Notice periods for German rental contracts – the rules in plain English

Terminating a German rental contract sounds like a single line of legal jargon: three months, third working day, statutory deadline, special termination right. In practice those exact words contain the most common mistakes – the ones that cost tenants money and landlords nerves. This guide sorts the rules by use case and ends with a tool that does the date arithmetic for you.

In a hurry? Jump straight to the calculator. The rest of the article explains how it works and where its limits are.

The basic rule: § 573c BGB in one sentence#

The central provision for ordinary termination of a German rental contract is § 573c BGB. In plain words: A notice must reach the recipient no later than the third working day of a calendar month so that the contract ends at the close of the month after next § 573c BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle.

Three consequences follow from this one sentence – and each of them shows up in disputes again and again:

• The three-month standard period for tenants (a contract may not deviate to the tenant's disadvantage).
• The stepped extension of the landlord's period to six and nine months after five and eight years of tenancy.
• The working-day rule – the notorious "by the third working day" that several German courts have had to clarify.

Standard period for tenants – 3 months, no exceptions#

For tenants the situation is refreshingly simple: the ordinary notice period is three months, regardless of how long the tenancy has run. The clock starts in the month in which the notice reaches the landlord – provided it arrives by the third working day. Otherwise the start shifts to the following month.

A classic example: If your notice reaches the landlord by 3 March (the third working day in March, if the first three days are working days), the tenancy ends on 31 May. If the letter only lands in the landlord's mailbox on 5 March, the tenancy ends on 30 June. A seemingly trivial day can therefore amount to a full month's rent.

Worth knowing: A contractual extension of the notice period to the tenant's disadvantage is invalid – this follows directly from § 573c (4) BGB § 573c (4) BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle. Even if your contract claims an agreed period of six or twelve months, the statutory three-month period applies to you as the tenant. Conversely, shorter periods (e.g. two months) are perfectly fine because they put the tenant in a better position.

Landlord's period – 3, 6 or 9 months depending on tenancy length#

Where tenants get away with the three-month period, the law gives landlords a stepped model that grows with tenancy length:

The logic: the longer a tenant has lived in a place, the more rooted their life is there, and the more lead time they need to find a replacement. Between 1983 and 2001 there was even a fourth step (12 months after 10 years) – it was abolished with the 2001 tenancy law reform. Old contracts from that era can in exceptional cases still keep that step if the longer period was explicitly agreed as an individual provision and did not just copy the old statute – the BGH has shaped that distinction in several follow-up decisions. If you hold an old contract, have the clause checked by the Mieterbund before relying on it.

A landlord may also only give ordinary notice if there is a legitimate interest in the sense of § 573 BGB – typically own use, the tenant's culpable breach of duty or a reasonable economic exploitation of the property. There is no "termination without reason" for landlords under German residential tenancy law; a corresponding notice is invalid.

Special case: landlord lives in the same building (§ 573a BGB)#

In two-family houses where the landlord occupies one of the two flats, there is a relaxation: the landlord may terminate without a legitimate interest – but only if the period is extended by three months (6/9/12 months instead of 3/6/9). Important: this exception really only applies if the building has at most two residential units. A three-family house no longer qualifies.

"By the third working day" – the dispute that never quite ended#

No other half-sentence in German tenancy law has spilled more ink than these few words. Three questions keep coming up:

1. What counts as a working day?
2. What about public holidays?
3. What happens if the day falls on a Saturday?

The basic rule: working days are Monday to Saturday, with the exception of officially recognised general public holidays. This follows from § 193 BGB by analogy and settled case law. The third working day in April 2026, for example, would be Friday 3 April – because 1, 2 and 3 April are all working days.

It gets sticky with the Saturday dispute. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on 5 October 2016 in case VIII ZR 222/15 that Saturdays do not count as a working day for the three-day grace period on rent payments (§ 556b (1) BGB) – simply because many banks do not book on Saturdays. Some commentators apply that logic to § 573c BGB because postal delivery on Saturdays is often patchy.

The prevailing view in the lower courts and leading commentaries is more nuanced: for the working-day rule of § 573c BGB, Saturday usually still counts as a working day – with the argument that the landlord (unlike a bank) can empty the letterbox on Saturdays (see e.g. Schmidt-Futterer/Blank, Mietrecht, § 573c marginal note 7 et seq.). Anyone who wants to play it safe treats Saturday as not a working day and sends the notice one day earlier.

