Notice Period in Germany: How Long It Is & Who It Protects

Germany is not a country where you can let someone go on Friday and expect them to be gone by Monday. The notice period system is one of the strongest employee protections in German labour law, and it catches international companies off guard more than almost any other rule.

Here is the core problem: notice periods in Germany are asymmetric. If an employee wants to resign, they can usually do so with four weeks’ notice regardless of how long they have worked for you. But if you want to terminate that same employee, the notice period increases with every year of service, reaching up to seven months for someone who has been with you for twenty years. And that is just the statutory minimum. Many employment contracts and Collective Bargaining Agreements (Tarifverträge) set even longer periods.

This guide explains the statutory notice periods under Section 622 of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, or BGB), how probation changes the rules, the difference between employee and employer notice, what happens with extraordinary termination, the protected categories that make termination even harder, and the practical mistakes that international companies make when hiring and firing in Germany.

These are the legal minimums. Your employment contract or a Collective Bargaining Agreement can set longer periods, but never shorter ones (with very limited exceptions).

The “to the 15th or end of a calendar month” requirement is important and easy to miscalculate. A notice period of 4 weeks does not mean 28 calendar days from the date you deliver the letter. It means the termination takes effect on either the 15th or the last day of a month, and you need 4 full weeks before that date. If you deliver a termination letter on March 3rd with a 4-week notice period, the earliest effective date is March 31st, not March 31st minus 28 days. If you deliver it on March 4th, the earliest effective date is April 15th. One day’s difference in delivery can push the end date by two weeks.

This is the part that surprises most international employers. The escalating notice periods in the table above only apply to terminations by the employer. Employees, by contrast, can resign with the basic 4-week notice period at any stage of their career, regardless of how many years they have worked.

An employee who has been with you for 18 years can resign with just 4 weeks’ notice. But if you want to terminate that same employee, you owe them 6 months’ notice. This asymmetry is intentional. German labour law treats the employment relationship as one where the employer holds more power, and the notice period system is designed to protect the employee’s economic security while preserving the employee’s freedom to move.

There is one exception: if the employment contract specifies a longer notice period for the employee, that is permitted, but only if the employee’s notice period is never longer than the employer’s. You can require an employee to give 3 months’ notice, but only if your own obligation to that employee is at least 3 months. You cannot create a situation where the employee is locked in longer than the employer.

If the employment contract includes a probation period (Probezeit), which can last up to 6 months, the notice period is reduced to just 2 weeks. During probation, the notice can take effect from any day; the “15th or end of month” rule does not apply. This makes probation the only period in the employment relationship where termination is relatively quick and simple.

Two common mistakes with probation notice in Germany. First, if the employment contract does not explicitly state that a probation period exists, there is no probation, even if both parties assumed there would be one. The 2-week notice only applies if the probation clause is written in the contract. Second, if the contract language is ambiguous about when the probation ends and the longer notice period begins, German courts will apply the interpretation most favourable to the employee. A court in one notable case ruled that a vaguely worded contract gave the employee the right to invoke the longer notice period even during what the employer thought was the probation period.

German law does allow termination without any notice period, but only in cases of serious misconduct. This is called außerordentliche Kündigung (extraordinary termination) under Section 626 BGB. It applies when the employer has “important cause” (wichtiger Grund) that makes continuing the employment relationship until the end of the regular notice period unreasonable.

In practice, this is a very high bar. Examples that German courts have accepted include theft (even of low-value items), physical violence, persistent refusal to work, and serious fraud. Examples that courts have rejected include occasional lateness, poor performance, and most forms of disagreement with management. The employer must also act within 2 weeks of learning about the misconduct, or the right to extraordinary termination expires.

For international companies, the key takeaway is this: do not plan around extraordinary termination. Assume you will need to give the full statutory notice period for any termination that is not clear-cut gross misconduct. If you are hoping to exit an underperforming employee quickly, the German system does not accommodate that.

Certain categories of employees in Germany have additional protection that makes termination harder or impossible, regardless of the notice period:

Pregnant employees and employees on maternity leave cannot be terminated at all during pregnancy and for 4 months after childbirth, except with the approval of the relevant state authority (which is almost never granted). Employees on parental leave (Elternzeit) have similar protection.

