Your wedding, the birth of your child, a funeral, a house move ordered by the company, an unavoidable medical appointment: German law handles these life events through Sonderurlaub — special leave that does not touch your vacation account. The legal anchor is § 616 BGB, and the point most employees miss is double-edged: § 616 BGB gives you paid days off for short personal emergencies by default — but it can be, and very often is, excluded in the employment contract. Whether your bereavement day is paid, unpaid or silently deducted from vacation depends on three documents: the statute, your contract, and any collective or works agreement.
The statutory default: § 616 BGB
§ 616 BGB provides: an employee who is prevented from working for a relatively insignificant period, through no fault of their own, for a reason personal to them, keeps the right to remuneration. Three elements:
- Personal reason: the obstacle must lie in your personal sphere — a family event, a family emergency, a civic duty. General obstacles hitting everyone (public-transport strike, flooded motorway) do not qualify: getting to work is your risk (Wegerisiko).
- No fault: self-inflicted prevention is excluded.
- Relatively insignificant duration: case law thinks in hours and single days, at the outside a few days. Longer absences fall out of § 616 entirely — they shift into other regimes (sick pay under the EFZG, Krankengeld, care leave, unpaid leave).
Where § 616 applies, the leave is paid at your full normal remuneration and the employer may not deduct it from vacation.
The typical catalogue
The statute names no events. Concrete day counts come from collective agreements (§ 29 TVöD is the de-facto national reference), works agreements and contract clauses. The customary framework:
- Birth of your own child: 1 day (the birth day or the day you bring mother and child home).
- Death of a close relative (spouse/registered partner, child, parent): commonly 2 days; other relatives (siblings, grandparents, in-laws) often 1 day or none, depending on the applicable agreement.
- Your own wedding / civil partnership registration: 1 day under many collective and works agreements — not in every catalogue (the TVöD, for instance, omits it).
- Relocation for company reasons: 1 day where the employer requires the move (transfer to another site). A private move is normally your own affair.
- Medical appointments: the necessary time off, paid, where the appointment cannot reasonably be scheduled outside working hours (acute treatment, specialist availability, fixed hospital slots). For flexible-hours arrangements, courts expect you to use the flexibility first.
- Acute family emergencies: a child or dependent suddenly ill and requiring care, until other care is organized — short and paid via § 616 where not excluded.
Child sickness: § 45 SGB V is the safety net
The most frequent real-world case — your child is sick and you must stay home — has its own statutory system. If you and the child are statutorily health-insured and the child is under 12 (no age limit for disabled children), you are entitled to unpaid release from work plus Kinderkrankengeld from your health insurer: roughly 90% of net pay, for a set number of working days per parent, per child, per year. The legislature adjusts the numbers repeatedly — currently 15 working days per parent per child (30 for single parents), capped in aggregate for multiple children; verify current figures with your Krankenkasse.
Sequence matters: for the first day or two of a child’s sudden illness, a non-excluded § 616 BGB gives you full pay from the employer — better than Kinderkrankengeld. Only when § 616 is excluded or exhausted do you switch to the § 45 SGB V route. Privately insured parents have no Kinderkrankengeld and depend entirely on § 616 or contractual arrangements — a genuine gap to check before choosing private insurance.
Civic duties: court summonses, honorary judges, elections
A summons as a witness, service as an honorary judge (Schöffe), or duty as an election helper legally obliges you to appear — the employer must release you and may not sanction you for following a summons. Pay is the nuance: where § 616 is excluded, the employer need not pay, but the justice system compensates witnesses and honorary judges for lost earnings under the JVEG (within statutory caps), and election authorities pay attendance allowances. Claim with the employer’s certificate of lost pay at the court’s payment office.
