Employment contracts, dismissal and workers’ rights

Your employment contract (Arbeitsvertrag) sets out the terms of your job. Your employer must give you a record of the essential conditions within legal deadlines, some as early as your first day. This guide explains what to check, how fixed terms and probation work, and what to do if you are dismissed.

In short

• Your employer must give you the names of both parties, your pay and working hours on your first working day. The start date, any end date, workplace, job description, probation period (Probezeit), and any on-call or overtime terms are due within 7 calendar days of the agreed start. Holiday, notice and the remaining information are due within one month.
• A Befristung is effective only in writing. The ordinary rule in section 14 (2), without a substantive reason, allows a calendar limit of up to 2 years, with at most 3 extensions, and generally bars it if you have already worked for that same employer. Courts recognise narrow exceptions; a three-year gap is not an automatic reset. Collective agreements and the special statutory routes below can change the limits.
• If you agree to a probation period, either side may end the job on 2 weeks’ notice during that period, for up to 6 months. After that, the ordinary notice period is 4 weeks, ending on the 15th or the last day of a calendar month. The employer’s notice period lengthens with years of service under section 622(2).
• The statutory holiday minimum represents four weeks: 24 Werktage for a six-day week, equivalent to 20 working days for a regular five-day week. A working day is capped at 8 hours, and may reach 10 hours only if the average over 6 calendar months, or over 24 weeks, is still 8 hours.
• If illness prevents you from working through no fault of your own, your employer continues your pay for up to 6 weeks once your employment has lasted 4 uninterrupted weeks. An English summary does not override the signed German text.

What you need to know

Section 2 of the Proof of Employment Conditions Act applies to employees. Your employer must record the essential conditions, sign the record and give it to you. In many cases, the record can instead be sent electronically in text form, provided you can open, save and print it and the employer asks you to confirm receipt. You can still request a signed paper copy.

For employees in sectors listed in section 2a(1) of the Act to Combat Undeclared Work, section 2(1) sentence 6 requires a signed paper record instead. These sectors include construction, hospitality, passenger transport, freight and connected logistics including platform delivery services, fairgrounds, building cleaning, companies that assemble and dismantle trade fairs and exhibitions, the meat industry except the butcher’s craft excluded by the section, prostitution, private security, and hairdressing and cosmetics. If your contract already contains every required point, your employer does not need to provide a second record.

The record must name the parties and the start date and, for a fixed-term job, the end date or expected length. It must also include the workplace, a short job description, any agreed probation period, the components and due date of your pay, working hours, annual holiday, and at least the form and notice periods for ending the job.

Section 2(1) sentence 7 No. 14 also requires it to state the deadline for challenging a dismissal: ordinarily three weeks after receipt, as explained below. Some points may be replaced by a reference to the collective agreement that applies to you.

Section 14 also has special routes without a substantive reason. In the first 4 years after a business is founded, subsection 2a allows a term of up to 4 years with multiple extensions; a legal restructuring of a business or group does not count as a new founding. The prior-employment bar in subsection 2, including its narrow judicial qualification, and its collective-agreement rules also apply to this route.

Subsection 3 allows up to 5 years with multiple extensions if you are at least 52 at the start and, for at least 4 months immediately before the job, were without employment within the statutory definition, received Transferkurzarbeitergeld, or participated in a publicly funded employment measure under Book II or III. An applicable collective agreement can vary the ordinary maximum duration or number of extensions under subsection 2. Ask the employer which route and agreement it relies on.

