Apply for a com­pany num­ber online

For many entre­pren­eurs, the moment they take on their first employee is a big step. But when is this point really reached? What qual­i­fic­a­tions should the first employee have? And what legal and fin­an­cial aspects need to be con­sidered? Here we answer the most import­ant ques­tions about hir­ing employ­ees.

When is the right time to hire your first employ­ees?

The right time to hire your first employee is indi­vidual and depends on sev­eral factors. If you as an entre­pren­eur real­ise that your tasks exceed the time avail­able and import­ant busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies remain untapped, it is time to think about sup­port. Even if the com­pany is grow­ing and you want to focus on stra­tegic tasks, a first employee is often the next logical step.

How do you find the right employee?

Find­ing the right per­son is cru­cial to the suc­cess of your com­pany. Start with a clear job descrip­tion in which you pre­cisely define the tasks and require­ments. In addi­tion to pro­fes­sional qual­i­fic­a­tions, you should also pay atten­tion to per­sonal qual­it­ies such as ini­ti­at­ive, flex­ib­il­ity and the abil­ity to work in a team — the right chem­istry is par­tic­u­larly import­ant in a small com­pany. Always use vari­ous plat­forms, net­works and per­haps even per­sonal con­tacts to find the right can­did­ates. A par­tic­u­larly import­ant decision you need to make is whether you are look­ing for someone who is a gen­er­al­ist and can provide a little sup­port in all areas of the com­pany, or whether you are look­ing for someone who is an expert in a spe­cific area.

Per­son­nel and labour costs: what do you need to con­sider?

The decision to hire an employee nat­ur­ally also entails costs. In addi­tion to salary costs, there are social secur­ity con­tri­bu­tions, con­tri­bu­tions to health and pen­sion insur­ance and poten­tial spe­cial bene­fits such as hol­i­day pay or a com­pany pen­sion scheme. Plan these costs care­fully so that they do not exceed the budget. Many young com­pan­ies under­es­tim­ate the total costs, so solid fin­an­cial plan­ning is essen­tial.

In Ger­many, the employer gen­er­ally pays half of the cur­rent health, nurs­ing care, pen­sion and unem­ploy­ment insur­ance. These are costs that are added to the employee’s gross salary. In prac­tice, this means that the employee receives a monthly payslip show­ing their gross wage or salary and then the deduc­tions made for income tax and social secur­ity con­tri­bu­tions. At the bot­tom is the actual amount paid out, the net wage that is actu­ally avail­able to the employee. How­ever, the employer’s social secur­ity con­tri­bu­tion is not shown on this payslip.

Con­tracts and regis­tra­tion: What you need to con­sider

When you hire your first employee, you need to take vari­ous legal and admin­is­trat­ive steps. Here you can find out what is import­ant when it comes to con­tracts, com­pany num­ber, acci­dent insur­ance, social secur­ity, the health author­ity and health insur­ance.

The employ­ment con­tract
The employ­ment con­tract is the cent­ral doc­u­ment that gov­erns your employ­ment rela­tion­ship with your employee. It con­tains all the essen­tial details, such as the exact job descrip­tion, salary, work­ing hours, hol­i­day enti­tle­ment and notice peri­ods. Make sure that the con­tract ful­fils all legal require­ments, for example with regard to the min­imum wage or hol­i­day enti­tle­ment. It also makes sense to include top­ics such as over­time reg­u­la­tions, any spe­cial bene­fits and the com­pany pen­sion scheme in the con­tract.

In addi­tion to the employ­ment con­tract, the employee must fill out a per­son­nel mas­ter form (or many com­pan­ies already have a digital way of enter­ing employee data), which con­tains the social secur­ity data and other con­trac­tual data.

Oblig­a­tion to register upon hir­ing
The start of employ­ment must be repor­ted with the first payroll. How­ever, the noti­fic­a­tion must be made within six weeks of the start of employ­ment at the latest. You register the employee with the health insur­ance fund that the employee has spe­cified in the per­son­nel mas­ter sheet, which for­wards the regis­tra­tion to the pen­sion insur­ance fund and other social insur­ance schemes. It is import­ant that this is done in good time to avoid legal prob­lems.

