Contract for work between businesses — Werkvertrag (Germany)
Published byDocMuse
This document is in German
The PDF you download is in German — that is the language it has to be filed in, so it is not translated. Everything on this page is here to tell you what it says.
A contract between two businesses in Germany for a defined result — software, a website, an expert report, a concept, a repair or an installation — that the contractor answers for (a Werkvertrag under §§ 631 ff. of the German Civil Code, BGB). It includes the specification and agreed quality, a completion date, an acceptance procedure with the deadline of § 640(2) BGB, the fee falling due on acceptance, rights for defects, termination, usage rights in the work, confidentiality and a liability cap. Not for construction contracts, nor for making movable goods, which sales law governs. In German.
What you fill in
The details the document asks for.
- Client
- Client's address
- Client's register court and commercial register number (if registered)
- Client's representative
- Contractor
- Contractor's address
- Contractor's register court and commercial register number (if registered)
- Contractor's representative (or “in person”)
- Description of the work
- Acceptance criteria
- Deadline
- Time to raise objections (days)
- Remuneration
- Basis of pricing
- Payment term (days)
- Usage rights granted: exclusive or non-exclusive
- Fields of exploitation of the work
- Liability cap
- Court for disputes: at the client's or the contractor's place of business
- City
- Date
Preview
This document is produced for you. Your answers are typed into it and the finished PDF is yours to keep.
Common questions
- What does acceptance mean under a German contract for work, and what if the client stays silent?
- By accepting, the client approves the work as essentially conforming to the contract; only then does the fee fall due (§ 641(1) BGB). The client may not refuse acceptance over insignificant defects (§ 640(1) BGB). If the contractor sets a reasonable deadline after completion and the client does not refuse acceptance by naming at least one defect, the work counts as accepted (§ 640(2) BGB). The contract fixes that deadline in days.
- How long is a contractor in Germany liable for defects in the work?
- It depends on the work (§ 634a BGB). Where the result is making, maintaining or altering a thing, claims for defects become time-barred two years after acceptance; for a building, five years. For other works, such as an expert report, the regular period applies: three years from the end of the year in which the claim arose and the client learned of it (§§ 195, 199 BGB).
- Can the client terminate a German contract for work before the work is finished?
- Yes, at any time until the work is completed (§ 648 BGB). The contractor keeps the right to the agreed fee but must deduct the expenses saved and what is earned by using the freed capacity elsewhere; the law presumes that 5% of the fee for the part not yet performed is due. Either party may terminate for good cause without notice, and then only the part already performed is paid (§ 648a BGB).
- Which assignments does this German contract for work not suit?
- Construction work: a contract for it is a construction contract with rules of its own (§§ 650a ff. BGB) — notice of termination, for instance, must be given in statutory written form (§ 650h BGB). Nor the supply of movable goods still to be made, such as machines, furniture or promotional items: sales law applies to those (§ 650 BGB). It suits intellectual and technical works such as software, websites, expert reports, concepts or repairs.
How you can sign this document
- Print it and sign by hand. The signature lines in the document are left blank on purpose — sign on them in ink.
- Sign it yourself with a qualified electronic signature. If you already hold a QES — Evrotrust, B-Trust, StampIT, ZealiD or any qualified provider on the EU Trusted List, on a card, a USB token, in a mobile app or in the cloud — our signing guide explains step by step how to sign this exact file without invalidating it. Step-by-step help, and a way to check it worked
DocMuse sells documents, not legal advice. Acceptance always depends on the recipient's rules and your local law.
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