Severely disabled employees (Schwerbehinderte) require prior approval from the Integration Office (Integrationsamt) before termination. The approval process takes weeks and is often denied. The minimum notice period for severely disabled employees is 4 weeks under the Social Code (SGB IX).

Works council members (Betriebsratsmitglieder) can only be terminated with the consent of the works council itself or by court order. In practice, terminating a works council member is extremely difficult.

Employees in establishments with more than 10 full-time equivalent employees and more than 6 months of service are covered by the Kündigungsschutzgesetz (Protection Against Unfair Dismissal Act). Under this law, any ordinary termination must be justified by one of three grounds: personal reasons, behavioural reasons, or operational/business reasons. If the employee challenges the termination, the employer must prove the justification in court.

The statutory notice periods are the floor, not the ceiling. Employment contracts can and frequently do set longer notice periods. A 3-month or 6-month notice period for both parties is common for senior or executive roles in Germany. Some contracts specify that notice can only take effect at the end of a calendar quarter, which can push the effective end date out significantly.

Collective Bargaining Agreements (Tarifverträge) can also modify notice periods. In most cases they extend them, but in some sectors they are permitted to shorten them below the statutory minimum under certain conditions. This is an important nuance for international companies: if your German employees are covered by a CBA (which is common in manufacturing, retail, banking, and public-sector-adjacent roles), the notice periods in the CBA override the statutory defaults.

The hierarchy is: CBA overrides statute, and the employment contract overrides both, but only if the contract provides more favourable terms for the employee. If the contract tries to impose a shorter notice period than the statute or CBA allows, the longer period applies regardless of what the contract says.

German employers can release an employee from the obligation to work during the notice period. This is called Freistellung (garden leave). The employee stops working but remains employed, continues to receive their full salary and benefits, and the employment relationship only formally ends when the notice period expires.

Payment in lieu of notice (paying the employee their salary for the notice period and ending the employment immediately) is possible but must be contractually agreed. It is not a unilateral right of the employer under German law. If the employment contract does not include a payment-in-lieu clause, the employer cannot simply hand the employee a cheque and ask them to leave that day.

Garden leave is more common. It allows the employer to remove the employee from the workplace immediately while still complying with the notice period. During garden leave, the employee’s remaining holiday entitlement is usually consumed, and the employee may be required to be available for handover tasks if specified in the release agreement.

If both parties agree, they can bypass the notice period entirely through a mutual termination agreement (Aufhebungsvertrag). This is a written agreement where the employer and employee agree on an end date, a severance payment (if any), the handling of remaining holiday, and other terms.

Termination agreements are extremely common in Germany, particularly when the employer wants to avoid the time, cost, and uncertainty of a contested dismissal. However, employees should be aware that signing an Aufhebungsvertrag can trigger a 12-week suspension (Sperrzeit) of unemployment benefits from the Federal Employment Agency, because the agency treats a voluntary agreement as a form of self-caused unemployment.

For international companies using an EOR, the EOR will typically manage the termination agreement process, including drafting the document and negotiating with the employee. The severance amount is negotiable but a common benchmark is half a month’s gross salary per year of service, though there is no statutory entitlement to severance in Germany.

When you hire a German employee through an EOR, the EOR is the legal employer and bears the obligation to comply with notice period requirements. This means the EOR must deliver the termination notice in writing (email is not sufficient under German law; it must be a wet-ink signature on paper), calculate the correct notice period based on the employee’s length of service, and continue payroll through the notice period.

The most common issue we see is international companies assuming they can terminate a German EOR employee on short notice. They cannot. The EOR will (correctly) insist on complying with the statutory or contractual notice period, and the client must continue funding payroll for the duration. If you are hiring in Germany through an EOR, factor the maximum potential notice period into your financial planning from the start.

A related issue is the deposit. Most EOR providers require a deposit equal to one or more months of gross salary specifically to cover the notice period obligation. If the employee has 5+ years of service and the notice period is 2+ months, the deposit may need to be increased. Discuss this with your EOR provider before the employee reaches each service milestone.