Acci­dent insur­ance
Every employer in Ger­many must insure their employ­ees against acci­dents at work and occu­pa­tional ill­nesses. To do this, you register your com­pany with the rel­ev­ant employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation. In the event of an acci­dent, this organ­isa­tion provides fin­an­cial pro­tec­tion for your employ­ees. The con­tri­bu­tions to the acci­dent insur­ance are paid exclus­ively by you as the employer.

Social secur­ity
As soon as your employee starts work­ing for you, they must be included in the social secur­ity sys­tem. This includes health insur­ance, pen­sion insur­ance, unem­ploy­ment insur­ance and long-term care insur­ance. Your task is to register your employee with the rel­ev­ant health insur­ance fund, which will then also coordin­ate the other insur­ances. You and your employee pay half of the social insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions, with the excep­tion of acci­dent insur­ance, which you pay alone.

Health insur­ance
You must register your employee with their health insur­ance fund before they start work. The health insur­ance fund will then take care of for­ward­ing the inform­a­tion to the other social insur­ance pro­viders. Your employee can decide for them­selves which health insur­ance fund they would like to be insured with. As the employer, you register them there and pay half of the health insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions. Please note that the income threshold and any addi­tional con­tri­bu­tions may vary depend­ing on the health insur­ance fund.

Health depart­ment
Depend­ing on the industry in which you work, it may be neces­sary for you to register your employee with the health author­ity. This mainly applies to pro­fes­sions in the food sec­tor or in care. Here, your employee may have to com­plete an instruc­tion course in accord­ance with the Infec­tion Pro­tec­tion Act or present a health cer­ti­fic­ate. These meas­ures serve to pro­tect pub­lic health and ensure com­pli­ance with hygiene stand­ards.

The com­pany num­ber
To register your employee with the social insur­ance insti­tu­tions, you need a com­pany num­ber. (apply online!) You will receive this from the Fed­eral Employ­ment Agency. The num­ber is used to uniquely identify your com­pany and your employ­ees. Without this num­ber, you can­not report to the social secur­ity sys­tem, which makes it essen­tial to apply for it in good time. You are leg­ally obliged to apply for the com­pany num­ber elec­tron­ic­ally. You can find more inform­a­tion on the Web­site of the Fed­eral Employ­ment Agency.

Please note: Since 1 Janu­ary 2024, you will need the com­pany num­ber of the com­pany to which the new employ­ing com­pany belongs to apply for a com­pany num­ber. This num­ber will be assigned to you by the respons­ible acci­dent insur­ance insti­tu­tion.

Step by step instruc­tions

Based on screen­shots, we explain step by step how to apply for a com­pany num­ber:

1. view notes and declar­a­tions on data pro­tec­tion
In this step you will receive import­ant inform­a­tion on data pro­tec­tion. Please read the inform­a­tion care­fully to under­stand how your data is pro­cessed and pro­tec­ted.

2. start applic­a­tion
Enter all rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion about the func­tion, the case and the facts of the case. This is where you lay the found­a­tion for the rest of the applic­a­tion pro­cess.

3. report social secur­ity details
In this sec­tion, you must provide inform­a­tion on social secur­ity. Make sure that all rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion is entered cor­rectly and com­pletely.

4. Oper­at­ing data
Enter all com­pany details required for the applic­a­tion here. This includes details such as the type of com­pany, address and acci­dent insur­ance.

5. enter con­tact details
Enter the con­tact details of the con­tact per­son for the social secur­ity regis­tra­tion pro­ced­ure here.

6. select industry
In this step, you determ­ine the eco­nomic focus of the com­pany by select­ing the cor­res­pond­ing industry via a selec­tion field.

Ber­lin office
Bleib­treustrasse 38/39
10623 Ber­lin

info@start-bereit.com
+49 30 41734256