Disclosure at the Unternehmensregister: deadlines, formats, costs

The documents for disclosure must be submitted no later than 12 months after the balance sheet date. If the financial year corresponds to the calendar year, the accounts for the 2023 financial year must therefore be submitted by the end of 2024 at the latest.

A shorter deadline of 4 months applies to capital-market-oriented capital companies (§ 264d HGB). For issuers of investment assets under the VermAnlG, the deadline is 6 months.

For financial years beginning after 31 December 2021, accounting documents must be submitted via the Unternehmensregister. This list is not exhaustive; the relevant statutory provisions are binding.

The submission format at the Unternehmensregister is XML. PDF, Word and Excel are source documents that must first be converted into submittable XML.

Source format and submission format are not the same thing: a PDF contains the content but is not the required XML.

For the filing of accounting documents, the Unternehmensregister charges a statutory fee under the JVKostG. It depends on company size and format.

The following overview shows examples from the schedule of costs. The amounts are register fees and apply regardless of the submission path.

If documents are submitted in different formats, the higher fee is generally charged.

If documents are not delivered in the required XML format but as Word, RTF, Excel or PDF, the register authority charges a private-law conversion fee.

It amounts to 1.75 cents per visible character and 20.00 EUR per graphic, each plus VAT. This fee is added to the statutory fee.

An XML-first workflow avoids these conversion-related costs because the submission is made directly in the required format.

An increased handling fee of 2.50 cents per visible character plus VAT applies to scanned documents.

Practical note: a single scanned document can cause the entire order to be billed at the increased handling fee.

Total costs depend not only on company size but also on the submission format. The register fee generally applies; conversion-related charges and increased handling fees are added depending on the format path.

The amounts are not alternative but additive: for a PDF submission, the register fee and conversion fee can apply together; for a scan submission, the increased handling fee may be added as well.

The cost calculator compares how the classic submission and the XML path via Uregistry differ for your specific parameters.