Einkommensteuer · Antragsveranlagung 2022–2025
Germany already has your refund ready. It's just sitting there until you ask.
German employers withhold income tax as if you earned the same salary all year, every year. Most Indian professionals overpay — and never file the return that gets it back. You can still claim four years back, and you can claim from India after you have left. This works the same way whether you worked in Germany for one year or five, and whether you file alone or jointly with a spouse — every tax year keeps its own four-year clock.
- Fixed price, agreed before you start
- Never a cut of your refund
- Filed by a licensed Steuerberater
- Nothing to print or courier
Average refund paid out Zeile 01
1,240 euro
Average income tax refund per filed return, all filers. Source: Statistisches Bundesamt. Just over half of refunds land between €100 and €1,000; 3% exceed €5,000. Most Indian professionals here work in IT, engineering and finance, where salaries run above the national average — among the clients we work with, refunds typically land in the €3,000–€9,000 range. Yours depends on your own figures.
Frist / DeadlineTax year 2022 closes 31.12.2026
After that date the 2022 return cannot be filed at all, no matter how much you were owed. The four-year limit is §169 AO.
Three situations. All three can claim.
Pick the one that sounds like you.
Living in Germany
You are working in Germany now
You can file for the current year and go back to 2022. If you have never filed, that is usually four separate refunds sitting there, not one.
Typical case: one per year, a few receipts, done over chat.
Start with thisMost money left behind
You worked in Germany and moved back to India
German tax software assumes a German address and a German bank account, so it simply does not work for you. A German tax adviser will rarely take a small one-off case from Pune. We were built for exactly this.
The refund can be paid to your Indian account. You never need to return to Germany.
Start with thisTwo refunds, not one
You have left Germany for good
Alongside the tax refund you may be able to reclaim your half of the pension contributions taken from every payslip. For a three-to-five-year career that is typically €15,000–€45,000. These are two separate applications to two separate authorities — the tax refund to the Finanzamt, the pension refund to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung.
Conditions (§210 SGB VI): under 5 years of contributions, 24 months since your last one, and you live outside the EU.
Start with thisNine steps, and you are named on only three of them.
Every step below says who does it. That division is not a marketing line — it is the legal structure of this business, and it is the thing worth checking before you trust anyone with your payslips.
Say hello on WhatsApp
Answer about six questions: which years, where you live, how you were employed. Two minutes, no account, no email address.
Tell you whether it is worth doing
We show you what people in your situation typically recover, and say so plainly when the answer is "probably not worth it". A published average is not a promise about your case.
Agree the price and pay it
The fixed fee for your case type, agreed before we start. Paid upfront, in rupees or euros. No percentage, ever.
Send one checklist, then chase you
One message with everything we need, not a drip feed. Photograph the documents with your phone. If something is missing from an old employer, we give you the wording to ask for it.
Assemble the file
Sorted, labelled and complete, in the format the tax adviser asked for. We do not decide what you may claim — we make sure nothing is missing when the person who does decide opens the file.
Review, decide, file
A licensed German tax adviser reviews your file, decides what is claimable, prepares the return and submits it through (elster.de). Every judgement about your taxes is theirs, under their licence and their professional insurance.
Assess and pay
The tax office reviews and issues your . Typical wait is 45 to 56 days, but it depends entirely on which regional Finanzamt handles your file and how loaded it is — Munich, Stuttgart and Berlin run slower, and July–September is the busy stretch. We message you every three weeks so the silence is not yours to worry about.
The money reaches you
Paid by the German tax office directly into your account — German or Indian. It never passes through us. We could not take a cut even if we wanted to, because we never hold it.
- You — three steps
- Us — the paperwork
- Licensed tax adviser — all tax decisions
- German tax office — assessment and payment
Five questions, no email address.
This sorts out what applies to you and what to have ready. It does not calculate your refund — nobody can do that honestly from five taps, and in Germany only a licensed adviser may try.
