Kündigungsfrist: how German notice periods work — and how to answer “earliest start date” honestly

German application forms almost always ask for your frühestmöglicher Eintrittstermin — the earliest date you could start. Candidates treat it as small talk and answer optimistically. Employers treat it as data and plan around it. The gap between those two readings causes real damage: an offer withdrawn because "immediately" turned out to mean three months, or a candidate ruled out early because they named a date far later than their actual obligation. The fix is knowing how notice periods actually work, because for employed applicants the earliest start date is arithmetic, not aspiration.

The statutory baseline: §622 BGB

The German Civil Code sets the default. Under §622(1) BGB, an employee’s statutory notice period is four weeks to the fifteenth or to the end of a calendar month. Those anchor dates matter: notice given on the 3rd and notice given on the 20th can end the employment on the same day. During an agreed probation period of up to six months, §622(3) shortens this to two weeks, to any day. And §622(2) extends the EMPLOYER’s notice period with your tenure — one month after two years of service, rising step by step to seven months after twenty years — while the employee’s statutory period stays at four weeks unless the contract says otherwise.

Why your contract probably says otherwise

The statute is only the floor. Employment contracts routinely extend the employee’s notice period, most commonly by mirroring the employer’s tenure-based ladder ("die verlängerten Fristen gelten für beide Seiten") — legal, and standard practice; the one hard limit, from §622(6), is that your notice period may not be longer than the employer’s. Collective agreements (Tarifverträge) can set entirely different periods in both directions. So the only authoritative answer to "what is my notice period" is in your own contract and any applicable collective agreement — read the clause before you type a date into any form, because three months to the end of a quarter is a common senior-role reality that surprises people who assumed four weeks.

Computing your honest earliest start

The arithmetic: take today, assume you give notice the day you sign the new contract, apply your contractual notice period with its anchor date, and the day after your current employment ends is your earliest start. Example in words: with a three-months-to-month-end period, signing in mid-August means your current job ends on the last day of November — earliest start, first of December. Two honesty rules follow. Don’t answer "immediately" while employed — it is either untrue or announces you intend to breach your contract, and German HR reads it exactly that way. And don’t pad the date "to be safe": name the computed date, because the padding reads as low interest.

The levers that can move the date

An earlier start is sometimes negotiable — with your current employer, not unilaterally. An Aufhebungsvertrag (mutual termination agreement) can end employment on any agreed date; employers whose projects are winding down often say yes. Remaining vacation days can sometimes bring the practical exit forward. What you should not do is promise a new employer an early date that depends on a negotiation you have not had. The honest form on an application is the computed date, optionally with one clause: "earlier start possible by agreement." One caution for anyone considering resigning before having the next contract, or signing an Aufhebungsvertrag: both can trigger a waiting period (Sperrzeit) on unemployment benefits — check the rules with the Bundesagentur für Arbeit before acting, and take advice for anything non-standard.

Answering the form question well

Best practice is boring: state the computed date (or "ab sofort" only if you genuinely are free), keep it identical across every application, and be ready to explain the arithmetic in the interview — being fluent about your own notice period reads as professionalism. If your date is far out because of a long contractual period, say so plainly; German employers deal with three-month periods constantly and plan hiring around them. Consistency is worth automating like any other standard answer: JobWin stores your availability answer once and fills it identically into every form, so the date you named in March doesn’t contradict the one you typed in May.

The earliest-start question is one of the few in a German application with an objectively correct answer. Compute it once, answer it everywhere, and let the candidates who guessed handle the awkward phone calls.