Easy German Tax Return for Expats: Free Options Compared

Why filing is (usually) money back

For most employees in Germany, filing a tax return is not a chore — it is the single easiest way to get money back from the state. According to the Statistisches Bundesamt, the average refund is €1,095 per year, and around 88% of voluntary returns end with money coming back to the taxpayer.

The reason is how wage tax (Lohnsteuer) works. Your employer withholds tax every month as if you earned the same salary evenly across all twelve months. Real life is rarely that tidy. If you arrived in Germany and completed your Anmeldung part-way through the year, changed jobs, were unemployed for a stretch, or have significant deductible expenses, you almost certainly overpaid — and the Finanzamt will not refund the difference until you file a return and ask for it.

Do you have to file? Mandatory vs. voluntary

Not everyone in Germany is obliged to file. You must file (Pflichtveranlagung) if any of these apply to you:

• You are self-employed or freelance
• You have side income of more than €410 per year on top of your salary
• You are married and use tax class combination III/V, or IV with the factor method
• You had two or more employers at the same time
• You received wage-replacement benefits of more than €410, such as Elterngeld (parental allowance) or Kurzarbeitergeld — these are tax-free but push up the rate on your other income (Progressionsvorbehalt)
• The Finanzamt has explicitly asked you to file

If you are a straightforward employee in tax class I (or IV/IV without the factor method) with no other income, filing is voluntary for you. Given the average refund above, voluntary is not the same as pointless — it is simply your choice, and you have far more time to make it, as the deadlines below show.

The deadlines: 31 July — and a 4-year window

If you are obliged to file and prepare the return yourself, the deadline is 31 July of the following year — for your 2025 return, that is 31 July 2026. If a Steuerberater (tax adviser) or a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein files for you, the deadline extends automatically; for the 2025 return it runs to 1 March 2027.

The rule almost nobody tells new arrivals about: voluntary returns can be filed retroactively for four years. A return for 2022 is still possible until 31 December 2026. If you moved to Germany a few years ago and never filed, you may be able to submit several years in one go and collect several refunds at once.

Free option 1: Mein ELSTER — the only completely free route

Mein ELSTER (elster.de) is the official online portal of the German tax administration, and it is the only route that is permanently and completely free from start to finish. No submission fee, no premium version, no trial that expires.

The honest catch: ELSTER is entirely in German, and it gives you the raw tax forms with almost no explanations or interview-style guidance. You need to know which forms (Anlagen) apply to you. In return, it has one genuinely useful feature — the pre-filled tax return (vorausgefüllte Steuererklärung), which pulls the data your employer and pension provider already reported, such as your salary and wage tax, straight into the form.

How it works, in brief:

1. Register at elster.de and choose how to log in: the classic certificate file, whose activation code arrives by post (allow one to two weeks), or the faster ElsterSecure app / the online ID function of a German ID card.
2. Activate your account and start a new Einkommensteuererklärung (income tax return) for the relevant year.
3. Use the pre-filled data retrieval to import your wage data, then complete the forms — most employees mainly need the main form plus Anlage N for employment income and Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand for insurance contributions.
4. Check the calculated result, submit electronically, and keep your documents at home. Your tax assessment (Steuerbescheid) and any refund follow by post.

If your situation is a standard employee case and your German is workable — or you have a German-speaking friend to sit with you the first time — ELSTER is all you need, and it costs nothing, every year.

Free option 2: paper forms

The traditional route still exists: the official forms can be downloaded from the federal forms portal (formulare-bfinv) or collected in person from your Finanzamt, filled in by hand and posted. It is completely free, but slow, unforgiving of mistakes, and the Finanzamt increasingly steers people towards electronic filing. Unless you have a specific reason to avoid ELSTER, paper is the weaker of the two free options.

“Free” tax apps: what is actually free — and what isn’t

Tax apps advertise heavily with the word “free”, and the claim needs unpacking. With apps such as Taxfix, WISO Steuer or Steuerbot, answering the questions and calculating your expected refund is indeed free. Submitting the finished return to the Finanzamt, however, typically costs roughly €30–50 per return. Submission is free only in narrow cases — very simple returns, students, or time-limited promotions. That is not a scam: the apps offer an English-friendly, interview-style process that ELSTER lacks. Just budget for the fee instead of believing the banner.