The claims that get missed.
German tax software is built for a German employee who lives in Germany. These four are where Indian professionals leave the most money behind, and where the numbers below are current for 2025 and 2026 — not the outdated figures still published elsewhere.
Unterhalt
Money sent to your parents
Support sent to parents in India can be deductible (§33a Abs. 1 EStG). Usually the single largest claim available to Indian filers.
Needs: transfer receipts, your parents' details, and a support declaration on the official form (notarisation may be required above a certain amount — we tell you which applies to your case). We send you the current form.
Doppelte Haushaltsführung
A home in India, a rent in Germany
If you kept a genuine household in India — one that stayed your centre of life — while renting in Germany, the German rent and trips home can support a double-household claim (§9 Abs. 1 Satz 3 Nr. 5 EStG). It fits people on fixed-term contracts or deputation better than a permanent move.
Needs: Indian property or rent proof, German rent contract, flight tickets.
Arrival & departure years
The year you moved
Tax was withheld as though you would earn a German salary for twelve months. If you only worked part of the year, too much came off every payslip. These are usually the biggest refunds.
Needs: registration and deregistration certificates, Indian income proof for that year.
Pauschbeträge
The flat allowances
The employee allowance (§9a EStG) is €1,230 a year — not the €1,000 some competitors still quote. Home-office days count at €6 a day up to €1,260 a year, and that rule is permanent now (§4 Abs. 5 Nr. 6c EStG).
Needs: nothing more than an honest count of your home-office days.
Rentenversicherung · the larger cheque
Your pension contributions can come back too.
Every German payslip took a pension contribution. If you are an Indian citizen who contributed for under five years, has lived outside the EU for at least 24 months since the last contribution, you can apply to have your half refunded (§210 SGB VI). Your employer's half stays with the system. The Deutsche Rentenversicherung sets out the conditions here.
Typically €15,000–€45,000 for a three-to-five-year career. Processing takes three to six months. Filed on form V0901 to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung — we prepare it, you sign it.
Most people claim both in one conversation. It is the same documents and the same life moment, so there is no reason to do it twice.
The whole checklist, before you pay anything.
Photographs from your phone are fine. The list is fixed and identical for everyone in the same situation — we do not decide what you may claim, so we do not go fishing for documents that suit an argument.
Everyone
- Passport photo page
- Your German
- Residence permit or visa you held
- Bank details for the refund — German or Indian
- Marital status for each year claimed
For each year claimed
- The annual
- December payslip, as a cross-check
- Employment or deputation contract
- Any benefit statements you received
- Registration & deregistration — your
Only if it applies to you
- Remittance receipts to your parents, plus their details
- Proof of your household in India
- Flight tickets for trips home
- Indian income proof for an arrival or departure year
- Receipts for equipment, courses or relocation
Lost your Lohnsteuerbescheinigung?
It happens constantly, and it is not a problem. Once you have signed the adviser's authorisation, they can retrieve your wage records directly from the tax authority's own system. Failing that, we give you the wording to request a copy from your former employer.
Who actually files your return?
Not us. In Germany, giving tax advice and filing returns for other people is a licensed profession, protected by law (§2 StBerG). We are not a Steuerberater, not a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein (§4 Nr. 11 StBerG), and not a tax firm — and we will never claim to be one.
We do the marketing, the eligibility check, the document collection and the chasing. A licensed reviews your file, decides what is claimable, and submits the return under their own licence and professional indemnity insurance.
Our fee is flat and fixed in advance. It does not change with the size of your refund and it is not a commission on the adviser's work. That separation is deliberate — it is what keeps the arrangement lawful, and it is why we can fix the price in advance.
If you ask us a question that only a tax adviser may answer, we will not guess at it. We will put it to them and come back to you with their answer.
We are new. Here is what you can check anyway.
