Immediately register employees for social insurance (immediate registration)

As an employer, you are obliged in certain sectors to register your employees with social insurance before they take up employment.

If you are an employer and have a company in the following economic sectors, you must submit an immediate notification for all your employees before taking up employment:

• Construction
• Catering and accommodation industry
• Passenger transportation industry
• Freight forwarding, transportation and related logistics
• Show business
• Forestry companies
• Building cleaning industry
• Companies involved in the construction and dismantling of trade fairs and exhibitions
• Meat industry
• Prostitution industry
• Guard and security industry

The immediate notification must be submitted at the latest on the employee's first working day before taking up employment. If you do not make an immediate notification, this is an administrative offense. The fine can be up to EUR 25,000. If no immediate notification can be submitted during undeclared work inspections, there is an initial suspicion of illegal employment.

You must submit the immediate report for all your employees, including, for example, trainees and marginally employed or short-term employees.

The immediate notification does not replace the regular registration for social insurance.

Exceptions to the immediate notification requirement

• Non-profit associations: You do not have to submit an immediate notification if you are a board member of an association or organization that
  • predominantly pursues charitable, benevolent or ecclesiastical purposes and
  • this is recognized by your local tax office.
• Temporary employment agencies: If you provide or lend temporary workers to third parties, so-called hirers, you do not have to submit an immediate declaration. As the leased employees can work in all economic sectors, these hirers cannot be clearly assigned to one of the economic sectors mentioned.

If you are only partially active in the above-mentioned economic sectors, the following is required for the submission of the immediate report

• the purpose of the company and
• the economic activity of the majority of your employees.

If these two criteria are contradictory, the purpose of the business is decisive.

If you are not sure whether you have to submit an immediate notification, you can ask the collection agency. For employment relationships subject to compulsory insurance, this is the responsible health insurance fund and for marginal part-time employees, the Minijob-Zentrale.

To submit an immediate notification, you will need

• Your company number
• personal details of employees from an official document:
  • Name
  • Place and date of birth, if applicable
  • your address

You are an employer and your company belongs to one of the following economic sectors:

• Construction
• Catering and accommodation industry
• Passenger transportation
• Freight forwarding, transportation and related logistics
• Show business
• Forestry companies
• Building cleaning industry
• Companies involved in the construction and dismantling of trade fairs and exhibitions
• Meat industry
• Prostitution industry
• Guard and security industry

None

You must submit the immediate report electronically. You cannot submit the immediate report by letter, fax or e-mail.

• The immediate report can be submitted by you as the employer, by your tax advisor or by a service computer center.
• If you have an approved payroll accounting program, you must submit the immediate report using the reporting procedure in accordance with the Data Collection and Transmission Ordinance (DEÜV) with the reason for submission "20", immediate report.
• If you do not have a verified payroll accounting program, you must submit the immediate report using a completion aid such as the SV-Meldeportal.
• The immediate notification must contain the following data:
  • the surname and first name,
  • the insurance number,
  • the employer's company number and
  • the date of commencement of employment.
• If you do not know the employee's insurance number, please also enter
  • the date and place of birth and
  • the address.
• You will then be notified of the insurance number directly by the pension insurance data office.
• If the employee does not start working for you after all, you must cancel the immediate notification.
• If you submit an incorrect immediate notification, for example with an incorrect start date, you must cancel it and submit a new, corrected immediate notification.

Employees must have their ID card, passport, passport replacement or ID replacement with them at work and be able to show it. As the employer, you must inform employees of this in writing and in a verifiable manner.

You must submit the immediate notification at the latest when you take up employment.

Accepting and processing the reported data takes about 10 minutes.

The service is basically free of charge. If you use the SV-Meldeportal, user fees will be charged.

The following information is available:
A breach of the reporting obligation can be punished with a fine of up to EUR 25,000.
Immediate notification is transmitted to the pension insurance data center (DSRV) and stored immediately after it is created.
The authorities of the customs administration and the pension insurance inspection services have access to the immediate report.