What to do

1. Use the timetable in section 2. The names of the parties, the pay, and the working time must be in your hands on the first day you work. The start, any end date, the place, the job description, any probation, and any on-call or overtime clause are due within 7 calendar days of the agreed start. Holiday, notice, and the remaining points are due within one month.
2. If the job is limited in time, a Befristung is effective only in writing. The ordinary rule in section 14 (2) allows a calendar limit without a substantive reason for up to 2 years, with at most 3 extensions, and generally not if you have already worked for that same employer, whether the earlier job was limited or open-ended. The Federal Labour Court explains that courts can restrict this bar where applying it would be unreasonable, for example because the earlier work was very long ago, very different or very brief. This depends on the individual case; there is no automatic three-year reset. Get advice about a disputed term. A substantive reason, such as covering a genuine temporary need or replacing someone, is one other route; the fixed-term agreement must still be in writing. A spoken “we will see in six months” is not a limit.
3. If a Probezeit is agreed, section 622 of the Civil Code allows either side to end the job on 2 weeks’ notice during that period, and only for up to 6 months. Labelling a longer stretch as probation does not keep the 2-week notice alive past 6 months. After that, the ordinary notice is 4 weeks, to the 15th or to the end of a calendar month. For a dismissal by the employer, section 622(2) lengthens that period with service in the establishment or company, always to the end of a calendar month: one month after two years, two months after five, three after eight, four after ten, five after twelve, six after 15, and seven after 20. Section 622(5) allows an individual contract to set a shorter period than subsection 1 only for temporary help, and that exception ends if the job continues past three months, or, where the employer regularly has no more than 20 employees excluding trainees, only if the period is still at least four weeks. Part-time employees count as 0.5 if they regularly work no more than 20 hours a week, and as 0.75 if they work more than that but no more than 30. A longer period can still be agreed. A collective agreement can set a different period. Your own notice period must not be longer than the employer’s.
4. Compare holiday using your working days per week. Section 3 of the Federal Leave Act states 24 Werktage, based on a six-day week; a Werktag excludes Sundays and statutory public holidays. For a full annual entitlement on a regular schedule, that is four weeks: 20 leave days for five workdays per week, or eight leave days for two workdays. Count working days, not working hours. A contract or collective agreement can give more. Waiting-period, partial-year and irregular-schedule rules can change the individual calculation; ask the employer to show its basis.
5. Keep the signed copy. Section 3 of the Working Time Act caps a working day at 8 hours. It may reach 10 hours only if the average over 6 calendar months, or over 24 weeks, is still 8 hours. Section 3 of the Continued Remuneration Act requires the employer to keep paying you for up to 6 weeks when illness, without fault on your part, stops you working, once the job has lasted 4 uninterrupted weeks. Those are national floors. A contract may be more generous.

Received a dismissal: what to do first

1. Keep the notice and record receipt. Save the original, envelope and delivery evidence; note when and how it reached you. Do not calculate from the printed date or the last shift. Section 623 BGB requires written form for dismissal and termination agreements, and excludes electronic form. An email, chat message or spoken dismissal needs urgent checking, not a guess that you can ignore the employer.
2. Get the deadline checked immediately. The ordinary dismissal-claim deadline is three weeks after receipt of written notice; cases requiring authority approval have a special qualification. Get advice even if you suspect the form is invalid, are in probation or work for a small employer. Do not wait for an adviser’s appointment, a council reply or settlement talks before protecting the necessary court filing.
3. Identify what the paper actually does. Is it ordinary termination with notice, an extraordinary/fristlose Kündigung, an offer of changed conditions, or an agreement the employer wants you to sign? Do not sign an Aufhebungsvertrag or waiver before understanding it. Ask an adviser how to handle any request to acknowledge receipt without agreeing to termination.
4. Build the evidence file. Bring the contract and amendments, start date, notice, pay records, any warnings and correspondence, and facts about the workplace size. Tell the adviser promptly about pregnancy, parental leave, recognised severe disability or an application for recognition, or an employee-representative role; special protection needs individual checking. Use Pregnancy and birth, Parental leave and Disability status for their own routes.
5. Check the other deadlines too. Use Finding work for employment-agency registration and any immigration notification after job loss. See Unemployment benefit for the benefit claim and Legal aid for help with advice or court costs. These steps do not challenge the dismissal for you.

Grounds and an existing Betriebsrat

Where general Kündigungsschutz applies under the waiting-period and workplace-size rules below, section 1 KSchG distinguishes reasons connected to the person, conduct, and urgent operational needs. A label such as “restructuring” does not by itself establish that the dismissal is justified. For an operational dismissal, social-selection factors include service, age, maintenance duties and severe disability; have the actual selection and alternatives checked. A conduct or personal-ground case also needs individual assessment; a reason does not become valid merely because the employer wrote it down.

