Legal Information About Germany

Starting a business in Germany

When setting up in Germany you need to decide on the most appropriate legal form for your business, its name, objects, shareholders, directors and share capital. You also need to know about any registration, possible licensing and prescribed subscriptions to organisations.

We are happy to assist you with these and many other issues relating to your activities in Germany.

We can provide you with our leaflets on Setting up a GmbH and General registration requirements (other than tax registrations) for a business. Our leaflets are available free of charge.

Employees

If you employ staff in Germany you will be invariably confronted by issues of German employment law such as minimum contents of an employment contract, entitlement to holiday, minimum periods of notice or unfair dismissal legislation.  

You may also wish to know the rates of national insurance contributions, which both employer and employee have to pay in Germany. Or you may be wondering if there is a German equivalent to the employers’ liability insurance. We will be happy to tell you. We charge an hourly rate for our service.

We can provide you with a leaflet on the basics of German employment law, which is free of charge.

Commercial agents

When you sell your products to Germany you may need someone to represent you there. Often you have to choose whether this should be a commercial agent (Handelsvertreter) or a distributor (Vertragshändler) or an employed salesperson (Außendienstmitarbeiter). We can inform you about the legal differences of each type of representative.

Equally, if you have been appointed as commercial agent by a German company and your contract is subject to German law, you may wish to know about minimum notice periods under German law and if there is a claim to a compensation upon termination of the agency. We can tell you what the legal provisions are.