German statutory lodgement: Lohnsteueranmeldung, Beitragsnachweis and the DEÜV cycle

The calendar at a glance

As verified against the BMF's official 2026 form instructions, the Deutsche Rentenversicherung's 2026 Meldungen and Beiträge brochures, the Minijob-Zentrale and DGUV on 10 July 2026 (calendar-year 2026 values):

DEÜV deadlines that land on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday roll to the next working day (§ 26 Abs. 1 SGB X with §§ 187–193 BGB, as the DRV brochure sets out) — which is why the 2025 Jahresmeldung was due 16 February 2026: 15 February 2026 was a Sunday.

Clock one: the Lohnsteuer-Anmeldung, by the 10th, via ELSTER

Wage tax withheld from employees is self-reported to the Betriebsstätten-Finanzamt on the Lohnsteuer-Anmeldung, and both the return and the money are due by the 10th day after the end of the Anmeldungszeitraum. How long that period is depends on the previous calendar year's remittable Lohnsteuer, per the official BMF form instructions for 2026:

• More than €5,000 → the period is the calendar month.
• More than €1,080 but not more than €5,000 → the calendar quarter.
• €1,080 or less → the calendar year.

If the business didn't exist for the whole previous year, the prior-year figure is annualised; a brand-new business annualises the wage tax of its first full calendar month. And the channel is fixed: the Anmeldung must be transmitted electronically, authenticated, per officially prescribed data set — the ELSTER rail, whether through Mein ELSTER or ERiC-based payroll software. Paper survives only on application, where electronic filing would be an unbillige Härte (unreasonable hardship).

Two details trip up new employers. First, a nil Anmeldung is still an Anmeldung: you must keep filing even in months with nothing withheld, until you notify the Finanzamt that no wage tax arises. Second, the 2% flat-rate tax for minijobbers is not reported here at all — it rides the Minijob-Zentrale rail to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Knappschaft-Bahn-See instead.

Lateness is dealt with briskly. On late filing, the form instructions say: "Trifft die Anmeldung nicht rechtzeitig ein, so kann das Finanzamt zu der Lohnsteuer einen Verspätungszuschlag festsetzen" — "if the return does not arrive on time, the tax office can assess a late-filing surcharge on the wage tax" (our translation). For Lohnsteuer-Anmeldungen the surcharge stays discretionary and § 152 AO's percentage formula does not apply (§ 152 Abs. 8 Satz 1 AO disapplies it); instead it is measured by the duration and frequency of the lateness and the amount of the tax (Abs. 8 Satz 2), capped at €25,000 (Abs. 10). On late payment, a Säumniszuschlag of 1% per commenced month of the arrears, rounded down to €50 (excluding church tax), accrues — though not before the tax has been assessed or angemeldet (§ 240 Abs. 1 AO).

Clock two: the Beitragsnachweis — a deadline that expires at 0:00

Social-insurance contributions run against each employee's Krankenkasse as Einzugsstelle (collection point — the Minijob-Zentrale for minijobs), and the monthly rhythm has two beats, both counted in bank working days from the end of the month:

• Fifth-last bank working day, 0:00: the Beitragsnachweis (contribution statement) must be present at every Einzugsstelle at the start of that day. The DRV's 2026 Beiträge brochure spells out what that means in practice: "Zur Wahrung der Frist muss der Beitragsnachweis jeweils am Vortag bis spätestens 24.00 Uhr übermittelt werden" — "to meet the deadline, the contribution statement must in each case be transmitted by 24:00 on the previous day" (our translation).
• Third-last bank working day: the Gesamtsozialversicherungsbeitrag falls due — in voraussichtlicher Höhe, the estimated amount of the month's contribution debt, because the deadline lands before many payrolls close (§ 23 Abs. 1 Satz 2 SGB IV).

The estimate must be set so the residual stays as small as possible, and the parameters behind it must be documented and auditable. Alternatively, the Vereinfachungsregel lets you simply pay at the level of the previous month's final contributions, with the true-up in the following month's payroll — any Restbeitrag is due on the third-last bank working day of the following month either way. Two catches: the simplification does not apply to Einmalzahlungen (one-off payments are due in the month actually paid out, even if that's after the month's due date), and once elected it applies to all of your Einzugsstellen. Note also that 24 and 31 December don't count as bank working days, and the day of payment is the value date (Wertstellung) at the Einzugsstelle — not the day you sent the transfer.

