Assert the claim in writing within two months
This is the narrowest passage of the route. A claim not asserted in writing within two months lapses — even where the discrimination was obvious.
✓ Verified: 11/08/2026
WHAT TO DO
› Details and tips
Send the assertion in a way that proves receipt: registered post or the internal document channel. A dispute about the date of receipt is worse than a dispute about the substance.
The two months run from receipt of the rejection, not from the day you find out who was hired instead. Many learn the real reason six months later and arrive with a solid case and an expired deadline.
Useful Tools
- Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes legal-info
Federal anti-discrimination agency: free advice on the AGG and a map of local counselling centres.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
From which day do the two months run? ▾
For an application or a promotion, from receipt of the rejection. In other cases of disadvantage, from the point at which the employee learns of it. The parties to a collective agreement may set something different.
Is a phone call or an email enough? ▾
The Act requires the claim to be asserted in writing. The form does not matter for its own sake: what counts is that content and date of receipt can be proved later.
What happens if the deadline is missed? ▾
In employment matters the claim under this Act lapses. In civil law matters the period is also two months, but there the Act allows later assertion where the delay was through no fault of the claimant.
How much time remains for the court claim? ▾
A claim for compensation under this Act must be filed within three months of the claim having been asserted in writing. The two periods therefore run one after the other, not in parallel.
Can you complain internally first and assert the claim afterwards? ▾
Yes, and that order makes sense, but an internal complaint does not extend the two-month period. The two belong in parallel, not in sequence.