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You receive unemployment benefit and are becoming self-employed

Starting a business out of unemployment

Understand the start-up grant and the start-up allowance, compute your remaining unemployment benefit and the possible grant, obtain the viability statement, apply for the grant before you start, and register the business with the tax office: 6 steps.

Start here: German start-up grants and unemployment cover for founders

Understand: start-up grant, start-up allowance, unemployment insurance for founders

  1. Step 1 of 6
    CoursePaid individually66 min

    German start-up grants and unemployment cover for founders

    Anyone who starts a business out of unemployment can receive from the employment agency their unemployment benefit plus 300 euros for six months, then 300 euros for nine more months — provided at least 150 days of entitlement remain at the start and a competent body certifies the business is viable. The second module shows how the job centre sets the integration allowance for at most 24 months and subsidises equipment up to 5,000 euros. The third explains voluntary unemployment insurance on application, with its three-month deadline, and why both forms of support are tax-free without the progression proviso.

Compute: unemployment benefit entitlement and amount of the start-up grant

  1. Step 2 of 6
    CalculatorFree result

    German unemployment benefit — for how long and how much?

    Duration follows a table with TWO conditions: insurance months AND completed age. Below 50, twelve months is the maximum, even after twenty years of work.
  2. Step 3 of 6
    CalculatorFree result

    German start-up grant (Gründungszuschuss) — how much can you get?

    For six months you receive your last unemployment benefit plus EUR 300; then, once you show the business is trading, nine more months at EUR 300. You need at least 150 days of benefit left on the day you start — and both phases are discretionary.

Apply: viability statement, start-up grant, tax registration

  1. Step 4 of 6
    FormFree45 min

    Viability statement for the German start-up grant — expert body form BA GZ 04

    For the start-up grant (Gründungszuschuss), an expert body — chamber, bank, tax adviser — must certify that the venture is viable (§ 93(2) SGB III). The body completes the form, not the founder. Who may issue it, which documents it needs, who pays.
  2. Step 5 of 6
    FormFree60 min

    Applying for Germany's start-up grant — from unemployment benefit to self-employment

    Six months of unemployment benefit plus EUR 300, then nine months at EUR 300: a discretionary benefit with no entitlement. It needs 150 days of remaining entitlement on the start date and a viability statement, and the application comes before the start. Guide and worked example.
  3. Step 6 of 6
    FormFree45 min

    German tax registration questionnaire (Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung)

    Due electronically within one month of starting the activity: who files it, why registering the trade with the municipality does not replace it, which tax office is competent and how the Steuernummer is issued — guide, deadlines and worked example.

The other paths

A different procedure, the same principle: the three pillars in order.

Read in German