For rent payments, Saturday does not count as a working day in the grace period (BGH VIII ZR 222/15) – for the notice deadline the prevailing view applies that only in part.

When the letter has actually "arrived"#

The deadline depends not on the date of dispatch but on the date of receipt. A notice is considered received once it enters the recipient's sphere of influence in such a way that they can take note of it under normal circumstances. Concretely: dropping it into the letterbox by the usual emptying time (typically up to around 6 pm on working days), handing it over in person, or leaving it with a competent housemate. Registered letters that would still have to be collected do not automatically count as received – choose registered mail with return receipt and the recipient never picks it up, and you have missed your deadline. The safest route: direct-delivery registered mail (Einwurf-Einschreiben) plus witnesses or a messenger who confirms the delivery.

Special termination right on rent increases (§ 561 BGB)#

If your landlord demands a rent increase up to the customary local rent (§ 558 BGB) or because of an operating-cost adjustment, you as the tenant gain a statutory special termination right. § 561 (1) BGB lays it out: the termination must be declared within two months of receipt of the rent-increase notice and takes effect at the end of the second month that follows the receipt § 561 BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle.

Example: A rent-increase notice reaches you on 15 April. You must terminate no later than 15 June (two months from receipt). The termination then takes effect on 30 June – June is the second month after the receipt month April. The crucial bonus: the announced rent increase does not take effect if you exercise this right. So you keep paying the old rent until you move out. That single clause makes § 561 the strongest lever for tenants in a rapidly rising market.

What does not apply: rent increases under an index contract (covered below) or a modernization charge – each of these has its own special rule.

Special termination right on modernization (§ 555e BGB)#

If the landlord plans a modernization – energy-efficient refurbishment, lift installation, layout change – the announcement must be made in text form (Textform) at least three months in advance (§ 555c (1) BGB). Text form is not the same as written form: email or PDF is enough, a hand-written signature is not required. The modernization announcement also triggers a tenant's special termination right: under § 555e BGB you can terminate by the end of the month following receipt of the announcement, taking effect at the end of the month after next § 555e BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle.

Practically: if the announcement reaches you in May, you can terminate by 30 June. The termination then takes effect on 31 July – July is the "month after next" relative to the May receipt month. Unlike with the rent-increase right, the subsequent modernization surcharge is not automatically void; but anyone who vacates before the new rent takes effect does not pay it.

Fixed-term contract (§ 575 BGB) – when the rule does not apply#

A fixed-term contract is limited to a defined term from the outset (e.g. three or five years). For such a limitation to be valid the landlord must state a qualified reason in the contract under § 575 BGB – typically own-use for the landlord or a close relative after the term ends, a planned extensive modernization or another permissible exploitation § 575 BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle.

During the term: no ordinary termination. Neither side can simply end the contract with a three-month notice. What remains possible:

• extraordinary termination for cause (§§ 543, 569 BGB), e.g. for severe defects or serious breach of duty,
• a mutually agreed dissolution of the contract,
• the contract running out at the agreed end date.

Anyone who signs a fixed-term contract without the qualified reason written into it gets a statutory "consolation prize": the contract is then treated as open-ended – and the normal three-month period applies again. This is a protective rule that mostly benefits the tenant.

In practice many contracts are wrongly labelled as "fixed-term" when in fact they are open-ended contracts with a waiver of termination. The difference matters – see the next section.

Indexed and graduated rents – when the rent rises automatically#

Indexed rent (Indexmiete) and graduated rent (Staffelmiete) are both open-ended contracts with an embedded rent-increase mechanism. In principle the normal notice rules from § 573c BGB apply. But there are nuances.

Graduated rent (§ 557a BGB)#

With graduated rent the future rent levels and dates are fixed in the contract – e.g. "from 01.01.2026 €800/month, from 01.01.2027 €825/month, from 01.01.2028 €850/month". Each step must last at least 12 months. A separate adjustment to the customary local rent or for modernization is excluded during a graduated rent § 557a BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle.

Important for the notice period: the landlord may contractually agree a waiver of termination against the tenant – but only for a maximum of four years from the contract date. After those four years the normal three-month period applies. A longer waiver is invalid; it does not void the contract, it just shortens the lock-in to four years.

