Self-employed tax deductions in Germany: what business expenses can you deduct?

What can you deduct from tax when you’re self-employed in Germany? Anything your business causes, says the Income Tax Act; business meals count only at 70%, the costs of your private life not at all. Here are all business expenses with their amounts for 2026.

What “deducting” means for the self-employed: business expenses lower your profit

You can deduct any expense your business causes: as a business expense, it lowers your profit and with it your income tax — by your marginal tax rate on that amount, not by the full amount.

That is how § 4 Abs. 4 EStG puts it: „Betriebsausgaben sind die Aufwendungen, die durch den Betrieb veranlasst sind.“ (Business expenses are the expenses caused by the business.) With the EÜR (the cash-basis profit statement for the tax office), your profit is the excess of your business income over your business expenses (§ 4 Abs. 3 EStG). An expense usually counts in the year you pay it. How income, expenses and documents come together in your books is in the overview Bookkeeping.

Two limits apply from the start. With mixed costs — phone, internet — only the business share counts. And the costs of your private life don’t count, under § 12 EStG „auch wenn sie zur Förderung des Berufs oder der Tätigkeit des Steuerpflichtigen erfolgen“ (even if they serve to further the taxpayer’s profession or activity).

You’ll meet three words, and only one of them is yours:

One list for everyone: what a business expense is applies the same to Freiberufler (a liberal profession, taxed under § 18 EStG, with no Gewerbe to register) and to a Gewerbe (a registered trade). The Kleingewerbe (a small trade below the Kaufmann’s books — not a tax status) is not a status of its own for deductions. Only two rules depend on your status: the Gewerbesteuer (the municipal trade tax) concerns only a Gewerbe (below, under what you can’t deduct), and flat-rate business expenses exist only for certain liberal-profession activities (below, under the flat rates). VAT decides something else: which amount you enter.

The guide to the Anlage EÜR 2026 says it in three sentences: „Die nachstehend aufgeführten Betriebsausgaben sind grundsätzlich mit dem Nettobetrag anzusetzen. Die abziehbaren Vorsteuerbeträge sind in Zeile 58 einzutragen. Kleinunternehmer geben den Bruttobetrag an.“ (The business expenses listed below are in principle entered at the net amount. The deductible input VAT goes in line 58. Kleinunternehmer enter the gross amount.) The same purchase, worked out twice:

Input VAT is the VAT on the invoices for your purchases. Charging VAT means: you show VAT on your invoices and deduct input VAT under § 15 UStG; under § 9b EStG it is not part of the purchase cost but has its own line in the EÜR (58). The Kleinunternehmerregelung (the small-business VAT exemption) under § 19 UStG applies to small turnovers: if you use it, you show no VAT and deduct no input VAT, so the gross amount counts.

How much is a business expense worth?

A business expense lowers your income tax by your marginal tax rate on that amount. The marginal tax rate is the rate on the last euro of your taxable income. If it is 30%, €1,000 more in business expenses lowers your income tax by €300 — solidarity surcharge and church tax not included. Under the 2026 tariff in § 32a EStG, the first €12,348 stay tax-free; after that the marginal tax rate rises from 14% to 42% from €69,879 and 45% from €277,826.

What the self-employed typically deduct: the list

Typical business expenses are equipment and software, the business share of phone and internet, office rent, training, specialist literature, bank charges, advertising and travel. You deduct a laptop, PC and software in full in the year you buy them, other equipment up to €800 net at once under § 6 Abs. 2 EStG.

Equipment and running costs

Instead of separate depreciation, you can under § 6 Abs. 2a EStG spread equipment between €250 and €1,000 over five years in a pool (Sammelposten) — but then for everything you buy that year.

You deduct a laptop, PC and software in full in the year you buy them, even over €800. The tax administration allows a useful life of one year for computer hardware and software.

Travel costs: business trip and the way to work

Since 1 January 2026, under § 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 6 EStG, the way to your place of work counts at €0.38 from the first kilometre. Pages that still give €0.30 for the first 20 km are as of 2025.

