Someone loses a parent and asks on Monday morning how many days they get. The manager calls HR, HR checks the contract, the contract says nothing specific, and somebody makes a judgment call under pressure. That is the normal state of affairs in German employment, and it reliably produces different answers for two comparable cases. We think the day count is the smaller question anyway. What matters more is how the policy is built and what happens in the weeks after the leave ends.
What the law actually gives you
Section 616 BGB preserves an employee’s pay during short, unavoidable personal absence, but names no occasions and no number of days.
The statutory text refers only to a “relatively insignificant period” and leaves the rest to practice. The public sector agreement TVöD fills that gap in Section 29(1)(b) with two working days for the death of a spouse, registered partner, child or parent, and the TV-L matches it word for word. Those two days have become the reference point for almost everyone, collective agreement or not.
Our recommendation: three working days for the closest circle
For the death of a spouse, registered partner, child or parent, we recommend three working days of paid leave, one more than the TVöD provides.
The reasoning is practical rather than sentimental. The first days after a death are consumed by registering with the Standesamt, engaging a funeral director, and assembling the Totenschein, ID, birth certificate and, depending on marital status, further documents. All of it happens during office hours, and the registration deadline under Section 28 PStG runs to the third Werktag following the death, which is not the same counting basis as Arbeitstage and which individual Standesämter apply inconsistently where Saturday is concerned.
Two days covers this if nothing goes wrong. One additional working day is arithmetically under half a percent of annual working time. The sick leave four weeks later that you may avoid costs a multiple of that.
Define relatives by responsibility, not by family tree
A bereavement policy holds up better when it defines the eligible circle by who carries responsibility after the death.
Degree of kinship leads straight into the arguments nobody wants to have in that particular week. Siblings are missing from the TVöD (Bund and VKA), there is no settled claim for parents-in-law, and whether stepchildren fall under the term “child” is expressly disputed in the commentary.
Our suggestion is a two-tier rule. Full entitlement for anyone who shared a household with the person who died or is organising the funeral. One day for other close relatives. That covers the unmarried partner and the stepchild without special cases, and no manager has to assess a family relationship while somebody is crying in front of them.
Let the days be spread across several weeks
Paid bereavement leave works considerably better when employees can distribute the days freely within a defined window.
Many policies specify “the day of the funeral” and therefore cover only one of the two points at which the pressure actually lands. The funeral is rarely the day after the death. The administrative crunch is. Eight weeks of flexibility and the option of half days solve this without anyone building something new in the time tracking system.
Ask for proof afterwards
The Sterbeurkunde is usually not available in the first days after a death, because it is issued only once the death has been registered with the Standesamt.
Making it a precondition for leave means demanding a document at precisely the moment it does not yet exist. Grant the leave first and collect the paperwork later.
The same principle applies to the manager. The less discretion the policy leaves them, the less often two comparable cases diverge. One sentence is enough: the leave is granted, it is not applied for.
Check the contract before the first case
Section 616 BGB can be contracted out of, and exclusion clauses are common in German private-sector employment contracts.
Discovering this during a live case is uncomfortable for everyone involved. Granting paid leave anyway and repeatedly can create a betriebliche Übung, a binding company practice that is much harder to unwind than to avoid.
Our recommendation here is the less obvious one: leave the exclusion in place and write your own explicit policy instead. Then the number is fixed, and nobody has to argue about what “relatively insignificant” means while a funeral is being arranged.
The expensive part starts after the leave
The costly absence following a death lands in the weeks after the leave has ended.
Banks, insurers, pension authorities, probate court, cancelling active contracts, all of it during office hours and alongside a full workload. Short-notice absences cluster in this period, focus drops, and the return to full capacity stretches across months.
That is why we think the argument about day three matters less than the question of what happens in week four.
This is where Meolea sits: employees get a guided sequence of everything outstanding, with deadlines resolved by Bundesland, and your HR team stops being the informal advice desk for estate questions. On the Vorsorge side, people can prepare their own documents, powers of attorney, and responsibilities before anything happens. Parts of the automation, such as cancelling active contracts directly, are still being built and are not available everywhere today.
💡 More on how the employer offer is structured: Meolea as an employee benefit
The tax frame
Under Section 8(2) sentence 11 EStG, a Sachbezug of up to 50 euros per employee per month is free of income tax and social security contributions, provided it is granted in addition to contractually owed salary.
The Meolea line sits at roughly 12.50 euros per month, using about a quarter of that room. Watch the Freigrenze mechanic: exceed 50 euros in a given month, even slightly, and the entire Sachbezug for that month becomes taxable. We confirm how this applies to your company with your Steuerberater before any contract is signed.
What you can do next
Give this half an hour this week. Check your contract templates for a Section 616 BGB clause, so you know what you are starting from. Then write down three things: how many days, for which group of people, and over what period the days can be taken. A working policy needs nothing more than that, and from that point on every case is a decision you can explain.
For the part that comes after, get in touch. We will walk through your current policy with you in 20 minutes and show what Meolea takes off your employees and your HR team in the weeks once the leave has ended.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many days of bereavement leave should we give?
Nothing is fixed by statute. One to three working days is the usual range, and the TVöD sets two for spouses, registered partners, children and parents. We recommend three, because the first days of official appointments only fit into two working days if nothing goes wrong.
Is bereavement leave legally required in Germany?
Section 616 BGB creates an entitlement to paid leave for short, unavoidable absence, and a death in the immediate family generally qualifies. It can be excluded by contract, and in the private sector it frequently has been. Check your own templates before relying on it.
Does bereavement leave have to be paid?
If Section 616 BGB applies and has not been excluded, yes. If it has been excluded, the employment contract, collective agreement or works agreement governs. With nothing in place, the options come down to unpaid leave or annual leave.
Does the leave cover siblings, parents-in-law or stepchildren?
Legally, all three are uncertain: siblings are absent from the TVöD (Bund and VKA), parents-in-law have no settled claim, and the treatment of stepchildren is disputed. Our advice is to avoid resolving this by family tree at all and to use household and responsibility for the funeral instead.
What happens once the leave is over, but there’s still a lot to handle?
This is exactly where Meolea comes in. Employees get a guided, state-aware overview of next steps instead of piecing it together alongside their job.
Can we offer Meolea as a Sachbezug?
The monthly ceiling under Section 8(2) sentence 11 EStG is 50 euros, and the Meolea line sits well below it. Whether the specific structure works in your case is something we confirm with your Steuerberater before signing.