Krankmeldung — Calling in Sick

Being ill in Germany, and why nobody expects you at your desk

Sick leave here is generous, procedural, and culturally uncontested, which is a combination worth understanding because the instinct to struggle in is read as inconsiderate rather than committed. The procedure has two steps and they have different deadlines. Step one is die Krankmeldung: you tell your employer, without delay, that you are ill and roughly how long you expect to be out. A phone call before your working day starts is the standard, and someone else may make it for you. Step two is die AU, the Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung, from a doctor. By law the certificate is required from the fourth calendar day of illness, though an employer is entitled to ask for it from the first day and some contracts do. Until then your own notification is enough, which is the practical meaning of lässt sich nachreichen. Since 2023 the mechanics have changed and it is worth knowing which way the paper now flows. The doctor transmits the certificate electronically to your Krankenkasse — the eAU — and your employer retrieves it from there rather than receiving it from you. This means you generally no longer post anything, but it does not remove your duty to report the illness yourself, and the retrieval only works if you gave the practice the right insurer. If you are privately insured, the old paper route still applies to you. The money runs in two phases. For the first six weeks of an illness your employer continues your full pay: die Entgeltfortzahlung, guaranteed by statute after four weeks' employment. If you are still unfit after six weeks, your health insurer takes over with Krankengeld, which is a percentage of your previous earnings rather than all of them, capped, and payable for up to seventy-eight weeks for the same condition. The drop is noticeable, which is why long illnesses need advice rather than improvisation, and the Krankenkasse from lesson 69 is where to get it. Two points that surprise newcomers. arbeitsunfähig means unable to do your particular job, not confined to bed: unless the doctor says otherwise or leaving would delay recovery, you may go outside, buy food, take a walk. Being seen out while signed off is not in itself an offense, and treating it as one is a misunderstanding of the term. And there is a separate entitlement for a sick child — Kinderkrankentage, paid by the insurer as Kinderkrankengeld, with a fixed number of days a year per child per parent. You take those instead of your own leave, not out of it. The culture, finally. Presenteeism is weak here. Coming in with something infectious irritates colleagues, a manager who pressures a sick employee is on poor legal ground, and nobody will expect you to answer email while signed off. Tobias's closing advice is the local wisdom rather than a pleasantry: see it out properly, because the system is built for six weeks and has no interest in you returning at half strength.