A car that belongs to the business follows rules of its own; they are not the subject here.

Home office room or day rate (Arbeitszimmer or Homeoffice-Pauschale): what you deduct for the office at home

You deduct a home office room (häusliches Arbeitszimmer, a separate room used almost only for work) under § 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 6b EStG only if it is the centre of your whole business and professional activity — then with the actual costs or a flat €1,260 a year. Otherwise you have the day rate (Tagespauschale) under § 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 6c EStG, commonly called the home office day rate (Homeoffice-Pauschale): €6 for each day you work mainly at home, at most €1,260 a year.

“Mainly” means, according to the Finanzamt NRW: more than half of your working time that day. If you permanently have no other place to work, the €6 also counts on days when you additionally work elsewhere, for example at a client’s. These rules have applied to working at home since 2023, under § 52 Abs. 6 EStG.

The €1,260 annual flat rate is not an option for every home office. If your room is not the centre of your whole activity, it doesn’t count as a room at all; you then have only the €6 per day. And you can’t claim both for the same day: no day rate for days for which you deduct the home office room.

What counts as a home office room

A home office room is a separate room that you use almost exclusively for work. The kitchen table, the living room or a work corner is not a home office room. Whether the room is the centre is decided by the substance of your work; the hours you spend there are only an indication.

You split the actual costs by the room’s share of the home’s floor area: rent excluding service charges and the service charges, water and electricity, the contents insurance too. You record the costs of the home office room separately from your other business expenses. If you charge VAT, you deduct the input VAT on these costs, according to the Umsatzsteuer-Anwendungserlass (the VAT application decree).

Alongside a job: the secondary activity

The €6 is paid once per day, for all activities together; a job and self-employment on the side don’t double it, and they don’t double the €1,260 either. Whether the room is the centre is tested across your whole activity, the job included. If your job gives you a desk of your own at your employer’s, the room at home is therefore rarely the centre — and on a day at your employer’s desk there is no €6.

A desk, a chair and the like count separately as equipment, with or without a home office room, and the annual flat rate doesn’t cover them. They are in the list above.

Deducting insurance: business expense or special expense

Business insurance is a business expense in the Anlage EÜR, for example professional liability, business legal expenses cover or contents insurance for the office. According to the ELSTER guide to the income tax return, health, long-term care and pension contributions are special expenses (Sonderausgaben, private costs the tax return lets you deduct) in the Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand (the tax return’s annex for insurance and pension contributions), with maximum amounts of their own.

In practice the €2,800 under § 10 Abs. 4 EStG is usually filled by basic health insurance alone: the contributions to the other insurances have an effect only as far as the maximum has not yet been reached. The exception for contents insurance is the home office room: its share counts with the room costs.

If an accident insurance covers both private and business risks, you enter half the contributions as a special expense and the other half as a business expense.

The maximum for pension contributions changes every 1 January with the contribution ceiling of the miners’ pension insurance (knappschaftliche Rentenversicherung). The Deutsche Rentenversicherung gives a maximum of €30,826 for 2026.

Business meals and gifts: what counts only in part

A business meal counts 70% as a business expense; if you charge VAT, you still deduct the input VAT in full, under the Kleinunternehmerregelung none. Gifts to business contacts count only if everything one person gets from you in a year costs no more than €50 — above that, nothing counts.

Business meals

70% of an appropriate, documented business meal held for a business reason is a business expense, 30% is not (§ 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 2 EStG). If you use the Kleinunternehmerregelung, you deduct no input VAT; you take the 70% from the invoice’s total. What goes on the Bewirtungsbeleg (a business-meal receipt) and how long you keep it is in Bewirtungsbeleg, Eigenbeleg and retention periods + templates.

Gifts

Gifts to people who are not employed by you count only if everything one person gets from you in a year costs no more than €50 in total (§ 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 1 EStG). If you use the Kleinunternehmerregelung, the price including VAT counts, otherwise the net price. If a gift goes over, then if you charge VAT you also lose the input VAT on it.

