Fill in the business registration in English

Registration, change notification or deregistration with the municipality — the official form used throughout Germany.

You answer the questions in your language — the official form is filled in in German.

Anyone becoming self-employed notifies the municipality. There is a nationwide standard official form for this. The municipality issues the trade certificate and reports the business to the tax office, the chamber and the accident insurance.

By when must the trade notification be made?

There is no deadline in days. The law requires the notification at the same time as the taking up of the activity (§ 14 Abs. 1 Satz 1 GewO).

Guides state deadlines from a week to a month. The law states none of them.

At the same time means: as soon as the activity begins outwardly. That is often earlier than one thinks — the first advertising, renting rooms or buying stock can already set the start. The first invoice does not matter.

A notification cannot be made at precisely the same moment. It is therefore required without delay — without culpable hesitation.

Anyone notifying too late commits an administrative offence. The fine amounts to up to 1.000 € (§ 146 Abs. 3 GewO).

Registering afterwards is still possible. The actual day of the start is entered on the official form, even if it lies in the past. The duty remains until the notification has been made.

What you need to have ready

The official form asks less for papers than for details. Most of them one knows by heart — two not.

Always needed:

Identity card or passport.
The address of the business and the day on which the activity begins.
A precise description of the activity. „Trade“ is not enough — what is entered is what you actually do.

Depending on the case, also:

Without the nationality of an EU state: the residence permit — the paper that allows the stay in Germany — and the note in it as to whether self-employed work is allowed.
For a registered company: the extract from the commercial register, with the place and number of the entry.
For a skilled trade: the entry in the register of craftsmen at the chamber of skilled crafts.
For trades requiring a licence — restaurant, security, insurance broking, estate agency — the licence.
For a company: for each person who runs the business, a separate official form with their own signature.

The notification is not a licence. Where a licence or the register of craftsmen is required, work may not begin without it. The official form says so itself.

What can be in your set

Which sheets belong with it follows from your answers. You see the list in the application before you pay anything.

Depending on your situation

GewA 1 — Gewerbe-Anmeldungif you are newly registering a trade
GewA 2 — Gewerbe-Ummeldungif something changes in a running trade
GewA 3 — Gewerbe-Abmeldungif you are deregistering a trade
GewA 4 — Gewerbe-Datenaktualisierungif something in the trade register is wrong

What you enclose in addition

Not an official form, but documents you add yourself.

Beiblatt: weitere gesetzliche VertreterYour official form has room for the details of the legal representation only once.
Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung (Finanzamt, über ELSTER)The trade notification does not settle the tax side.

How it goes

Step 1
Answer questions
One step after another, in your language. What is compulsory carries a red asterisk; without those details things cannot go on.
Step 2
Check details and buy
Before payment you see all your answers once more and a picture of the first sheet. Only then do you pay.
Step 3
Download and hand in
After payment the finished set is ready as a PDF — for 48 hours, as often as you like. Print, sign, hand in.

What it costs

The price depends on how many people need an official form of their own. With a partnership — a GbR, for example — every person who runs the business needs their own completely filled-in sheet with their own signature.

Your case	What is produced	Price	Difference
Sole trader	One official form.	9,90 €	—
GbR with two people	One official form of their own for every person.	11,90 €	+ 2,00 €
GbR with three people	One official form of their own for every person.	13,40 €	+ 1,50 €

Every further sheet costs less than the one before. A set never costs more than 19,90 €, however extensive it becomes. It is a one-off payment — no subscription, no account.

What the municipality charges for it

The municipality charges a fee. How high it is appears in no federal law — each municipality sets it itself. What applies where you are appears in your municipality's by-law.

For a company the fee arises for each person who runs the business. Each of them submits their own official form.

Our price is separate from it. It covers the filling in; you pay the fee to the municipality.

Who has to register a trade?

Anyone working independently, on a lasting basis and with the intention of making a profit has to notify. Also alongside employment. Also on a small scale. Also without employees.

The liberal professions are not a trade. The Trade Regulation Act names some of them expressly: lawyers, notaries, tax advisers, auditors, the teaching professions and the education of children for payment (§ 6 Abs. 1 GewO).

Medical professions do not belong to it either, nor do agriculture and forestry. That, however, follows not from that list but from what a trade actually is.

Whether trade tax arises depends on this classification. Anyone unsure which side they are on clears it up with the tax office.

Whether an activity is a trade is decided by the municipality and the tax office, not by us.

What happens after registration

You receive the trade certificate at once. It confirms the notification and nothing more.

After that, post arrives without you doing anything: the municipality passes the notification on to fifteen bodies (§ 14 Abs. 8 GewO). Four of them concern the business directly.

The tax office sends the questionnaire for tax registration. The tax number arises from it. That is the part that makes work.
Anyone assessed for trade tax belongs to the chamber of industry and commerce by force of law (§ 2 Abs. 1 IHKG). In the skilled crafts the chamber of skilled crafts takes its place.
Statutory accident insurance is compulsory. The business must report to the employers' liability insurance association within one week (§ 192 Abs. 1 SGB VII) — the trade notification fulfils this duty if it arrives within that week.
The statistical offices of the federal states receive the figures for the statistics on trade notifications.

Anyone expecting this is not surprised by the letters. None of them is a mistake.

Questions about particular cases

Some situations occur so often that they have a page of their own. There you will find which official form the case requires and how it is filled in.

Hand it in at the municipality yourself

The trade notification goes to the town or municipal administration in the place where the business premises are — not to your place of residence, if the two differ. The trade office (Gewerbeamt) there is responsible; depending on the municipality it is also called Ordnungsamt, Bürgeramt or Bürgerbüro. There is no nationwide finder for it, because every municipality has its own office. Search the internet for “Gewerbeanmeldung” and the name of your town or municipality. Some municipalities accept the notification only by appointment, others also by post. The municipality charges a fee for the notification; how much it is each municipality decides for itself — ask there. Nothing is sent from here.

Search term: Gewerbeanmeldung [name of your town or municipality]

Ready?

You can stop at any time and carry on later — what you enter stays on this device for 7 days. Payment comes only at the end.

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