Home office and mobile work agreement (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 supplement to a German employment contract on working from home and mobile work, in German: start and extent, a choice between mobile work and telework at a fixed home workstation under the German Workplaces Ordinance (ArbStättV), working time, availability and time recording, equipment and a cost allowance, data protection at home, health and safety, accident insurance, no work from abroad without a separate agreement, and ending the arrangement. German law gives no right to a home office, so it has to be agreed.
What you fill in
The details the document asks for.
- Employer
- Employer's registered address
- Employer's trade register number
- Person signing for the employer
- Employee
- Employee's address
- Date of the contract
- Mobile work, or telework from a fixed home workstation
- Start date
- How much mobile work, e.g. up to two days a week
- Hours when the employee must be reachable
- Equipment
- Allowance towards the costs of working from home (or “none”)
- Notice period
- 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
- Is there a legal right to work from home in Germany?
- No. An employee cannot demand a home office, and an employer cannot impose one; it takes an agreement like this one. Where the business has a works council, it has a say in how mobile work is organised (§ 87(1) no. 14 BetrVG), and a works agreement applies alongside. The supplement changes only where the work is done — hours, pay and every other term of the employment contract stay the same.
- What is the difference between telework and mobile work in Germany?
- Telework is a computer workstation in the employee's home that the employer has set up permanently, with agreed hours and equipment the employer provides (§ 2(7) ArbStättV); it brings duties under the Workplaces Ordinance. Mobile work has no statutory definition and does not tie the employee to a fixed place. Most employers want mobile work; the document lets you choose either. The Health and Safety at Work Act and the Working Hours Act apply to both.
- Is someone working from home in Germany covered by statutory accident insurance?
- Yes. Since 18 June 2021, work done in one's own household or at another place is covered to the same extent as work on the employer's premises (§ 8(1) SGB VII). The cover is for the work itself, not for private activities at home. Report an accident to the employer at once, so that it can notify the accident insurer.
- What home office allowance can be claimed against German income tax?
- For each day worked mainly at home, employees can claim €6 as work expenses in their income tax return, up to €1,260 a year (§ 4(5) sentence 1 no. 6c EStG). A separate home study is not needed for this. If the employer pays a cost allowance under this agreement, check with payroll how it is treated for tax.
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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