The Federal Ministry of Finance works it through itself in the Umsatzsteuer-Anwendungserlass: a gift for €25 in April and one for €50 in December to the same client — then the first gift is no longer deductible either.

The document or your records must show who received the gift. For small promotional gifts such as pens or pocket diaries, you don’t need names.

The €50 is a limit that is a cliff (Freigrenze), not an allowance (Freibetrag): one euro over, and the whole gift doesn’t count — not just the part over €50.

Record business meals and gifts individually and separately from your other business expenses — otherwise, under § 4 Abs. 7 EStG, they aren’t deductible.

Deducting the tax adviser’s fees: which part counts

The business part of your tax adviser’s invoice is a business expense, the part for the private side of your income tax return is not. The business part is what concerns your business: bookkeeping, the EÜR, the VAT and Gewerbesteuer returns.

The Anlage EÜR has a line of its own for it: „Kosten für Rechts- und Steuerberatung, Buchführung“ (legal and tax advice costs, bookkeeping). The split is governed by a BMF letter (the Federal Ministry of Finance’s ruling to the tax offices) of 21 December 2007, which still applies; its title names the three pots: business expenses, Werbungskosten and private living costs. What belongs to your private life doesn’t count under § 12 EStG.

Ask your tax adviser for an invoice that shows the business part and the private part separately. Then you don’t have to estimate it yourself.

What you can’t deduct — and what counts only in part

Non-deductible business expenses are above all income tax itself, the Gewerbesteuer, fines and warning fines, and anything that belongs to your private life, even if it helps your work. The law’s own word for them is nicht abziehbar (not deductible). Business meals (70%), gifts (up to €50 per person a year), the office at home and mixed costs count only in part.

Unlike the Gewerbesteuer, interest and surcharges on business taxes stay deductible, such as interest on VAT or a late-filing surcharge.

What counts only in part or up to a limit, the Anlage EÜR enters as „beschränkt abziehbare Betriebsausgaben“ (business expenses of limited deductibility), split into a deductible and a non-deductible part:

The Gewerbesteuer concerns you only if you run a Gewerbe. If you work in a liberal profession, you pay none.

Flat-rate business expenses (Betriebsausgabenpauschale): who may deduct a flat rate

Under the Anlage EÜR guide, only certain activities may deduct a flat rate instead of costs with documents: writing and journalism as your main occupation, scientific, artistic or literary secondary activity, part-time teaching and examining, and childminding. Everyone else deducts their actual costs.

The flat rate applies „statt der tatsächlich angefallenen Betriebsausgaben“ (instead of the business expenses actually incurred). If your actual costs are higher, you deduct them with documents. The law knows no general flat rate for all the self-employed: it knows the individual business expense and a few fixed flat rates for particular cases, and the flat-rate business expenses are a concession by the tax administration for the activities named.

The 25% is not a flat rate for secondary activities in general. It applies only to scientific, artistic and literary work and to part-time teaching and examining. A side business (Nebengewerbe) that sells goods or services gets no flat rate.

What you can deduct without a document

Without a cost document, the flat rates themselves count: the annual flat rate for the home office room, the day rate, the meal allowance, the €0.30 per km on business trips, the commuting allowance and the flat-rate business expenses. But you must be able to prove the facts behind them — the days at home, the kilometres driven, the trips. Record them when they happen.

Costs before the start (vorweggenommene Betriebsausgaben)

What you spend before your business starts — even before registering your Gewerbe — you deduct as costs before the start (vorweggenommene Betriebsausgaben) once it is certain that you are going self-employed. You need proper documents for it, and a loss in the first year reduces your other income.

The IHK Potsdam (Potsdam’s chamber of commerce) gives these examples:

• planning costs and setting up the organisation
• advertising
• specialist books and office supplies
• advice
• site visits
• development costs

The laptop you buy before the start you deduct in full in the year of purchase, as above; other equipment follows the rules in the list. These costs count for income tax; for the Gewerbesteuer they don’t, according to the Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof).

If the first year ends in a loss, it first reduces your other income of the same year, a salary for example. Whatever is left is carried back to the two previous years or forward to the following years under § 10d EStG.

