The short answer: there is no statutory catalogue. No paragraph names a fixed number of days for the death of a parent. What exists is a general clause, a body of court rulings, and the option to exclude the entitlement entirely by contract.
That is exactly why the question gets answered wrong in HR departments on a regular basis.
The legal basis: §616 BGB
§616 BGB governs “temporary prevention from work.” Employees keep their claim to pay if they are prevented from working
- for a personal reason,
- through no fault of their own,
- for a relatively insignificant period of time.
The death of a close relative is uncontested as such a personal reason. What the “insignificant period” actually means in days, the law does not say.
What is applied in practice
A practice has formed around collective bargaining agreements. §29 of the TVöD (the public sector agreement) grants two working days on the death of a spouse, registered civil partner, child, or parent. Many private-sector employment contracts adopt the same structure.
| Relationship | Common practice |
|---|---|
| Spouse, registered civil partner | 2 working days |
| Child | 2 working days |
| Parent | 1 to 2 working days |
| Sibling | often 1 working day, sometimes only for the funeral |
| Grandparent, parent-in-law | often 1 working day for the funeral, sometimes none |
These figures are practice, not law. An entitlement arises from the employment contract, a works agreement, a collective bargaining agreement, or established company practice.
Established practice is the point employers overlook most often. A company that has granted two days consistently over several years can become bound by that pattern, even with nothing in writing.
§616 BGB can be waived, and often is
This is the single most operationally important point in this article.
§616 BGB can be excluded entirely by employment contract or collective agreement. Such clauses are widespread and enforceable. Wording along the lines of “the application of §616 BGB is excluded” or “continued pay in the event of personal prevention from work does not apply” appears in a significant share of standard employment contracts.
Where §616 is excluded, the rule is: employees have a right to time off, but not to pay. They then have to take annual leave, draw down overtime, or take unpaid leave.
For HR, this means: check the actual contract before you commit to anything. A verbal commitment made in the moment of loss that contradicts the contract cannot be undone later.
What applies for a funeral at a distance
If the funeral takes place far away, the “insignificant period” can reasonably run longer, because travel time is added on top. There is no fixed rule. One additional travel day for a greater distance is common practice.
For a funeral abroad, the reasonableness threshold is reached quickly. In practice this is usually combined with annual leave or unpaid time off.
Grief is not incapacity to work
A distinction that regularly causes uncertainty in HR departments.
Grief alone does not constitute incapacity to work. A medical certificate requires a condition with clinical significance, diagnosed by a doctor, such as an adjustment disorder or a depressive episode. This does happen, particularly after the loss of a partner or a child, but it is legally a separate process from special leave.
The two are not mutually exclusive: two days of special leave can be followed by a medically certified incapacity to work. At that point, continued pay under §3 EFZG applies, and after six weeks, statutory sick pay takes over.
Further reading: Continued Pay, Sick Pay, and Employee Bereavement
Why the one-day-or-two debate misses the point
The special leave question is the only question that regularly gets asked when a death occurs. It also covers the smallest part of the actual cost.
A death in an employee’s family costs a company around €10,000 on average. Special leave accounts for between €700 and €1,100 of that, under ten percent. The far larger share arises afterward: over four to six months in which the registry office, insurers, banks, contract cancellations, and estate administration fall inside working hours, because those offices are only reachable on working days.
Those months show up on no cost line. They show up as presence at reduced output.
The full calculation: What a Death in the Family Costs an Employer
7. Recommendation for a company policy
Put it in writing before a case occurs. A policy improvised in the moment is either too narrow, which damages the relationship, or too generous, which sets a precedent you can no longer control.
Three points a solid policy should cover:
- Degrees of relationship and days, named explicitly rather than left to §616 BGB.
- Handling of travel time for a funeral at a distance.
- Relationship to annual leave and incapacity to work, clarified so nobody has to calculate it in the moment.
If §616 BGB is excluded in your contracts, check whether that still reflects your actual intent. In many companies the exclusion came from a contract template and was never a deliberate decision.
8. What this means operationally
Special leave is the two days everyone plans for. The four to six months after it are where the actual cost sits, and where nothing in a standard HR policy helps an employee at all. An employee who already knows what to do at the registry office, the bank, and the insurer costs the company less in exactly the months covered in Section 6. That is the part of the process an employer can address without touching leave policy at all: see how Meolea supports employees through the months after special leave ends.
Sources
- §616 BGB, temporary prevention from work
- §29 TVöD, release from work
- §3 EFZG, continued pay during illness
- Destatis (Federal Statistical Office): Labour cost per hour worked