When your German tax return is due, and what filing late costs.

If you have to file a German income tax return, the one for 2025 was due on 31 July 2026. If a Steuerberater prepares it, the deadline is 1 March 2027. Self-employed people have to file once their income is above the tax-free allowance; employees only in set cases, such as more than 410 euros of side income. Once the late-filing surcharge applies, it costs at least 25 euros for every month you are late. And if you never had to file, you have four years instead: a voluntary return for 2022 can still go in until 31 December 2026.

1. Who has to file

The Finanzamt doesn't expect a return from everyone. Whether you have to file depends on how you earn your money.

Self-employed: once you are above the allowance

If you are self-employed and have no salary, you have to file once your total income (Gesamtbetrag der Einkünfte, broadly your profit plus any other income) is above the basic tax-free allowance (Grundfreibetrag): 12,096 euros for 2025 and 12,348 euros for 2026, twice that for a married couple filing jointly (§ 56 EStDV, § 32a EStG). If you also have a job, the threshold is far lower: more than 410 euros of income that wasn't taxed through payroll (see the list below).

The return has to go in online through ELSTER, together with your profit statement (Einnahmenüberschussrechnung, EÜR). Paper is accepted only in hardship cases, on request (§ 25(4) EStG, § 60(4) EStDV). An annual VAT return and, for a trade, a trade tax return follow the same deadlines as the income tax return (see the VAT returns guide and the Kleinunternehmer guide for the small-business rules).

Employees: only in set cases

For employees, payroll tax (Lohnsteuer) usually settles the income tax. You only have to file in the cases listed in § 46(2) EStG. The common ones:

• more than 410 euros of income that wasn't taxed through payroll, such as freelance work on the side or rent;
• more than 410 euros of benefits that replace wages, such as unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld I), sick pay from the health insurer (Krankengeld), parental allowance (Elterngeld) or short-time pay (Kurzarbeitergeld). They are tax-free themselves but raise the rate on the rest of your income (§ 32b EStG);
• pay from two or more employers at the same time, the second job usually in tax class VI;
• a married couple or civil partners who both earn and use tax classes III and V, or IV with a factor;
• a tax allowance (Freibetrag) entered for payroll, unless total pay for the year stayed below a low threshold;
• a loss carried forward from an earlier year (§ 56 EStDV).

Anyone the Finanzamt asks

Whatever your income, you have to file if the Finanzamt asks you to (§ 149(1) AO). If none of this applies to you, filing is voluntary, and a different time limit applies (section 5).

2. The deadlines for 2024, 2025 and 2026

The basic rule: a return is due seven months after the tax year ends, so on 31 July of the following year (§ 149(2) AO). If a Steuerberater, or for some employees a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein, prepares the return, it is due on the last day of February of the second year after the tax year (§ 149(3) AO). A deadline that falls on a weekend or public holiday moves to the next working day (§ 108(3) AO).

The longer deadlines of the pandemic years are over. The last of them was for 2024 returns prepared by an advisor, which had until 30 April 2026 (Art. 97 § 36(3) EGAO). From the 2025 return on, the normal rules apply again.

So in October 2026, anyone who had to file for 2025 and does it themselves is already late (section 3). Where a Steuerberater is preparing the 2025 return, there is time until 1 March 2027. The law ties that longer deadline to an advisor being instructed to prepare the return, without saying by when. If you are late and are only now bringing in an advisor, ask them how your Finanzamt treats it before relying on the later date.

Two catches with the advisor deadline:

• The Finanzamt can ask for it earlier. With at least four months' notice, it can call in a return before the advisor deadline, for instance if last year's return was late, the last assessment ended in a back payment of at least 25% of the tax or more than 10,000 euros, you opened or closed a business in that year, or simply by random selection (§ 149(4) AO). This is called a Vorabanforderung.
• Extending it further is hard. Beyond the last day of February, an extension is granted only if you were prevented from filing through no fault of your own, and your advisor's fault counts as yours (§ 109(2) AO).

3. The late-filing surcharge

A return filed late can cost a late-filing surcharge (Verspätungszuschlag, § 152 AO). It works in two stages.

• Right after the deadline, it is optional. The Finanzamt may charge it, and must not if you show the delay was excusable. Your advisor's fault counts as yours.
• After 14 months, it is automatic. Once 14 months have passed since the end of the tax year, the surcharge must be charged. For 2025 returns that point is the end of February 2027; for 2024 returns it was 30 April 2026, after 16 months (Art. 97 § 36(3) EGAO).