Keep every document from the first day you plan the start. These costs belong in your first EÜR.

How business expenses get into your tax return — and which documents you need

You enter your business expenses in the Anlage EÜR, and their total lowers your profit. Health, long-term care and pension contributions go in the Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand. You don’t send documents with it: you keep them and show them when the tax office (Finanzamt) asks.

Where things are in the Anlage EÜR 2026

The line numbers apply to the 2026 form and shift every year; the field codes (Kennzahl) stay the same.

Which documents you need

Every business expense needs a document. If there is no third-party document, you write one yourself: „Ist kein Fremdbeleg vorhanden, muss ein Eigenbeleg erstellt werden“ (If there is no third-party document, an Eigenbeleg must be drawn up), say the GoBD (the tax administration’s rules for electronic books and records). Since the Belegvorhaltepflicht (the duty to keep documents ready rather than send them in), you no longer submit documents with your tax return; according to the Finanzamt NRW they are „in der Regel nur dann erforderlich, wenn Sie vom Finanzamt direkt dazu aufgefordert werden“ (as a rule only needed when the tax office asks you for them directly). What an Eigenbeleg (a self-made receipt) looks like and how long you keep documents is in the article on Bewirtungsbeleg and Eigenbeleg.

In BravoLisa, you photograph a document or forward an invoice by email, and it becomes an expense, kept with its document. So the year’s expenses are already together when you fill in the Anlage EÜR. Whether one is a business expense is decided by its cause — § 4 Abs. 4 EStG, right at the top.

Frequently asked questions

What can the self-employed deduct from tax?

Any expense the business causes (§ 4 Abs. 4 EStG): equipment and software, the business share of phone and internet, office rent, training, specialist literature, advertising, travel. It is the same for Freiberufler and a Gewerbe. A business expense lowers your profit, not your tax by the full amount: the tax falls by your marginal tax rate on that amount.

Home office room or home office day rate — which applies to the self-employed?

A home office room counts only if it is the centre of your whole business and professional activity — then with the actual costs or a flat €1,260 a year. Otherwise you have the day rate: €6 for each day you work mainly at home, at most €1,260 (210 days). You can't claim both for the same day.

Which insurance can the self-employed deduct?

Business insurance such as professional liability or business legal expenses cover is a business expense in the Anlage EÜR. Basic health and long-term care insurance count in full as special expenses, other cover such as occupational disability or private liability insurance up to €2,800 a year, pension contributions in 2026 up to €30,826. Private contents, legal expenses and comprehensive car insurance don't count at all.

Can you deduct the cost of a tax adviser?

In part. What your tax adviser does for your business — bookkeeping, the EÜR, the VAT and Gewerbesteuer returns — is a business expense and has its own line in the Anlage EÜR. The part for the private side of your income tax return, such as special expenses or household costs, is not deductible. Ask for an invoice that shows the two parts separately.

What is not tax-deductible?

Income tax itself and the solidarity surcharge, the Gewerbesteuer, fines and warning fines, and anything that belongs to your private life — even if it helps your work — as well as the private share of mixed costs. Business meals (70%), gifts (up to €50 per person a year) and the office at home count only in part.

What can you deduct as a flat rate, without documents?

Flat-rate business expenses exist only for certain activities: writing and journalism as your main occupation, 30% of income up to €3,600; certain secondary activities, 25% up to €900; childminding, €400 per child and month. The day rate, the meal allowance, €0.30 per business-trip km and the commuting allowance are flat rates too — you still record the days and kilometres.

What your business costs, your business carries — you only have to be able to show it.
💜💙 Your BravoLisa Team

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. Every situation is different — consult a qualified professional (tax adviser, accountant, or lawyer) for advice specific to your circumstances. BravoLisa does not accept liability for decisions made based on this information.

Last updated: October 2026. Amounts and limits can change: always check them with the Federal Ministry of Finance, your tax office or on gesetze-im-internet.de.

Sources (24)

Verified on 8 October 2026

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