Leaving Germany: the tax side

Your full German tax liability ends when you no longer have a home in Germany and no longer live here. Deregistering is part of that, but it doesn't decide it on its own. For the year you leave, you file one German return after the year ends, and what you earn abroad after the move still raises the rate on your German income. After that, Germany taxes only income from Germany, such as rent from a flat you keep. If you hold 1% or more of a company, leaving can trigger exit tax on a gain you have never realised, so that part has to be looked at before you go.

1. Deregistering, and what it changes

If you move out and don't move into another home in Germany, you have to deregister (Abmeldung) with the registration office within two weeks of moving out. You can do it at the earliest one week before (§ 17(2) BMG). Keep the confirmation: it is the simplest proof of the date you left.

For tax, though, the test is the same as when you arrived: do you still have a home here, or still live here (§ 8 AO, § 9 AO)? A flat you keep and can use when you come back is a home, deregistered or not, and keeps you fully taxable in Germany. A flat you have given up, or let out long-term to someone else, generally isn't. The guide to moving to Germany explains both tests.

What stays the same:

• Your tax ID. It is yours for life and doesn't change when you move (§ 139b AO).
• Your Finanzamt, for the year you leave and for anything still open. If you keep German income, the office in charge can change (section 3).

Set up your ELSTER account before you deregister. The activation code comes by post to the address the registration office holds for you (ELSTER help), which is much easier while that is still your German address.

2. The return for the year you leave

Income tax is assessed per calendar year, after the year ends (§ 25(1) EStG). If you leave in 2026, your return for 2026 is filed in 2027. It covers:

• until you left: your income from everywhere, as a resident;
• after you left: any income still from Germany, folded into the same return (§ 2(7) EStG).

Your foreign income after the move, such as a new salary abroad, isn't taxed in Germany. It does count when the rate on your German income is worked out (Progressionsvorbehalt, § 32b(1) no. 2 EStG). Once that foreign income passes €410, an employee has to file a return (§ 46(2) no. 1 EStG). The example in the moving guide shows how much the rate can move.

Wage tax is withheld each month as if you earned that month's salary all year. So if you worked in Germany for only part of the year, more may have been withheld than the year's tax. The foreign income on top can push it back the other way. Which effect is bigger depends entirely on the figures.

A compulsory return for 2026 is due by 2 August 2027, because 31 July 2027 is a Saturday. If a Steuerberater prepares it, the deadline is the end of February 2028 (§ 149(2) and (3) AO; § 108(3) AO). A voluntary return can be filed up to four years after the end of the year (§ 169(2) AO). The tax return deadline guide has the dates for every year.

3. After you leave: income from Germany

Once you have left, you are a non-resident (beschränkt steuerpflichtig). For the rest of the year you leave, that is folded into your final return. From the next year on, Germany taxes only income listed as German income in § 49 EStG, and a treaty with your new country can narrow that further (§ 1(4) EStG). The usual cases:

• Rent from a flat in Germany. It stays taxable in Germany (§ 49(1) no. 6 EStG), and you file a return for it each year with the Finanzamt where the property is (§ 19(2) AO). Non-residents get no basic allowance on it, so tax starts with the first euro of profit (§ 50(1) EStG).
• Selling that flat within ten years of buying it is taxable in Germany too (§ 49(1) no. 8 EStG with § 23 EStG). The exemption for a home you lived in yourself depends on how you used it in the year of sale and the two years before, so letting it out after you move matters.
• Salary from a German employer for work you do in Germany stays German income (§ 49(1) no. 4 EStG). Salary as managing director of a company managed in Germany counts as German income wherever you work. A treaty can still limit both.
• Dividends from a German company keep having 25% capital gains tax plus solidarity surcharge withheld, and for a non-resident that is normally the end of it (§ 43a EStG; § 50(2) EStG). Where a treaty caps the rate lower, the difference is reclaimed from the BZSt within four years (§ 50c(3) EStG). Ordinary interest from a German bank account is generally not German income once you live abroad (§ 49(1) no. 5 EStG), so tell your bank you have moved.
• A German state pension paid to you abroad is German income (§ 49(1) no. 7 EStG), and the treaty decides who taxes it in the end. People abroad whose only German income is a pension deal with one central office, Finanzamt Neubrandenburg.

