Fill in the Grundsicherungsgeld application in English

The application at the Jobcenter — for you and for everyone who lives with you.

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

Grundsicherungsgeld, formerly Bürgergeld, is the Jobcenters' benefit for living costs. It consists of a standard need for each person and of the costs for accommodation and heating.

It is paid only on application (§ 37 Abs. 1 Satz 1 SGB II). Responsible is the Jobcenter at the place of residence.

From when is it paid?

The application takes effect retroactively from the first of the month in which it arrives at the Jobcenter (§ 37 Abs. 2 Satz 2 SGB II). Anyone handing it in on the 28th of a month gets that month from the first.

It does not reach back further. For periods before the application nothing is provided. A month of hesitation is one month's amount, and that is not paid later.

The law requires an application, but no particular form. Anyone who has not yet gathered the set of official forms fixes the day with an informal message to the Jobcenter. In it stand the name, the address and the sentence that benefits are being applied for. The official forms then follow.

What you need to have ready

The Jobcenter expects the supporting documents together with the sheets. These four are missing most often:

Bank statements for the last three months — from every account of every person in the household, complete and without a gap.
Tenancy agreement as a copy, together with the latest statement of service charges. With owner-occupied property the interest and repayment schedule and the supporting documents on land tax and service charges take their place.
Proof of income: the payslips, with other payments the decision notice — pension, sick pay, maintenance, housing benefit.
Identity document or residence permit, social insurance number and tax identification number for every person.

On the bank statements you may black out individual entries among the outgoings; the payment reference must remain legible. Among the incomings this is not permitted — they are the reason the statements are asked for.

Anyone who works self-employed, has a trade or is active in agriculture and forestry additionally needs the figures for the annex EKS: income and expenditure, month by month, for the period the Jobcenter names.

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.

Always included

Hauptantrag Grundsicherungsgeld
Anlage VM — Selbstauskunft über das Vermögen
Anlage EK — Einkommen

Depending on your situation

Anlage WEP — weitere Person ab 15 Jahrenone sheet for each additional person in the household aged 15 and over
Anlage KI — Kind unter 15 Jahrenone sheet for each child under 15 in the household
Anlage EKS — Einkommen aus selbständiger Tätigkeitif someone is self-employed, has a trade or works in agriculture and forestry
Anlage KDU — Bedarfe für Unterkunft und Heizungif costs for housing and heating arise
Anlage UH1 — Unterhalt nach Trennung oder Scheidungif you are permanently separated, divorced, or your civil partnership has been dissolved
Anlage UH3 — Kindesunterhaltif someone under 25 lives in the household whose parent lives elsewhere
Anlage HG — Haushaltsgemeinschaftone sheet for each relative by blood or marriage in the household

What you enclose in addition

Not an official form, but documents you add yourself.

Unterlagen zur BetriebsrechnungThe EKS annex needs the documents that show the income and the expenses.
Mietvertrag oder Nachweis der WohnkostenAttach the tenancy agreement as a copy, together with the latest statement of ancillary costs.
Kontoauszüge der letzten drei MonateFrom all accounts of all people in the household, complete and without gaps.
Ihr Jobcenter führt die Kommune alleinIn your district the Jobcenter is run by an approved local authority body.

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

One price for the whole set — no matter how many people live in your household and how many sheets that produces.

Your case	What is produced	Price	Difference
One person	Main application, income, assets and housing.	29,90 €	—
Couple	Plus a sheet for the second person and their income.	29,90 €	—
Couple with two children	Plus a separate sheet for each child under 15.	29,90 €	—

The price is fixed — it does not depend on how extensive your case turns out to be. It is a one-off payment: no subscription, no account.

What belongs to the application

The main application is one sheet. Everything else hangs on who lives with you and how the work was done. For a single person it is four official forms, for a couple with two children six.

This is how the annexes arise:

For every further person aged 15 or over an annex WEP, for every child below that an annex KI.
For every person with their own income an annex EK; with self-employed work the annex EKS as well.
For the home the annex KDU, for the assets the annex VM — both concern the whole household and are filled in once.
If someone lives separated or divorced, the annex UH1 is added; if one parent lives outside, the annex UH3; if relatives live in the household too, the annex HG.

