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Read these eight clauses before you sign
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- A written record is your right: the contract itself can be agreed by handshake, but your employer must give you the essential terms in writing or as a PDF, most of them by your seventh day on the job.
- What the law fixes for you: the minimum wage, 20 days of paid vacation on a five-day week, an eight-hour working day and a notice period of four weeks. A contract can only improve on these.
- What to negotiate: salary, the length of the probation period, overtime pay, extra vacation days and the notice period, which may be the same for both sides but never longer for you than for the employer.
Most contracts you will be offered are standard forms. That is good news: the clauses that matter are the same across companies, and German law has already decided what several of them may and may not say. Work through the eight points below with the offer in front of you, and run the gross salary through the salary calculator to see what actually lands in your account.
If the contract is ever disputed, who pays?
Contract disputes end up at the labor court, and in the first instance each side pays its own lawyer, even the side that wins. Legal insurance with the employment module carries that cost. Most policies wait three months after you sign before employment disputes are covered, some six, so the useful moment to take it out is the start of a new job, not the day a problem appears.
Feather and Getsafe sell and handle claims in English. What the modules cover and exclude: legal insurance in Germany.
What has to be in writing
A German employment contract is valid even if nothing is signed. What the law requires is a written record of the essential terms, signed by the employer and handed to you. Since 2025 a PDF by email counts, as long as you can save and print it and the employer asks you to confirm receipt. You can still ask for a signed paper copy. The PDF route is closed in a few sectors, among them construction, hospitality, cleaning, logistics and security, where the record stays on paper.
| Terms | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Names and addresses of both parties. Pay: base salary, overtime pay, bonuses and allowances listed separately, when each is due and how it is paid. Working hours, breaks and rest periods, shift system | Your first working day |
| Start date. End date or expected duration of a fixed term. Place of work. Short description of the job. Probation period, if agreed. On-call rules. Conditions under which overtime can be ordered | The seventh calendar day after the agreed start |
| Vacation days. Training the employer provides. Name and address of the company pension provider. How to terminate: written form, notice periods and the three-week deadline for challenging a dismissal. A note on applicable collective agreements | One month after the agreed start |
| Source: Act on Proof of Employment Conditions (Nachweisgesetz), retrieved 4 November 2026. | |
If a term changes later, the employer has to tell you in writing by the day the change takes effect. Keep every version you receive.
Probation period
A probation period exists only if the contract says so. It can last up to six months. During it, either side can end the job with two weeks’ notice, on any day of the month, and the employer needs no reason. In a fixed-term contract the probation has to be in proportion to the length of the contract. What else starts and ends in the first six months: Probezeit explained month by month.
Fixed-term contracts
A fixed term (Befristung) is only valid in writing. Without giving a reason, the employer may limit the contract to two years in total and extend it up to three times within that period, but not if you have worked for the same employer before. Companies in their first four years may go up to four years. With a reason, such as covering parental leave or a funded project, longer terms are possible.
A fixed-term contract ends on the agreed date. Neither side can resign or dismiss during the term unless the contract allows ordinary termination. Check that line before you sign a three-year contract you might want to leave after one.
Pay
The record has to show how your pay is made up: base salary, bonuses, allowances, overtime pay and when each is due. Salary is due at the end of the period it covers, for most people the end of the month. The floor is the statutory minimum wage of €13.90 per hour, and it rises to €14.60 on 1 January 2027. No contract can go below it. Up to €603 a month you are in minijob territory, with its own rules on tax and insurance: minijobs in Germany.
Working hours and overtime
The working day may not exceed eight hours. Ten hours are allowed if the average over six months comes back down to eight. Your contract states the weekly hours and, if the employer wants to be able to order overtime, under which conditions.
Read the overtime sentence twice. A clause that says all necessary overtime is covered by your salary is invalid when the contract does not say how many extra hours that means. Germany’s Federal Labor Court decided that in 2010, and it means hours worked under such a clause can still be claimed. How to document and claim them: overtime in Germany.
Vacation
The statutory minimum is 24 working days on a six-day week, which is 20 days if you work Monday to Friday. Many contracts give more, and every extra day is negotiable. The minimum cannot be reduced by contract. Carry-over, vacation pay and leaving mid-year: vacation days in Germany.
