Getting Fired in Germany: The Three Week Deadline and Your Visa

1. Three Weeks, Then the Dismissal Stands

Under the Kündigungsschutzgesetz you have three weeks from receiving the written dismissal to file a Kündigungsschutzklage at the Arbeitsgericht.

Miss it and the dismissal is treated as legally effective, even if it was socially unjustified, badly reasoned or procedurally flawed. The court will not examine the merits afterwards. There is no grace period for people who were ill, abroad, or still looking for a lawyer.

The clock starts when the letter reaches you, not when you open it. A letter in your postbox while you are on holiday still starts it.

Two things follow. Note the date the letter arrived. And decide within days, not weeks, whether you want the job back, a settlement, or a clean reference and a quick exit.

2. When Dismissal Protection Applies

The Kündigungsschutzgesetz does not protect everyone. It applies when both conditions are met:

• Your employer regularly employs more than ten people (part-timers count proportionally), and
• your employment has lasted longer than six months.

Below those thresholds you are in a Kleinbetrieb or still in the first six months, and the employer may dismiss without giving a socially justified reason. Protection against discriminatory or immoral dismissal still exists, and so do the notice periods, but the strong protection does not.

During an agreed probation period the notice is two weeks, and either side may end the contract on any date.

3. How Long the Notice Period Runs

The statutory baseline in §622 BGB is four weeks to the 15th or the end of a calendar month. That is the period you owe your employer when you resign.

When the employer dismisses, the period grows with your time in the company:

| Employed for | Notice period | |---|---| | 2 years | 1 month to month end | | 5 years | 2 months | | 8 years | 3 months | | 10 years | 4 months | | 12 years | 5 months | | 15 years | 6 months | | 20 years | 7 months |

Your contract or a collective agreement may set longer periods, and the longer one wins. A dismissal with too short a notice is not automatically void; it usually takes effect on the correct later date instead.

4. Severance Is Not an Entitlement

Germany has no general right to severance pay. Expats often assume the opposite because settlements are so common in practice.

Where a payment appears, it comes from one of two places. §1a KSchG offers a statutory formula of 0.5 monthly gross salaries per year of employment, with periods over six months rounded up to a full year, but only when the employer dismisses for urgent operational reasons, offers the payment in the letter, and you let the three weeks pass without filing.

The far more common route is a settlement in court. Employers settle because a lost case means back pay and reinstatement, so the filed claim is what creates the negotiating position. The 0.5 factor tends to be the anchor, and the real number moves with how weak the dismissal looks.

Severance is fully taxable, and since 1 January 2025 your employer no longer applies the Fünftelregelung in payroll. The full tax comes off first, and you claim the relief back through your income tax return, where the Finanzamt applies §34 EStG if that works out cheaper for you. Skip the return and the relief is lost. Social security contributions do not apply to severance, because it is not payment for work.

5. The Signature That Costs Three Months

An Aufhebungsvertrag, a mutual termination agreement, ends the contract by agreement. It often arrives with friendly framing and a deadline of the same afternoon.

Signing it usually triggers a Sperrzeit of twelve weeks on unemployment benefit, because you participated in ending your own employment. With a standard twelve-month entitlement, the benefit period drops to nine months and payments start only after the block. A shorter block of six or three weeks applies in defined cases, and a genuine important reason removes it entirely, but you carry the burden of proving that reason.

6. Two Deadlines at the Agentur für Arbeit

Registering as job-seeking is separate from claiming benefit, and it has its own timing.

• Report as arbeitsuchend three months before the contract ends, or within three days of receiving the dismissal if less than three months remain.
• Register as arbeitslos on your first day without work at the latest.

Missing the first deadline usually costs a one-week Sperrzeit. Registration works online, and it does not commit you to anything, so it costs nothing to do it the day the letter arrives. Our guide to unemployment benefits covers the amounts, the contribution history you need, and what happens with a Sperrzeit on top.

7. What It Means for Your Residence Permit

A permit tied to employment does not vanish when the job does, but the authority needs to hear from you.

Blue Card holders must notify the Ausländerbehörde of a change of employer during the first twelve months, under §82 AufenthG, and delay can put the card at risk. Losing the job does not end the Blue Card automatically: the authority decides how long you may search, and in practice at least three months is regularly granted, with longer periods possible for people who have held the card for years.

Other employment-based permits work similarly but less predictably, and the search window depends on your local office. Two practical rules apply in every case. Inform the office yourself rather than waiting for them to notice, and get the search period confirmed in writing so a later renewal does not turn into a dispute about what was agreed verbally.

If you are considering leaving Germany instead, our leaving Germany checklist sets out the order of deregistration, contracts and tax.

8. Where Legal Insurance Fits

A Kündigungsschutzklage is affordable in the first instance, where each side pays its own lawyer regardless of the outcome, but affordable is not free.

Legal expenses insurance with an employment module covers those costs, and it comes with two conditions that matter here: it must have been in place before the dispute arose, and the employment module usually carries a waiting period of around three months. Taking out cover after the dismissal letter arrives does not help with this case.

Our guide to legal insurance in Germany explains the modules and what they exclude.

9. The First 48 Hours

1. Write down the date the letter arrived. Everything counts from there.
2. Do not sign anything presented alongside it, including a Aufhebungsvertrag or a termination agreement described as a formality.
3. Register as job-seeking with the Agentur für Arbeit, online, the same week.
4. Get the dismissal reviewed within days if you want to keep the option of filing.
5. Notify the Ausländerbehörde if your permit depends on the job, and ask for the search period in writing.
6. Request your Arbeitszeugnis, the reference letter, which you are entitled to and which affects your next application.