The Beitragsnachweis is not a courtesy copy of your payroll. The transmitted electronic statement "gilt als Leistungsbescheid der Einzugsstelle" — it counts as an enforceable decision of the collection point (our translation; the statute, § 28f Abs. 3 SGB IV, frames this as applying for enforcement and, in insolvency, as substantiation of the claims). There is no Korrektur-Beitragsnachweis: corrections flow into the current statement or via storno and re-submission. And if a month exceptionally produces no contributions, a nil Beitragsnachweis is still required — if the statement is missing or late, the Einzugsstelle can estimate the pay on which contributions are calculated until a proper one arrives (a discretionary power under § 28f Abs. 3 Satz 2 SGB IV). Contribution arrears attract the SV Säumniszuschlag: 1% per commenced month on the amount rounded down to €50; claims limit at four years, or thirty where contributions were intentionally withheld.

Clock three: the DEÜV event stream

Where the Beitragsnachweis moves money, the DEÜV Meldungen (per § 28a SGB IV and the DEÜV regulation) build each employee's insurance record. The core catalogue, per the DRV's 2026 Meldungen brochure:

• Anmeldung (Grund 10) — the start of insured employment, with the first payroll run, at latest six weeks after the start. The brochure's worked example: employment starting 1 January 2026 must be angemeldet by 12 February 2026.
• Abmeldung (Grund 30) — the end of employment, with the next payroll run, at latest six weeks after the end, stating the period and the contributory pay earned in the reporting year. If no Anmeldung was ever filed by the time employment ends, a combined An-/Abmeldung (Grund 40) may go instead.
• Jahresmeldung (Grund 50) — for everyone employed over 31 December, with the first payroll run of the new year, at latest 15 February. For reporting year 2025 the operative date was 16 February 2026 (15 February fell on a Sunday); for 2026 it is 15 February 2027. Not required for kurzfristige Beschäftigungen; an Abmeldung replaces it if employment ends exactly on 31 December.
• Unterbrechungsmeldung (Gründe 51–53) — an unpaid interruption of at least one full calendar month with health/care-insurance membership continuing (Krankengeld, Elternzeit, statutory service), within two weeks after the end of the first full calendar month. An unpaid interruption of more than one month without such continuation (unpaid leave, industrial action) becomes an Abmeldung (Grund 34/35) instead; interruptions of less than one month trigger no report at all.
• Sofortmeldung (Grund 20) — in eleven listed black-labour-risk sectors, a report for every worker at the latest when work commences, transmitted directly to the DSRV. The 2026 list is longer than older summaries suggest: construction; hospitality and accommodation; passenger transport; freight, transport and associated logistics including platform-based delivery services; the showmen's trade; building cleaning; trade-fair and exhibition set-up; the meat industry (except the butcher's craft); the prostitution trade; security — and hairdressing and cosmetics.

The channel is as strict as the calendar. The DRV states it in one sentence: "Die Übermittlung von Daten im Rahmen der … Meldeverfahren erfolgt ausschließlich durch gesicherte und verschlüsselte Datenübertragung aus systemgeprüften Entgeltabrechnungsprogrammen oder mittels systemgeprüfter elektronischer Ausfüllhilfen (§ 95b SGB IV)" — data in these reporting procedures travel "exclusively by secured and encrypted data transmission from system-tested payroll programs or via system-tested electronic completion aids" (our translation). There is no paper channel. Employers without a system-tested payroll program must use a system-tested Ausfüllhilfe — the official one being the SV-Meldeportal (§ 95a SGB IV), which requires an ELSTER-Organisationszertifikat to register, charges a usage fee (€36 net per 36 months for one Betriebsnummer, €99 for several), and pointedly computes neither pay nor contributions. Every transmission carries the certification ID of the software that produced it.

Clock four: two different 16 Februaries

Accident insurance (Unfallversicherung) closes the year with two distinct obligations that share a deadline — 16 February of the following year, a date set in statute (§ 99 Abs. 1 SGB IV):

• The digital Lohnnachweis (§ 165 SGB VII with § 99 SGB IV): a summary report of pay and hours for the completed year to the UV carrier, transmitted with Unternehmensnummer and PIN from a system-tested program or Ausfüllhilfe, preceded by a mandatory automated master-data reconciliation against the DGUV Stammdatendatei (§ 101 SGB IV). Out-of-cycle Lohnnachweise (insolvency, closure, end of all employment) are due with the next payroll run, at latest within six weeks.
• The DEÜV UV-Jahresmeldung (Grund 92): a per-employee report of UV-contributory pay, allocated to the applicable Gefahrtarifstelle — likewise by 16 February.

Don't collapse these into the 15 February Jahresmeldung: 15 February (Grund 50) and 16 February (UV) are different statutory dates, even in a year like 2026 when the weekend roll made both land on the same Monday.

A fifth, sampling-based clock exists for some employers: the Verdiensterhebung (earnings survey) has run monthly since January 2022; at most 58,000 establishments are sampled, and those selected are under a statutory duty to respond (Auskunftspflicht) per the Verdienststatistikgesetz, per online form or electronic transmission (Destatis).

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