ROUTE
Employment status check: Statusfeststellungsverfahren
How the Clearingstelle decides between employment and self-employment, why the first month counts, and what happens to contributions for past years.
โ Checked: 11/08/2026
The Statusfeststellungsverfahren is the procedure in which Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund establishes what a contractual working relationship actually is: employment under instructions, or genuine self-employment. The question sounds formal, but it decides whether social insurance contributions arise, who owes them, and whether they can be claimed for past years. The decision does not follow the label on the contract but an overall appraisal of all circumstances: who gives instructions, who is integrated into another party work organisation, whose equipment is used.
COSTS AND DEADLINES
Deadlines you cannot miss
- Application before work starts, or within one month after it startsFile the application with the Clearingstellehard deadline
- The deadline for information and documents is set by the DRV in its own letterFile the application with the Clearingstellehard deadline
- Objection within one month of receiving the decisionObject where the decision misses the realityhard deadline
- Contributions: four years after the end of the calendar year in which they fell due, thirty years in cases of intentSort out the consequences for past and futurehard deadline
Amounts follow official fees as of each stepโs verification date. Your city may charge a different rate โ check the step itself.
โบ More about this route
This route works through the whole procedure: which indicators the law treats as relevant, who applies and when, why the first month after work begins changes the consequences, what to look for in the decision besides its outcome, how an objection with suspensive effect works, and what remains afterwards โ limitation periods for contributions, late payment surcharges, and a separate pension insurance duty that does not disappear along with confirmed self-employment. We do not assess your particular status and promise no outcome: the route shows how the procedure is built and where decisions become irreversible.
REQUIRED DOCUMENTS
All possible documents for this route
- Contract with the client
- Description of how the work is actually performed
- Invoices and evidence of other assignments
WHERE PEOPLE MOST OFTEN LOSE MONEY AND TIME
- Waiting for the status to sort itself out. Contributions can be demanded four years back, thirty where intent is found โ and the demand goes to the client.
- Letting the first month after the work starts pass. Only an application within that period opens the rule under which insurance starts on the day of the decision rather than on the first day of work.
- Treating confirmed self-employment as the end of the contribution question. Pension insurance liability for certain groups of self-employed people is tested independently of status.
- Reducing the objection to a single sentence of disagreement. The dispute is about facts of the work, and the facts that enter the file now shape the later judgment.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS ROUTE
Who actually needs this procedure?โพ
Anyone working on a service contract or as a freelancer for one client, and anyone engaging such contractors. Plus relatives of the employer and managing shareholders of a GmbH โ in those cases the health fund must file the application itself once it sees them in the payroll report.
How does this differ from an employer audit?โพ
The audit under Section 28p SGB IV takes place at the employer, covers all wages of past years and ends in a contribution assessment. Here there is a single subject โ the legal nature of one relationship โ and the initiative lies with the parties.
Can an answer be obtained in advance, before the contract is signed?โพ
Yes, the law provides for a decision before work begins, based on the intended circumstances of performance. It is the only way to learn the authority position without retroactive risk, but the working conditions cannot then be changed silently.
What does the decision mean for health insurance?โพ
In assessing compulsory insurance from this contractual relationship, other insurance bodies are bound by the DRV Bund decision โ the health fund cannot take a different view. In practice: established employment brings membership of statutory health insurance with it, while confirmed self-employment leaves you in your own insurance model.