An extraordinary dismissal without notice under section 626 BGB requires an important reason, assessed in light of the circumstances and both sides’ interests. The employer’s two-week period from learning of the decisive facts is separate from your deadline for filing a court claim. A notice marked “fristlos” does not mean a court challenge is impossible or unnecessary.

If your workplace has a competent Betriebsrat, contact it immediately and ask whether it was properly heard and whether it objected. Under section 102 BetrVG the employer must inform and consult an existing council before dismissal; dismissal without the required hearing is invalid. Not every workplace has a council, and this consultation is not generally a requirement for the council’s consent. Public-service staff representation follows its own rules. Keep any council statement for your adviser, and protect the court deadline independently of that contact.

Challenge a dismissal or fixed term, and claim missing wages

To challenge a written dismissal, the ordinary deadline under section 4 of the Dismissal Protection Act is three weeks after receipt, not three weeks after your last working day. Seek advice immediately about the applicable deadline and any special approval case. Negotiating with the employer, contacting a counsellor or registering with the employment agency does not file the court claim. The employment court’s Rechtsantragsstelle can help record a claim; it does not replace individual legal advice.

The general protection in section 1, against a dismissal that is socially unjustified, applies only after the job has lasted more than six months without interruption in the same establishment or company. For employment that began after 31 December 2003, section 23 also withholds that protection in an establishment that regularly employs ten or fewer people, not counting staff in vocational training. Part-time employees count as 0.5 if they regularly work no more than 20 hours a week, and as 0.75 if they work more than that but no more than 30. Employment that began on or before 31 December 2003 can still fall under the older line of five or fewer. The three-week court deadline above is not removed by that size rule. Sections 4 to 7 still apply in those smaller establishments.

A challenge to a fixed term has a different ordinary deadline. Under section 17 of the Part-Time and Fixed-Term Act, you must file the employment-court claim within three weeks after the agreed end of the fixed-term contract. If employment continues beyond that agreed end, the period starts when you receive the employer’s written statement that the employment has ended because of the fixed term. Seek advice promptly even if you believe the fixed term is invalid; the statement that a limit is ineffective does not preserve a court challenge indefinitely.

If you have not been paid, or have been paid too little, save your contract, payslips, bank statements, messages and your own daily record of hours, breaks and work locations. Claim the missing amount promptly in writing, explain the period and calculation, and keep proof of delivery. Check for an Ausschlussfrist in your contract or collective agreement: it can set short, separate deadlines for making the claim and then taking it to court. Under section 3 of the Minimum Wage Act, an agreement is ineffective insofar as it undercuts a minimum-wage claim or restricts or excludes asserting it. Have any other exclusion clause checked.

Ask a union, an employment-law adviser, or a migrant-worker advice service such as Faire Integration or Faire Mobilität which service covers your situation and language. A report to customs or police does not collect your individual wage debt. Agency registration and residence notifications remain separate duties, explained on the finding-work page.

Read a termination agreement before you sign

Read a termination agreement before you sign it. It can end your job by consent and give up your opportunity to challenge a dismissal in court. It can also trigger a suspension of unemployment benefit; the unemployment-benefit page explains those rules.

You also have a separate right to a written reference when your job ends under section 109 of the Trade Regulation Act. It must at least describe the type and duration of your work, and you can ask for it to cover your performance and conduct too. It must be clear and understandable, without a mark or wording intended to convey something beyond what the form or words themselves say. It can be issued electronically only with your consent. Ask your employer for it; requesting a reference does not file a dismissal challenge or collect unpaid wages.

Common mistakes

• Assuming an English summary wins when the signed German text says something else. Sign the text you mean, and keep any translation for yourself.
• Treating an unwritten end date as binding. Without the writing section 14 requires, the limit is not effective.
• Counting a probation of 9 or 12 months as 9 or 12 months of 2-week notice. The short notice stops at 6 months.
• Copying a colleague’s notice period. Section 622 sets the periods, and a collective agreement can differ. Read the clause that applies to your job.