Thursday, July 31st is the deadline in Germany for people filing tax declarations for the 2024 calendar year without the help of a tax professional.
Those filing with the help of a professional have until next April to submit their declarations to the Finanzamt, or Tax Office.
Freelancers and self-employed individuals are required to file a tax declaration in Germany, whereas regularly employed individuals are not. But employees file their taxes anyway to get refunds.
READ ALSO: The German tax deadlines to know in 2025
Navigating German bureaucracy can be a headache for anyone. That’s especially true for foreign residents who have complicated finances or don’t speak German. If that’s the case for you, getting some outside help may be the way to go.
If you think you’d benefit from some extra help as you prepare your taxes this year, here are some resources for English speakers filing taxes in Germany.
You can find English-language tax professionals across Germany
Tax professionals are legally liable for the advice they provide, so if they make a mistake, they pay for it.
When seeking tax help, you’ll want to look for an accredited Steuerberater, because they are specifically qualified to do tax returns. Alternatively a Buchhalter, or bookkeeper, is not specifically qualified to do tax returns, and is not legally liable for their mistakes.
The U.S. Embassies in Germany each publish a list of English-speaking tax professionals that offer services in their respective regions.
The embassy in Berlin’s list of tax professionals includes providers that offer services in Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia.
The embassy in Munich publishes a list of English-speaking tax advisors in Bavaria, and the embassy in Frankfurt publishes a list for Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.
EXPLAINED: How US consulates help American citizens living in Germany
The blog All About Berlin also has a list of English-speaking tax advisors in and around Berlin.
But even once you’ve found a firm that provides English-language tax help, actually hiring someone can still be challenging.
Many firms are fully-booked and not taking on new clients – especially in big cities with many English-speaking professionals looking for tax help.
For people living in Berlin, for example, it can help to look for a tax advisor in other parts of Germany. Your tax advisor does not have to work in the city where you live.
Hiring a tax professional can also be quite expensive. Costs vary depending on whether you are employed or self-employed, but you can expect to pay at least a couple hundred euros for a single tax declaration.
Note that accredited tax advisors can offer various services, like bookkeeping or legal advice at various prices, but prices to submit a tax return are tightly regulated.
English-language tax software offers an alternative to tax professionals
Because hiring a tax professional can be difficult and expensive, some people prefer to use online tax software. There are several options that offer English-language assistance.
Some English-language options for preparing your taxes online include WunderTax, TaxFix and SteuerGo.
WunderTax boasts that you can file your taxes online in just 17 minutes using its services. These services and others like them charge fees, but the fees are typically much lower than the cost of hiring a tax professional.
The services mentioned above all advertise rates between €34 and €40 per tax return. Other services include SmartSteuer and MyExpatTaxes.
If your tax situation is simple enough that you’d like to try and manage filing on your own, you can create a profile with ELSTER, or the Elektronische Steuer Erklärung, to do so online.
ELSTER is a free online platform run by the German government that allows users to securely file their taxes completely online. ELSTER is primarily a German-language platform, but many of its resources are also translated into English.
READ ALSO: Germany's official online tax portal is now available in English
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