The automatic surcharge doesn't apply if the Finanzamt extended your deadline, if the tax comes out at zero or as a refund, or if your prepayments and the tax withheld (such as payroll tax) already cover the tax (§ 152(3) AO). In those cases the optional surcharge remains possible.

The amount: for each month or part of a month you are late, 0.25% of the tax still owed after prepayments and withheld tax, but at least 25 euros a month, and no more than 25,000 euros in total (§ 152(5) and (10) AO). If the Finanzamt only asked you to file after the deadline, and until then you could assume you didn't have to, only the months after the date in its request count.

An example: a 2025 return that was due on 31 July 2026 and is filed on 15 March 2027 is late by eight started months. With 8,000 euros still to pay, 0.25% is 20 euros a month, so the minimum applies: 8 × 25 = 200 euros. With 20,000 euros still to pay, it is 50 euros a month: 400 euros.

Separately, back payments carry interest (Nachzahlungszinsen): 0.15% for each full month, 1.8% a year, starting 15 months after the end of the tax year, so on 1 April 2027 for 2025 (§ 233a AO, § 238 AO). For 2024 it started on 1 June 2026. The interest isn't a penalty: it runs whether or not you filed on time, and refunds earn it at the same rate. More on interest and paying ahead in the prepayments guide.

4. Asking for more time, with a letter to copy

The Finanzamt can extend a filing deadline, even retroactively when it would be unfair to let the consequences of missing it stand (§ 109(1) AO). There is no right to an extension, and no fee. What helps:

• ask before the deadline passes, not after;
• give your tax number, the tax year, the date you are asking for and a short, real reason, such as illness or a document you are still waiting for;
• send it through Mein ELSTER, which has a form for it, or by letter or email;
• ask for a confirmation. Some Finanzämter confirm every extension, others only reply if they refuse.

If an advisor prepares your return, the limit from section 2 applies: past the last day of February, only if you were prevented through no fault of your own.

The letter below is in German, which is what the Finanzamt expects. Replace the parts in square brackets.

Betreff: Antrag auf Fristverlängerung – Einkommensteuererklärung [Jahr]
Steuernummer: [Ihre Steuernummer]

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

ich beantrage, die Frist zur Abgabe meiner Einkommensteuererklärung für das Jahr [Jahr] bis zum [Datum] zu verlängern.

Begründung: [kurzer Grund, z. B. „Mir fehlt noch eine Bescheinigung, die ich am [Datum] angefordert habe.“]

Bitte bestätigen Sie mir die Fristverlängerung kurz.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
[Ihr Name]
[Ihre Anschrift]

5. Voluntary returns: four years back

If none of the cases in section 1 applies, you can still file (Antragsveranlagung, § 46(2) no. 8 EStG). Many employees do, because payroll tax doesn't know about their work-related costs, or about a year in which they only worked some of the months.

A voluntary return has no 31 July deadline. The limit is the four-year assessment period, counted from the end of the tax year (§ 169(2) AO, § 170(1) AO):

• 2022 return: until 31 December 2026;
• 2023 return: until 31 December 2027;
• 2025 return: until 31 December 2029.

Two things to keep in mind. A voluntary return can also end in a back payment: the Finanzamt assesses the whole year, not only the parts that help you. And if one of the cases in section 1 did apply, the return was never voluntary: it was due on the normal deadline, and the four years are not a filing deadline.

For people who had to file, the Finanzamt's clock works differently. The four years only start at the end of the year in which the return is filed, at the latest three years after the tax year, so a year can be assessed for up to seven years, and for ten where tax was evaded (§ 170(2) AO, § 169(2) AO).

6. If you don't file at all

Silence doesn't make the obligation go away. What usually follows, step by step:

• A reminder (Erinnerung) with a new deadline.
• A penalty payment (Zwangsgeld) to make you file. It has to be announced in writing first, with a deadline and an amount, and each one can be up to 25,000 euros (§ 332 AO, § 329 AO).
• An estimate. The Finanzamt estimates your income and issues an ordinary tax assessment on that basis (§ 162 AO). You still have to file afterwards (§ 149(1) AO). The estimate becomes final unless you challenge it within one month (§ 355 AO). The objection guide explains how.
• The surcharge and interest from section 3, on top of the tax.

And where tax is owed, deliberately leaving the Finanzamt unaware of taxable income is a criminal offence, tax evasion (§ 370(1) no. 2 AO). A letter from the Finanzamt about a missing return is worth answering quickly; the guide to Finanzamt letters explains the common ones.

Where it gets complicated: several years outstanding, income from abroad, a business that started or stopped, or an estimate that is already final. Whether you had to file for a given year, and what is still open, is something a Steuerberater checks against your own papers.

The short version