A wall of testimonials is easy to write and impossible to verify. Until we have real ones from real clients, here is what is actually checkable today.
Your money never touches our account
The German tax office pays you directly. There is no arrangement in which we could deduct anything, delay anything, or disappear with it — we are never holding it.
Every number here is sourced
The €1,240 average comes from the Federal Statistical Office and is linked. The allowances, deadlines and pension conditions are the current published rules, not last decade's figures still sitting on a competitor's page.
The checklist is public
You know exactly what we will ask you for before you tell us your name, and the fee is fixed and agreed before you send a single document.
The things people actually ask.
I left Germany in 2023. Can I still claim?
Yes. A voluntary return (Antragsveranlagung, §46 Abs. 2 Nr. 8 EStG) can be filed up to four years after the tax year (§169 AO). In 2026 that means 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 are all still open, whether or not you live in Germany now. Leaving does not close the door — 31 December 2026 closes it for 2022.
How much will I get back?
Nobody can tell you honestly before seeing your figures, and in Germany only a licensed adviser may work it out. What we can tell you: the average refund across all German filers is €1,240, just over half land between €100 and €1,000, and 3% exceed €5,000. Departure years and cases with support sent to parents tend to sit at the higher end.
Can the refund go to my Indian bank account?
Yes. The tax office can pay to an account outside Germany. It is worth knowing that the correspondent banks take a fee on the transfer, and that a German account, if you still have one open, is usually simpler and faster for the tax office to handle.
How long does it take?
Collecting your documents usually takes three to ten days, mostly depending on how quickly you send photographs. After filing, the tax office takes 45 to 56 days in a typical case, and sometimes considerably longer — it depends which regional Finanzamt handles your file and its current workload (Munich, Stuttgart and Berlin are slower; July–September is busiest). We message you every three weeks during the wait rather than leaving you wondering. Pension refunds are slower: three to six months.
Is this legal? Who is actually responsible?
A licensed German Steuerberater reviews and files your return under their own licence and professional insurance. We handle marketing, document collection and communication, for a flat fee that has nothing to do with the size of your refund. We do not give tax advice, and if you ask us something only an adviser may answer, we pass it to them rather than guessing.
Why not just use Taxfix or Wundertax for €35?
If you live in Germany, speak enough German to check the result, and have a straightforward employee case, you probably should — it is cheaper and it works. They are built for a resident filing their own simple return. They are weak or unusable for departure years, for people who have left the country, and for the India-specific claims that make up most of the value in our clients' cases. We are the done-for-you option for the cases that software does not cover.
What is the pension refund and can I get both?
Every German payslip took a pension contribution, split between you and your employer. If you are an Indian citizen who contributed for under five years and has lived outside the EU for at least 24 months since your last contribution, you can apply for your half back (§210 SGB VI) — typically €15,000 to €45,000 for a three-to-five-year career. Yes, you can claim both, and most people do it in one conversation.
What happens to my documents?
They go into a folder that only your case uses, and on to the tax adviser once you have agreed to it. They are not used for anything else and not sold to anyone. You can ask us to delete them at any time — the detail is in the privacy notice. If you would rather not send documents over WhatsApp, we will send you a direct upload link instead.
I am a freelancer. Can you help?
Not through this service. Freelance and self-employed returns are more involved and sit outside what we do. We will introduce you to the tax adviser directly, on their own terms, rather than putting you through a process built for employee returns.
What does it cost, and when do I pay?
A fixed fee for your case type, agreed in advance and unrelated to the size of your refund. You pay upfront, once you have agreed the price and before we start collecting documents. If the adviser then concludes there is no worthwhile refund, you get it back minus a small processing charge.
Leave your details. We will come back to you.
A few basics so we know your situation before we write. No documents now, and no obligation.
2022 closes 31.12.2026
Two minutes on WhatsApp tells you whether there is money waiting.
No account, no email address, no obligation. If the answer is that it is not worth your time, we will say so.