When there is no right: the unpaid-leave conversation
Beyond the short-emergency zone, German law knows no general right to unpaid leave — a sabbatical month, an extended trip home, accompanying a relative abroad all require agreement — though for recognized education courses, state-law Bildungsurlaub is a statutory right in 14 of 16 states and worth checking first. Two exceptions with real teeth: short-term care leave of up to 10 working days for an acute care situation of a close relative (§ 2 PflegeZG, with Pflegeunterstützungsgeld from the care insurance), and longer care leave under the PflegeZG/FPfZG in businesses above the size thresholds.
Enforcement realities
Sonderurlaub disputes are small in euros and large in principle — which is exactly why employers often simply refuse and rely on employees dropping the issue. Practical sequence:
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Notify early, request in text form
As soon as the event is foreseeable (wedding, funeral date, court summons), request the specific day(s) in writing, citing the event and — where you know it — the applicable catalogue (collective agreement, works agreement, § 616 BGB).
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Secure the evidence
Death certificate or funeral notice, birth certificate, court summons, medical appointment confirmation stating the time. Employers may ask; have it ready.
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If refused: do not simply stay away without advice
An unjustified absence can trigger an Abmahnung or worse. For a same-week funeral, take legal advice immediately — often a single lawyer’s email resolves it within hours.
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Claim the pay afterwards — watch exclusion periods
If you took the day and the employer docked pay or vacation, assert the difference in writing. Contractual Ausschlussfristen of 3 months apply to these claims like any other; the mechanics mirror those for Entgeltfortzahlung disputes.
Worked example
Data analyst from India, employed in Bonn, gross €5,200/month (~€240 per working day), statutory health insurance, one child aged 4. His contract states: „§ 616 BGB findet keine Anwendung.” No collective agreement applies. Within one year:
- Father dies abroad; 2 days around the funeral trip: no § 616 pay (excluded). The employer must still release him (duty of consideration), but unpaid: −€480 gross, or 2 vacation days if he prefers. With a non-excluded § 616, both days would have been fully paid.
- Child sick, 4 working days: § 616 excluded, so the § 45 SGB V route applies from day one: unpaid release plus Kinderkrankengeld of roughly 90% of net. At his pay level about €150 net/day from the Krankenkasse — roughly €35/day less than his normal net.
- Own wedding: no § 616, no catalogue — a vacation day.
Annual cost of that one exclusion sentence: roughly €700–900 net plus a vacation day, every year the events occur. In his next contract negotiation we inserted a Sonderurlaub catalogue (1 day wedding, 2 days bereavement, 1 day birth, paid child-sick days before the SGB V route) — a concession the employer granted without resistance.
Frequently asked questions
Can my employer force me to use vacation days for a funeral?
Not where a paid special-leave right exists (§ 616 BGB not excluded, or a collective/works-agreement catalogue applies). Where every paid route is validly excluded, the employer must still release you for a close relative’s funeral, but may treat the day as unpaid — vacation is then your choice, not the employer’s to impose. Unilateral „we booked it as vacation” is challengeable; your vacation account should be corrected.
Is there a right to paid leave for moving house?
Only when the move is in the employer’s interest — a company-ordered transfer or relocation. Purely private moves confer no statutory day off; many works agreements grant one anyway. Check the catalogue before assuming either way.
How many child-sick days do I get, exactly?
Currently 15 working days per parent per child per year under § 45 SGB V (30 for single parents), capped for several children — the figures change, so confirm with your insurer. Requirements: statutory insurance of parent and child, child under 12, doctor’s certificate of the child’s illness.
My employer says medical appointments must always be in my free time. True?
Only partially. If you can reasonably schedule the appointment outside working hours — or shift it within a flexitime system — you must. If not (acute illness, specialist slots dictated by the practice, fixed hospital appointments), you are entitled to the necessary time off; whether it is paid depends on § 616 and your contract.
Does Sonderurlaub cover religious holidays of my faith?
There is no general paid entitlement for religious holidays outside the public-holiday calendar of your state. Employers must, however, take religious needs into account in vacation scheduling within reason, and some collective agreements grant leave for specific religious events. Which public holidays apply to you at all depends on the federal state of your workplace — a separate lottery of its own.