Indexed rent (§ 557b BGB)#

With indexed rent the rent rises automatically with the consumer price index from the Federal Statistical Office. Again, separate adjustments to the customary local rent or for modernization are in principle excluded during the index rent (other than legally mandated modernization). Each adjustment must be at least one year apart § 557b BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle.

For termination: the normal three-month period stays in place. A waiver of termination is, according to the prevailing view, invalid in index contracts because the automatic adjustment already burdens the tenant's protected interests. Anyone on an indexed rent can therefore leave at any time with the statutory period.

Death of the tenant (§ 564 BGB) – who steps in, who terminates?#

A frequently overlooked topic: what happens on the death of the tenant? The tenancy does not end automatically. §§ 563, 563a and 564 BGB set out a cascade of successors:

1. Spouse or registered partner automatically enter the tenancy if they lived in the household with the tenant (§ 563 (1) BGB).
2. Other family members or life partners step in if they ran a joint household and the eligible spouse objects or is absent (§ 563 (2) BGB).
3. Co-tenants – e.g. the other party to a joint contract – continue the tenancy alone under § 563a BGB.
4. Only if none of the above applies do the rights and duties pass to the heirs (§ 564 BGB).

Both the persons stepping in and the heirs (or the landlord vis-à-vis them) may terminate the tenancy extraordinarily with the statutory period § 564 BGB, German Ministry of Justice (2025)Quelle. Two deadlines apply and are often mixed up:

• The declaration deadline is only one month from knowledge of the death (and, for the landlord, that no step-in has occurred), see § 564 sentence 2 and § 563 (4) BGB. Miss this window and the special termination right is gone – the tenancy then continues normally and can only be ended with the three-month period.
• The effective date then follows the statutory three-month period under § 573c BGB – the tenancy ends three months after the termination.

The landlord may also terminate within the one-month window if there is good cause in the person stepping in – e.g. serious house-rules violations. Practically: heirs and persons stepping in should decide within the first month whether they want to terminate. The notice itself must be in writing and clearly state the step-in or heir status.

The most common pitfalls – and how to avoid them#

1. 1

   Late delivery despite early dispatch

   A registered letter with return receipt can sit at the post office for several days before being picked up – and only then counts as received. Use direct-delivery registered mail (Einwurf-Einschreiben) or hand the letter over in person with witnesses. Deadline safely met.

2. 2

   Misreading the working-day rule

   The 1st of the month is a Saturday – does it count? Long answer: yes, if you follow the classic BGH line. Safe answer: act as if it does not count and send a day earlier.

3. 3

   Contractual waiver of termination misunderstood

   "At least 24 months commitment" in your contract does not automatically mean you can't terminate. For open-ended contracts, a unilateral waiver to the tenant's disadvantage is only valid within narrow limits (settled case law: a maximum of 4 years, usually only with a clear quid pro quo such as graduated rent – see § 557a (3) BGB by analogy).

4. 4

   Oral termination or by email

   Both invalid. § 568 BGB requires written form – paper with a hand-written signature. Anyone who terminates by email has not terminated.

5. 5

   Special termination right missed

   Rent increases, modernization notices or the death of a co-tenant trigger their own deadlines. These special rights usually lapse after two months – missing them means losing them. When in doubt a quick check with the Mieterbund is worth it.

Date calculator – your case in 30 seconds#

The calculator takes the standard period, the stepped landlord period after 5 and 8 years, and the main special termination rights into account. It rounds a desired move-out date up to the next end of month, computes the third working day of the send month and gives you a template text file. Working days are Monday to Saturday (Sundays excluded); regional public holidays are deliberately not factored in because they differ by state.

Five levers for a watertight termination#

1. Build in three days of buffer. If your calculated cut-off is the 3rd of a month, post by the 28th of the previous month – ideally as direct-delivery registered mail with a photo of the proof slip.
2. Get receipt confirmed. A common Mieterbund tip is personal delivery against signature and date. That shifts the burden of proof entirely to the other side.
3. Use the special termination right when it applies. A rent increase or modernization announcement often gives you two months you would not otherwise have. Bonus: under § 561 BGB the rent increase itself falls away.
4. Clarity on special cases. Fixed-term, graduated rent, indexed rent – each has its own rules. When in doubt, run the clauses past the Mieterbund or a tenancy lawyer before you terminate.
5. Document everything. Copy of the notice, dispatch proof, photo of the letter being dropped into the box – these three documents usually settle every later dispute over receipt.

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FAQ – frequently asked questions#