Advance VAT return in Germany: deadlines, extension and what to book by the tenth
When is the advance VAT return due?
You submit your advance VAT return (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung) electronically to the tax office by the tenth day after the end of each filing period, and the VAT it declares is due for payment on the same day (§ 18 UStG). When the tenth falls on a weekend or a public holiday, the deadline moves to the next working day (§ 108 AO).
How often you file depends on the VAT you owed for the previous year. Since 1 January 2025, you file monthly if your VAT for the previous year was more than 9,000 euros and quarterly if it was 9,000 euros or less. At 2,000 euros or less, the tax office can release you from advance returns altogether (§ 18 UStG). Both thresholds were raised in 2025, from 7,500 and 1,000 euros. A company that paid out more input VAT than it collected, which is common for a startup still building its product, can choose monthly filing if that surplus was above 9,000 euros, so the refund arrives every month instead of every quarter.
Normally a company files monthly in its founding year and the year after, but for the years 2021 to 2026 that rule is suspended and the ordinary thresholds apply, based on the expected VAT in the first year. Unless the suspension is extended, a company founded in 2026 files monthly in 2027, and a company founded in 2027 files monthly for its first two years.
Why is the tenth so hard to meet?
Filling in the return is quick once the month is booked. What takes time is having a month that is complete enough to file. Every sales invoice for the month has to be issued and booked, every supplier invoice has to be there with the details that entitle you to deduct its input VAT, and every card payment needs its receipt.
In many companies that work happens in the first days of the following month, and it happens in two places: your team collects the receipts and matches the payments to their invoices, then export the month results to your tax advisor, who books it in DATEV and files the return. The tax advisor's office needs your data before the tenth, so your internal deadline is several days earlier. A startup founder told us they prepare their quarterly VAT return by matching bank statements to paper receipts, and another told us that uploading receipts and getting the payments into DATEV is the most time-consuming part of their finance work.
That is why so many companies apply for the permanent extension (Dauerfristverlängerung). On application, the tax office extends both the filing and the payment deadline by one month (§ 46 UStDV), so the return for October is due on 10 December instead of 10 November, which gives your team and your tax advisor a full extra month.
What do the extension and late filing cost?
For monthly filers, the extension comes at a price: a special prepayment (Sondervorauszahlung) of one eleventh of the previous year's advance VAT payments, paid by 10 February and credited against the December return (§ 47 UStDV). If your advance payments for 2025 added up to 66,000 euros, the prepayment for 2026 is 6,000 euros. Quarterly filers pay no special prepayment at all.
Filing late has its own price: the tax office can charge a late-filing surcharge (Verspätungszuschlag), and paying late costs a late-payment surcharge (Säumniszuschlag) of 1 percent of the unpaid tax for each month started (§ 240 AO). A return filed on time with missing receipts can also mean deducting less input VAT than you are entitled to until the documents turn up, which leaves your money with the tax office for another month.
What has to be booked before you file?
By the time the return is filed, four things need to be complete for the month: sales invoices, supplier invoices with their full details, receipts for every card payment, and special cases. The special cases are mainly services bought from other EU countries, where you declare the VAT yourself under the reverse charge. Everything else on your month-end close checklist can wait a few days, because these four determine the VAT position.
The way to meet the tenth without the extension is to keep the month current as it runs, instead of reconstructing it after month-end.
How does Agent F help you file on time?
Agent F is an AI-native ERP that connects your bank accounts, expense management tool, invoicing tool and payroll and HR tool in one system. It fits how your company actually works: you list your requirements, from your workflows and automations to your business model, and Agent F builds the ERP around them, a method we call the ERP Factory.
Every transaction is reconciled as it comes in: Agent F suggests the matching invoice or receipt, the account and the cost centre, each with a confidence score, and your team reviews and approves it, so manual matching becomes an approval flow during the month. The month's open items sit on a close task list, including every card payment that is still missing its receipt, so you can see what has to be completed before you file.
Agent F then builds the advance VAT return from the month's bookings, and you check it and file it with the tax office directly, well before the tenth. If your tax advisor files it for you, they receive the finished bookings through the DATEV export instead of a month to reconstruct. And because the month is booked as it runs, your monthly management income statement (BWA) is ready early too.
How complete is your month on the first day of the next one?
Learn how Agent F works, and book a demo at agent-f.ai/demo to see it run on your numbers.