You can send your questions directly to the ZER department via our contact form.

The Charity Register will be available online within January 2024

The Register will be published on the website of the Federal Central Tax Office and has from its start a user friendly search option to look for example for a certain non-profit purpose or location.

The data on domestic organisations is transmitted successively automated to the BZSt by the competent tax authorities of the Länder. Therefore it is not possible to show all entitled organisations for the Charity Register from the start. Entitled organisations or individual data missing could be possible in the development phase, but it neither influences the non-profit status assessed by the domestic competent tax authorities, nor the status as an eligible organisation of the Charity Register.

Entitled organisations or individual data missing could be possible in the development phase, but it neither influences the non-profit status assessed by the domestic competent tax authorities, nor the status as an eligible organisation of the Charity Register.

All organisations based in other EU- and EEA countries are entitled to submit an application. The organisations need to be established in accordance with the laws of an EU/EEA country and non-profit under German Law. You can also be represented by an authorised representative.

Please note: As part of the application review, the BZSt can request documents with partly sensitive information about the applicant organisation. Experience shows, that representatives often cannot provide the documents or information. To meet the applicant´s data protection concers, the applicant can submit the requested documents even with an existing power of attorney directly to the BZSt without involving the authorised representative or the organisation.

The European Economic Area (EEA) consists of the countries of the EU and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

• A by electronic means submitted application via the BZSt online.portal
• The electronic submission of the required documents (if applicable)
• In individual cases, the BZSt may request more documents necessary for further review.

The review of the assessment of the status as a foreign non-profit organisation begins after the BZSt has received the application with all its documents. The assessment of the status as a foreign non-profit organisation is valid after a successful review by issuing a notice. Issuing a retrospective assessment for the status as a foreign non-profit organisation is not possible.

Any organisation in the Charity Register will have in a later version the possability to enter, change or delete bank details.

Please turn to your local tax authority, if you want to change data shown in the Charity Register. The responsible tax office is the one responsible for the assessment of the corporate or income tax.

If you are registered with the responsible local tax authority and fulfill as a corporate or a legal entity under public law the requirements of Sections 10b, 34g of the Income Tax Act, the data and any change in it is transmitted automatically to the Charity Register pursuant to Section 60b (2) German Fiscal Code by the responsible local tax authority. If that is not the case, please turn to your local tax authority.

You can simply use the existing login data (certificate and PIN) to log on to both portals. If you have any questions, please use our contact form.

Applications for entry in the Charity Register need to be submitted by foreign organisations electronically to the BZSt through the BZSt online.portal.

Applications for entering bank details for donation accounts as well as the homepage of the non-profit organisation will be possible in later versions of the Charity Register. We will inform you as soon as the application is activated.

You can obtain the log in data to the BZSt online.portal by registering through a certificate, which has authentification purposes.

A new registration only is necessary, if there is no existing certificate, like:

•  The ElsterOnline-portal-certificate or
• The BZStOnline-portal-certificate from other reporting procedures

If there is no existing certificate mentioned above, a new registration including a BZSt-number is necessary to submit applications by electronic means. Further information regarding the registration process can be found here.

It is possible to register to the BOP as a tax consultant or legal representative. With one BZSt-number it is possible to create up to 20 certificates for your employees, with which electronic applications can be transmitted for several clients.

If you take over the electronic application as a tax consultant or legal representative, it is obligatory to attach a power of attorney to the application.

The registration process can take up to six weeks. Therefore, you need to begin the registration process timely before the intended application.

The applications in the BZSt online.portal are currently only available in german. In future, an english version will be provided.

There will be no other languages than the ones mentioned above.

Domestic organisations are organisations, that have their registered office (Section 11 Fiscal Code) or their location of management (Section 10 Fiscal Code) in Germany (Section 1 (3) Corporate Income Tax Act).