The form set is printed out, signed by hand and handed in at the Jobcenter. People aged 15 or over sign their sheets themselves; for younger children the person with custody signs.

What counts is the day on which the form set arrives at the Jobcenter — at the counter, in the office's letterbox or by post. Anyone handing it in should make a copy beforehand: in next year's continuation application the same details are required once more, and a sheet that comes back can only be traced with the copy.

What the calculation uses

The standard need is the amount for living costs without housing costs. It depends on the situation a person lives in:

Single or a single parent: 563 € per month.
Adult partners in a benefit household: 506 € each.
Adults without a household of their own, for example in their parents' household: 451 €.
Adolescents from the beginning of the fifteenth to the completion of the eighteenth year of life: 471 €.
Children from the beginning of the seventh to the completion of the fourteenth year of life: 390 €; children up to the completion of the sixth year of life: 357 €.

Additional needs come on top: 17 per cent from the thirteenth week of pregnancy. For single parents it is 36 per cent if they live with one child under seven or with two or three children under sixteen. If 12 per cent per child comes to more, that rate applies, at most 60 per cent (§ 21 Abs. 3 Nr. 2 Halbsatz 2 SGB II).

Accommodation and heating are recognised at the actual costs, as far as they are appropriate. What is appropriate is set by each town and each district itself; there is no nationwide figure for it.

For accommodation a grace period applies in the first year (12 months from the first month of benefit): the actual costs are recognised (§ 22 Abs. 1 Satz 2 SGB II). It does not apply to heating. Even during this period there is an upper limit: more than one and a half times the costs regarded as appropriate in the abstract is not recognised (§ 22 Abs. 1 Satz 6 SGB II). A new grace period only begins if no benefits were received for 3 years before.

Anyone who works keeps part of the earnings. Of earned income the following remains free from offsetting:

100 € per month as the basic deductible amount (§ 11b Abs. 2 Satz 1 SGB II).
20 percent of the part between 100 € and 520 €.
30 percent of the part between 520 € and 1.000 €.
10 percent of the part between 1.000 € and 1.200 € — with at least one minor child up to 1.500 € (§ 11b Abs. 3 Satz 3 SGB II).

Assets remain disregarded up to an allowance per person, graded by age: 5.000 € up to the completed 30th year of life, 10.000 € from the 31st, 12.500 € from the 41st and 20.000 € from the 51st year of life (§ 12 Abs. 2 Satz 1 SGB II i. d. F. des 13. SGB-II-ÄndG). Household effects, an appropriate motor vehicle for each person fit for work and retirement provision do not count.

These figures stand side by side and are not added up. Which amount is approved in the end the Jobcenter calculates from the details in the application.

Who receives the benefit

The law names four requirements that must be met together (§ 7 Abs. 1 Satz 1 SGB II):

The 15th year of life is completed and the age limit for the standard old-age pension not yet reached.
The person is fit for work — they can work at least three hours a day under the usual conditions.
The person is in need of assistance — the need is not covered from their own income and assets.
The habitual residence is in Germany.

The application is made for the whole benefit household: the partner, the children under 25 in the household and — for anyone not yet 25 themselves — the parents. Siblings, grandparents and other relatives do not belong to it, even if they live in the same home; for them there is a sheet of its own.

For people who are not fit for work or have reached the age limit, it is not this book that applies but the Twelfth Book of the Social Code. The application then goes not to the Jobcenter but to the social welfare office.

For how long it is approved

The entitlement is as a rule decided for one year (§ 41 Abs. 3 SGB II). After that a continuation application is needed; nothing continues by itself.

The period is shortened to six months above all in two situations: when the decision is provisional, and when the expenses for accommodation and heating are inappropriate. With self-employed work the decision is provisional almost always, because the income is estimated first.

If something changes during the receipt — income, a move, one person more or fewer in the household — this must be reported to the Jobcenter. The approval then does not continue unchanged.

Questions about particular cases

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

Hand in at the Jobcenter

Take the application to your Jobcenter or send it there by post. Which one is responsible depends on where you live; you will find the address through the Federal Employment Agency's office search. The application is not sent from here. What counts is the day it arrives at the Jobcenter. The application then takes effect retroactively from the first day of that month (Section 37 subsection 2 sentence 2 of the Second Book of the Social Code).

Search term: Jobcenter

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