If almost all your income is still German, you can apply to be taxed as a resident anyway: at least 90% of your income must be taxable in Germany, or your other income must be no more than the basic allowance (€12,348 for 2026, reduced for some countries) (§ 1(3) EStG).

One special rule applies to German citizens who were fully taxable here for at least five of the last ten years and move to a low-tax country while keeping substantial economic interests in Germany. For ten years after the year they leave, Germany can tax more of their income than usual, in years in which that income exceeds €16,500 (§ 2 AStG).

4. Exit tax on company shares

This is the part founders and early employees need to know about before they book a flight. When your full German tax liability ends, Germany treats your shares as if you had sold them at market value on that day, and taxes the gain (Wegzugsbesteuerung, § 6 AStG). No money changes hands, but the tax is real.

It applies when both of these are true:

• You hold, or held at any time in the last five years, at least 1% of a corporation, German or foreign: a GmbH, a UG, an AG or a foreign equivalent. Rights to acquire shares count as well (§ 17(1) EStG).
• You were fully taxable in Germany for at least seven of the last twelve years (§ 6(2) AStG). Before 2022 it was ten years.

The same deemed sale happens if you give the shares to someone who isn't taxable in Germany, or if you stay registered here but a treaty makes you resident elsewhere (§ 6(1) AStG). Since 2025 it also covers investment fund units, including ETFs, if you held at least 1% of the fund in the last five years or your units cost at least €500,000 (§ 19(3) InvStG).

How it is taxed and paid:

• The gain is the market value minus what you paid. As with a real sale of a 1% holding, 60% of it is taxable at your normal income tax rate (§ 3 no. 40 EStG).
• On application, the tax can be paid in seven equal annual instalments, without interest, but as a rule only against security. The first is due a month after the assessment, the others on 31 July of each following year (§ 6(4) AStG).
• Whatever is still unpaid falls due if you miss an instalment, sell or give away the shares, or receive distributions worth more than a quarter of the value taxed.
• While instalments run, you confirm your address and that you still hold the shares to the Finanzamt every year by 31 July (§ 6(5) AStG).

Before 2022, someone moving within the EU or EEA could defer the tax indefinitely and interest-free. That is gone: since 2022 the same rules apply wherever you move, and older cases keep the old rules (§ 21(3) AStG).

If you come back. When the move is only temporary and you are fully taxable in Germany again within seven years, the tax lapses, as long as you haven't sold the shares, haven't received distributions worth more than a quarter of their value, and Germany's taxing right is restored. The Finanzamt can extend the seven years by up to five more if you still intend to return (§ 6(3) AStG).

The rule is current: in December 2025 the Bundestag rejected a motion to abolish it (BT-Drs. 21/3343), and no change was pending on 22 October 2026. Valuing an unlisted company, arranging security and timing the move are work for a Steuerberater, and all of it has to happen before the date you leave.

5. Closing or moving your business

Freelancers (Freiberufler) tell the Finanzamt within one month that they have given up their work, the same way they registered it (§ 138(1) and (4) AO). Trades (Gewerbe) deregister with the trade office (§ 14(1) GewO), which passes it on to the Finanzamt.

• The last profit statement runs to the day you stop. VAT returns are due up to the end as well.
• Giving up a business is taxed like selling it: business assets you keep, such as a car, equipment or receivables, count at their value (§ 16(3) EStG; § 18(3) EStG for freelancers).
• Taking the business with you can count as giving it up, if Germany loses the right to tax its assets (§ 16(3a) EStG). For a move to another EU or EEA country, the tax on that can be paid in five annual instalments (§ 36(5) EStG).
• Keeping German clients from abroad: whether Germany can still tax that income depends on where you do the work, whether you keep a fixed place of business here, and the treaty (§ 49(1) no. 3 EStG). VAT follows its own rules. See the VAT returns guide.

Your records outlive the business and your stay. Books and annual accounts are kept for 10 years, invoices and other accounting vouchers for 8 years, and business letters for 6 years (§ 147(3) AO). The bookkeeping guide covers what counts as what.

