question.

The same goes for the landlord's own administrative overhead and for any share of costs attributable to a vacant unit elsewhere in the building. Those are business costs of being a landlord, not costs of running the building for the tenants who live there, and BetrKV does not let them be spread across occupied units.

The allocation keys: how the total gets split

Once a cost is confirmed as allocable, § 556a BGB sets the default rule for dividing it among units: by living space (Wohnfläche), meaning each unit pays in proportion to its square metres against the building's total. A lease can agree a different key instead, for example by number of occupants or by unit, and where the lease is silent the Wohnfläche default applies.

Heating and hot water are the one category where the lease cannot simply pick anything. The Heizkostenverordnung overrides a contrary agreement and requires a split between a fixed and a consumption-based component. § 7 Abs. 1 HeizkostenV sets the consumption share at between 50 and 70 percent of the total, and § 6 Abs. 4 HeizkostenV is what lets the landlord choose the exact split within that band. § 7 Abs. 1 HeizkostenV also requires the consumption share to be measured against each unit's actual metered use, not simply its floor area.

Where a landlord fails to install or read the required consumption meters, § 12 HeizkostenV imposes a real consequence: the tenant's own heating and hot water share is reduced by 15 percent as a penalty for the missing measurement. This is one of the few places a tenant can gain money back purely because the landlord failed to meter correctly, independent of whether the underlying costs were otherwise fair.

The right to inspect the underlying receipts

A statement is only a summary. § 259 BGB requires whoever owes an accounting to back it up with the underlying records on request, and German courts have long read this into the landlord's duty on a Nebenkostenabrechnung specifically: the tenant can ask to inspect the actual invoices, contracts and meter readings behind each line before deciding whether to pay or object.

Inspection normally happens at the landlord's office or the managing agent's office, within a reasonable time after the tenant asks, and the tenant can generally bring someone along, including an advisor, to help read the paperwork. A landlord who refuses inspection outright, or only offers copies at the tenant's expense with no good reason, is on weak ground if the matter ends up in dispute.

Worked example: checking a real statement line by line

Suppose a tenant occupies a 75 square metre unit in a building with 1,000 square metres of total living space, and pays a monthly Nebenkosten advance of EUR 200, for EUR 2,400 over the 2025 billing year. The statement arrives on 15 November 2026, comfortably inside the twelve month deadline for a period ending 31 December 2025.

The statement allocates the following costs to the unit, based on its 7.5 percent share of the building:

Against EUR 2,400 in advance payments, the statement as presented shows a credit of EUR 360 owed to the tenant. But the maintenance reserve line does not belong on this statement at all: it is an Instandhaltung cost, expressly excluded from Betriebskosten by § 1 Abs. 2 BetrKV, regardless of how the lease describes it. Removing that EUR 300 line drops the properly allocable total to EUR 1,740, which raises the actual credit owed to the tenant to EUR 660.

This is the pattern worth applying to any statement: first confirm each line item actually appears in the § 2 BetrKV catalogue or is a lawful heating and hot water charge, then check the allocation key used against the lease, then compare the corrected total to the advance payments made. A single misclassified line, as here, can change the outcome by hundreds of euros.

The tenant's own deadline to object

After receiving a statement, the tenant is not left with an open ended right to challenge it. § 556 Abs. 3 Satz 5 BGB gives the tenant twelve months from receipt of the statement to raise specific objections. Objections raised after that window generally cannot be asserted, again subject to a narrow exception where the tenant was not at fault for the delay.

A useful objection names the specific line item and the specific reason it is wrong, whether that is a cost outside the BetrKV catalogue, a miscalculated allocation key, or a mismatch between the receipts inspected and the figure billed. A vague objection that simply disputes the total invites the same dispute to resurface without narrowing anything.

What happens if the landlord misses the deadline

If the twelve month statement deadline in § 556 Abs. 3 Satz 1 BGB passes with no statement at all, the landlord generally loses the right to demand any back payment for that billing period, full stop, subject again to the narrow non-culpability exception. The tenant's advance payments simply stand as the final amount for that year on the back payment side.

That forfeiture does not touch a credit in the tenant's favour. If a late statement, once it does arrive, shows the tenant overpaid, the tenant can still claim that credit. The twelve month rule is a shield for the tenant against being billed years after the fact, not a shield for the landlord against having to return money that was never properly owed.

For other stages of the tenancy, see ending a tenancy and the security deposit, where an outstanding Nebenkostenabrechnung often comes up as the reason a landlord gives for holding back part of a deposit. General background on German tenancy law is at German law explained.

Frequently asked questions