Notice period
If the contract says nothing, you can resign with four weeks’ notice to the 15th or to the end of a month. The employer’s notice period grows with your years in the company, from one month after two years to seven months after twenty. Contracts often set one period for both sides, which is allowed. What is not allowed is a longer notice period for you than for the employer.
Every resignation and every dismissal must be a signed letter on paper. An email does not count. Template and date examples: how to resign in Germany. Once you have been with a company for more than six months and it has more than ten employees, the employer needs a legally recognized reason to dismiss you, and you have three weeks from receiving the letter to challenge a dismissal in court.
Non-compete clauses
A clause that stops you from working for competitors after you leave binds you only if three things hold: it is in writing, you receive a signed copy, and the employer pays you compensation for the whole period of the ban, at least half of your last pay for each year. The ban may not run longer than two years after the job ends. A non-compete without a compensation clause does not bind you. If you see one, ask for the compensation to be added or for the clause to go.
Bottom line
Worth negotiating before you sign: salary, overtime pay and extra vacation days. Ask for an hour count in a vague overtime clause and for compensation in a non-compete. On a fixed-term offer, check whether you can leave early.
Part of working in Germany. Before the contract: finding a job · the German CV. After signing: Probezeit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ask for it in writing. The claim does not go away quickly: the limitation period only starts at the end of the year in which the job ends. If the employer sent a PDF and you want a signed paper version, you can demand that too, and the employer has to deliver it without delay.
No. A fixed term and every extension of it are only valid in writing with signatures. Sign the extension before the current term runs out. If you simply keep working after the end date with the employer’s knowledge and nobody objects, the contract counts as extended for an indefinite period.
Only within what the contract allows. The employer’s right to give instructions covers the content, time and place of your work, but it stops where the contract sets a place or a role. A clause allowing transfer anywhere in Germany is therefore worth narrowing before you sign.
Your employment passes to the buyer with all its rights and duties. You have to be informed in writing beforehand, and you can object to the transfer in writing within one month of that information. If you object, you stay with the old employer, who may no longer have a job for you, so take advice before you do.
Yes. Every employee working in Germany is entitled to it, whatever their nationality and wherever the employer is based. A contract or agreement that sets a lower hourly rate is invalid on that point, and you can claim the difference.
Sources and legal basis (as of 4 November 2026)
Sources and legal basis (as of 4 November 2026)
- Labor Court Act (Arbeitsgerichtsgesetz), § 12a: no reimbursement of lawyer’s fees in the first instance.
- Act on Proof of Employment Conditions (Nachweisgesetz), § 2: the written record, its contents, text form and deadlines; § 3: changes.
- German Civil Code (BGB), § 126b: text form.
- Act to Combat Undeclared Work (Schwarzarbeitsbekämpfungsgesetz), § 2a: the sectors in which the record must stay on paper.
- German Civil Code, § 622: notice periods, probation, no longer period for the employee than for the employer; § 623: written form of termination.
- Part-Time and Fixed-Term Employment Act (TzBfG), § 14: fixed terms with and without a reason, written form; § 15: end of a fixed-term contract, probation in proportion, no ordinary termination unless agreed.
- German Civil Code, § 612 and § 614: pay and when it is due.
- Minimum Wage Act (Mindestlohngesetz), § 1 and § 3; Fifth Minimum Wage Adjustment Ordinance, MiLoV5: €13.90 from 1 January 2026, €14.60 from 1 January 2027; Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, minimum wage (in German).
- Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz), § 3: eight hours, ten with compensation.
- Federal Labor Court, judgment of 1 September 2010, 5 AZR 517/09: a blanket clause covering all overtime with the salary is not transparent if the amount of overtime is unclear.
- Federal Vacation Act (Bundesurlaubsgesetz), § 3: 24 working days; § 13: no reduction by contract.
- Protection Against Dismissal Act (Kündigungsschutzgesetz), § 1, § 4 and § 23: six months, more than ten employees, three-week deadline; Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, protection against dismissal (in German).
- Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch), § 74 and § 74a: post-contractual non-compete, compensation of at least half the last pay, two-year maximum.
- German Civil Code, § 611a: the employer’s right to give instructions; § 613a: transfer of the business, information and objection within one month.
Further sources (retrieved on 4 November 2026). Legal insurance waiting periods: the providers’ product pages as documented on our page legal insurance in Germany. Product data: our own product database.