Got a Letter from a German Authority? Here's When Your Deadline Actually Starts

The short answer

A decision (Bescheid) that a German authority sends by ordinary mail counts as delivered on the fourth day after it was handed to the post. That's the day your deadline to object starts — usually one month. The date printed at the top of the letter is normally the day it went into the mail, so you count four days from there.

Until the end of 2024 it was three days. The Postal Law Modernization Act (Postrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz) allowed Deutsche Post to deliver letters more slowly, so from 1 January 2025 lawmakers pushed the legal assumption back by one day — in the tax code (§ 122 AO), the Administrative Procedure Act (§ 41 VwVfG) and social security law (§ 37 SGB X). Plenty of guides, templates and expat forum answers still say three days.

Why the law invents a delivery date

With a normal letter, the authority has no idea when it reached you. To make deadlines the same for everyone, the law simply assumes a delivery day. Few people realize that this assumption works in your favor in both directions:

• If the letter arrives early — say on day two — the fourth day still counts. Fast mail never costs you time.
• If the letter arrives late, the actual delivery date counts. When there's doubt, the authority has to prove when the letter arrived, not you. All three laws say this in the same words.

The catch in that second point: "doubt" doesn't arise just because you say the letter came late. You need something concrete. More on that below.

How to calculate it: two examples from fall 2026

The calculation always has three steps:

1. Find the delivery day: the date on the letter plus four days.
2. Add the deadline: a one-month deadline ends in the following month on the day with the same number as the delivery day (§ 188 (2) BGB). If that day doesn't exist — the 31st in November, for example — it ends on the last day of the month.
3. Check for weekends: if the deadline ends on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, it moves to the next working day (§ 108 (3) AO, § 193 BGB).

Example 1 — all on weekdays. Your tax assessment (Steuerbescheid) is dated Thursday, 1 October 2026. Four days later is Monday, 5 October: that's the delivery day. The one-month objection deadline (§ 355 AO) ends on Thursday, 5 November 2026, at midnight.

Example 2 — day four is a Saturday. The assessment is dated Tuesday, 6 October 2026. Four days later would be Saturday, 10 October. For tax assessments, Germany's Federal Fiscal Court has ruled that the delivery day itself moves to the next working day (judgment of 14 October 2003, IX R 68/98). So the assessment counts as delivered on Monday, 12 October — and the deadline ends on Thursday, 12 November 2026.

Five days' difference in the letter date, seven days' difference in the deadline. If you roughly count "one month from the letter date," you'll almost always be early — harmless. If you count "one month from the day I opened it," you'll often be late — dangerous.

Whether the weekend shift of the delivery day also applies to city offices, the immigration office (Ausländerbehörde) or benefits agencies isn't settled consistently by the courts. For those, play it safe and calculate without the shift — that is, with the earlier date.

Not every letter is an "ordinary letter"

The four-day rule only covers decisions that arrive as a completely normal letter. The envelope tells you which rule applies:

Two rows deserve a second look. The yellow envelope has no four-day grace: the moment the carrier drops it in your mailbox, it counts as served, and the date is handwritten on the envelope. Throw the envelope away and you've thrown away the only document that shows when your deadline started. For a traffic or administrative fine (Bußgeldbescheid), you then have just two weeks.

City, district and state authorities follow the administrative procedure acts of the individual German states. Most refer to the federal rule or have copied it — whether your state has already switched to four days is something you can check in the state law. If you're cutting it close with a state or city authority, assume three days to be safe. What kind of objection is possible and how long you have is always at the very bottom of the notice, in the Rechtsbehelfsbelehrung (notice of legal remedies). If it's missing or wrong, the deadline is often extended to one year.

New in 2026: the tax assessment in your ELSTER inbox

Since 1 January 2026, the tax office makes assessments available digitally by default if you filed your return electronically — via ELSTER, a tax app, or your tax advisor. Your consent is no longer required; the change came with the Bureaucracy Relief Act IV (Bürokratieentlastungsgesetz IV) and the rewritten § 122a AO. You no longer get a paper copy in parallel.

The rule behind it is the same: the assessment counts as delivered on the fourth day after it was made available. What matters is the day it landed in the mailbox — not the day you opened it. On the day it's made available, you get a notification email. That email is the new weak point: it easily ends up in spam, or in an old inbox you barely check.

Two practical consequences: make sure the email address in your ELSTER account is one you actually read. And if you'd rather have paper, you can request postal delivery without giving a reason — once or permanently, directly in ELSTER or informally with your tax office.

Why the envelope belongs in your files

Remember the catch from earlier — that you need something concrete to cast doubt on the delivery date? In February 2026, the Federal Fiscal Court showed what that looks like in practice (decision of 17 February 2026, IX B 95/25). A decision was dated 7 February 2025, so it counted as delivered on 11 February. But the envelope carried a Deutsche Post imprint with exactly that date: 11 February. A letter the post office was still processing that day can't have reached the recipient the same day. That was enough for the court. The lawsuit, filed two days "too late," was on time after all.

The decision makes clear that you don't have to prove the late delivery beyond doubt. Concrete indications that call the four days into question are enough. The envelope, with its stamps and imprints, is the best evidence you can have — and the thing most likely to end up in the recycling bin.

Your checklist for the day the notice arrives

1. Keep the envelope — or at least photograph it. For a yellow envelope it's essential; for an ordinary letter it's your insurance.
2. Note the date it arrived if it clearly came late. One line on the notice or in your files is enough.
3. Calculate the deadline: letter date plus four days, plus one month (two weeks for fines), check for weekends. When in doubt, use the earlier date.
4. Set your reminder a few days before the deadline, not on the last day. Your objection has to arrive at the authority by midnight — posting it isn't enough.
5. Running out of time? File a placeholder objection. An objection doesn't need a finished argument. "I hereby object to the decision of [date]; I will submit my reasons separately" (Hiermit lege ich Einspruch gegen den Bescheid vom … ein, die Begründung reiche ich nach) keeps the deadline and buys you time to think. With the tax office, you can do this directly in ELSTER.

Related: for a Google Calendar setup that also catches contract renewals, see how to never miss a cancellation deadline.

Sources

All rules come from the current text of the German statutes, published by the Federal Ministry of Justice (in German), and from the Federal Fiscal Court decisions cited:

• Delivery by mail (four days): § 122 AO (tax), § 41 VwVfG (federal authorities), § 37 SGB X (social benefits)
• Digital tax assessment: § 122a AO (delivery by making available for retrieval)
• Formal service: § 4 VwZG (registered mail), § 180 ZPO (mailbox delivery, date on the envelope)
• Deadlines: § 355 AO (tax objection), § 108 AO (calculating deadlines, weekends), § 84 SGG, § 70 VwGO (objection), § 67 OWiG (fines), § 188 BGB (end of a deadline)
• Case law: BFH, decision of 17 Feb 2026, IX B 95/25 (envelope rebuts the delivery presumption); BFH, judgment of 14 Oct 2003, IX R 68/98 (delivery day moves from a weekend to the next working day)

Prefer reading this in German? Die 4-Tage-Regel: Ab wann die Frist bei einem Behördenbrief wirklich läuft.

This article is a general overview as of September 2026 and is not legal advice. What counts is the notice of legal remedies on your decision and the current version of the law. State and city authorities may follow different state rules. If a lot is at stake or your deadline is close, talk to a lawyer, a tax advisor or a wage tax assistance association (Lohnsteuerhilfeverein).