One notable exception: Check24 has offered a genuinely free submission route for straightforward cases, which makes it worth checking before paying elsewhere — offers change, so confirm the current terms before you start.

The middle way is a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein (income-tax assistance association). It is not free, but it is inexpensive: membership is income-based, roughly €50–350 per year, and in return an adviser prepares and files the return for you — and your deadline extends automatically, as with a Steuerberater. The limitation: by law they may only advise employees (and pensioners), not the self-employed.

The deductions expats most often miss

Your refund is decided less by which tool you use than by what you claim. Every employee automatically receives the Arbeitnehmer-Pauschbetrag of €1,230 — a flat deduction for work-related costs that needs no receipts. Everything you can document above that amount increases your refund:

• Commuting (Pendlerpauschale): €0.30 per kilometre for the first 20 km of your one-way trip to work, €0.38 from kilometre 21
• Home office: €6 per day worked from home, for up to 210 days — a maximum of €1,260; it can be combined with the commuting allowance, just not for the same day
• Relocating for a job (Umzugskosten): moving to Germany — or within Germany — for work can make transport, travel and related moving costs deductible
• Dual household (doppelte Haushaltsführung): if your job requires a second home while your real home — typically where your family lives — is elsewhere, rent and trips home may count
• Work equipment: laptop, tools, professional literature and similar job expenses
• German language courses: deductible if they are job-related — for example, required by your employer or clearly needed for your position
• Childcare costs: 80% of fees, up to €4,800 per child per year

Two practical notes. First, small standard amounts are commonly accepted without receipts in practice — around €110 for work materials and €16 for bank account fees are the classic examples. Second, since 2017 you do not send any receipts with your return (Belegvorhaltepflicht). Keep everything at home; the Finanzamt may ask to see it later.

Finally, nothing works without your Steuer-ID: it is your permanent personal tax number and it belongs on every return. If yours never arrived after you registered, our Steuer-ID guide explains how to recover it.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is ELSTER really free? +
  Yes. Mein ELSTER is the official online portal of the German tax administration, and it is permanently and completely free — there is no submission fee, no premium tier and no upsell. The trade-off is that the forms are in German only and the portal offers almost no guidance, so you need to know yourself which entries apply to you.
• Can I file my German tax return in English? +
  Not through any official channel. ELSTER and the paper forms are German only, and the return itself has to be filed in German. Several tax apps offer an English-language interface and English support, but they typically charge around €30–50 to submit the return they prepare for you. If your German is limited and your case is simple, an app or a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein is usually the pragmatic choice.
• How far back can I claim a tax refund? +
  If you are not obliged to file, you have four years. A voluntary return for 2022, for example, can still be submitted until 31 December 2026 — and you can file several missing years in one go. Many expats who never filed during their first years in Germany are sitting on more than one refund. Mandatory filers do not have this flexibility: their deadline is 31 July of the following year.
• Do I need to send my receipts to the Finanzamt? +
  No. Since 2017, receipts are no longer submitted with the return — this is called Belegvorhaltepflicht, the duty to keep evidence rather than send it. Store your receipts, invoices and statements safely at home: the Finanzamt can request them afterwards, and if you cannot produce them, the deduction can be denied.
• I arrived in Germany in the middle of the year. Is filing worth it? +
  Very often, yes — this is one of the most common big-refund situations. Your employer withheld wage tax each month as if you had earned that salary for the whole year. If you only worked in Germany for part of the year, your actual annual income is lower, so too much tax was withheld overall. Filing is how you claim the difference back, and refunds for mid-year arrivals are frequently well above average.
• What do I need before I start? +
  You need your personal Steuer-ID (tax ID), your Lohnsteuerbescheinigung — the annual wage tax statement your employer gives you, usually in January or February — your bank IBAN for the refund, and records of anything you want to deduct: travel costs, work equipment, relocation invoices. If you do not know your Steuer-ID, our Steuer-ID guide explains how to find it or request it again.