A GmbH or UG doesn't move when you do. It stays a German company, with German returns, as long as it is managed from Germany. If you go on running it from abroad, its place of management can move with you, which brings questions of its own, including tax on the company's assets (§ 12 KStG). Your shares in it are covered by section 4. The guide to company taxes has the basics.

6. Prepayments, refunds and your new address

If you pay quarterly income tax prepayments, they keep being due on 10 March, 10 June, 10 September and 10 December until the Finanzamt changes them. They are based on your last assessment. The Finanzamt can adjust them to the tax it now expects for the year (§ 37(1) and (3) EStG), but it won't know your income has stopped unless you tell it. The guide to tax prepayments explains how they are set.

Anything paid too much comes back after the assessment for the year you left, to the account you have given the Finanzamt. Make sure it has an account that will still exist.

Tell the Finanzamt your new address. If you move outside the EU and EEA, it can ask you to name someone in Germany to receive its letters (Empfangsbevollmächtigter). If you don't, its letters count as delivered one month after posting, unless it is clear they never arrived (§ 123 AO). That matters because the one month to object to an assessment runs from delivery (§ 355(1) AO). The guide to objecting to an assessment explains the procedure.

The letter below covers the address, the account and, where they apply, the end of freelance work and a request to review prepayments. It is in German. Replace the parts in square brackets and delete any optional line that doesn't apply.

Betreff: Wegzug ins Ausland – neue Anschrift
Steuernummer: [Ihre Steuernummer]
Steuer-ID: [Ihre Steuer-ID]

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

ich bin am [Datum] aus Deutschland weggezogen und habe mich bei der Meldebehörde abgemeldet. Die Abmeldebestätigung liegt bei.

Meine neue Anschrift lautet:
[Straße, Hausnummer]
[Postleitzahl, Ort]
[Land]

Bitte senden Sie Schreiben und Bescheide künftig an diese Anschrift.

[Optional: Empfangsbevollmächtigte(r) in Deutschland ist: [Name, Anschrift].]

Erstattungen bitte auf folgendes Konto:
Kontoinhaber: [Ihr Name]
IBAN: [Ihre IBAN]
BIC: [BIC]

[Optional: Meine freiberufliche Tätigkeit als [Tätigkeit] habe ich zum [Datum] aufgegeben.]

[Optional: Seit dem [Datum] erziele ich keine Einkünfte aus [Art der Einkünfte] in Deutschland mehr. Ich bitte daher, die Vorauszahlungen zur Einkommensteuer zu überprüfen und anzupassen.]

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
[Ihr Name]

Send it by post or as a message through your ELSTER account. If you had a trade, the trade office passes on the deregistration itself, so the optional line on freelance work is for Freiberufler.

7. The pension contribution refund, in outline

Contributions to the German state pension don't come back automatically. A refund (Beitragserstattung) exists for people who are no longer compulsorily insured in Germany and have no right to insure voluntarily (§ 210 SGB VI). In outline:

• Who: mostly nationals of countries outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland who move to a country outside them. Germans generally can't get one, because they can always insure voluntarily, and moving within Europe usually rules it out too. Social security agreements between Germany and your country can change the answer.
• When: only after 24 calendar months without German compulsory insurance (§ 210(2) SGB VI).
• How much: the contributions you paid yourself. For employees that is the employee's half, not the employer's (§ 210(3) SGB VI).
• What you give up: the refund ends your German pension record. With five years of contributions you would usually have a pension instead, paid abroad too.
• Tax: the refund is tax-free in Germany (§ 3 no. 3 EStG).

The application from abroad is form V0901, and the Deutsche Rentenversicherung explains the conditions for leavers in its FAQ on refunds. It advises free of charge, and your insurance record (Versicherungsverlauf) shows how many months you have.

If you have a Riester pension contract, the state allowances have to be paid back if you live outside the EU and EEA once payments start (§ 95 EStG).

Before you go, in order

These are the general rules, not an assessment of your case. Whether you still have a German home, how a treaty treats your income and what exit tax would mean for you depend on facts an article can't see. A Steuerberater can check your own situation.