Recovering Unpaid Invoices in Germany: the Mahnverfahren and Enforcement for Foreign Creditors (2026)

If a German customer has stopped paying, the instinct is to send another reminder and wait. That is usually the wrong move. German civil procedure contains a court-run dunning procedure — the Mahnverfahren — that produces an enforceable title on paper alone, without a hearing, without evidence, and at a fraction of the cost of a lawsuit. Foreign creditors can use it, and most do not know it exists.

The logic of the procedure is unusual and worth grasping before anything else. The court does not examine whether your claim is good. It checks the form, issues an order to pay, and then waits to see whether the debtor objects. If the debtor stays silent, you end up with a title that is as enforceable as a judgment. If the debtor objects — and objecting requires nothing more than ticking a box — the file converts into an ordinary lawsuit and you are back to proving your case.

Which court, if your company is not in Germany?

This is the first thing foreign creditors get wrong. Dunning applications are handled by centralised courts, one per federal state, not by the ordinary local court where the debtor lives. And where the applicant has no general venue in Germany, § 689(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung, ZPO) makes the Amtsgericht Wedding in Berlin exclusively competent.

That single sentence removes most of the jurisdictional guesswork. A company in Istanbul, Milan or Madrid with an unpaid German invoice does not need to work out which German town the debtor belongs to for dunning purposes: the application goes to Berlin-Wedding.

Two practical consequences follow. The procedure runs in German, so the application and any correspondence must be in German. And the court will not advise you on the substance of your claim — its role is deliberately mechanical.

Step one: the Mahnbescheid

You apply for a Mahnbescheid, an order to pay. You state who owes what, on what basis, and how much interest and costs you claim. You do not attach the contract, the invoices or the correspondence, and the court does not ask for them. It is not testing the claim.

The order is then served on the debtor. Under § 692(1) no. 3 ZPO, the debtor is told to pay or to notify the court of an objection within two weeks of service of the Mahnbescheid — "innerhalb von zwei Wochen seit der Zustellung des Mahnbescheids".

Three things can now happen:

• The debtor pays. This is more common than creditors expect, because the arrival of a court document changes the internal conversation at the debtor company. An unpaid invoice is a supplier problem; a court order is a management problem.
• The debtor does nothing. You move to step two.
• The debtor files a Widerspruch. The dunning route ends and the matter can be transferred into ordinary proceedings. No reasons are required for the objection, which is the structural weakness of the procedure and the reason it is unsuitable for genuinely disputed claims.

Step two: the Vollstreckungsbescheid

If no objection is filed, you apply for a Vollstreckungsbescheid — an enforcement order. Under § 699 ZPO, the court issues it on the basis of the Mahnbescheid on application, and "Der Antrag kann nicht vor Ablauf der Widerspruchsfrist gestellt werden": the application cannot be made before the objection period has expired.

What you receive is not a mere administrative document. § 700(1) ZPO is explicit: "Der Vollstreckungsbescheid steht einem fuer vorlaeufig vollstreckbar erklaerten Versaeumnisurteil gleich." The enforcement order is equivalent to a default judgment declared provisionally enforceable. You can instruct a bailiff, attach bank accounts and wages, and register the debtor in the debtors' list.

The debtor's remedy against it is an Einspruch, and the clock is again short: § 339(1) ZPO provides that "Die Einspruchsfrist betraegt zwei Wochen; sie ist eine Notfrist" — two weeks, and a peremptory period that cannot simply be extended by agreement.

What you can claim on top of the principal

German law is generous to commercial creditors on interest, and creditors routinely under-claim.

• Default interest, general rule. Under § 288(1) BGB, a money debt bears interest during default at "fuenf Prozentpunkte ueber dem Basiszinssatz" — five percentage points above the base rate.
• Default interest, business-to-business. Under § 288(2) BGB, for legal transactions in which no consumer is involved, the rate for payment claims is "neun Prozentpunkte ueber dem Basiszinssatz" — nine percentage points above the base rate.
• The flat compensation. Under § 288(5) BGB, where the debtor is not a consumer, the creditor of a payment claim also has a claim to a lump sum of 40 euros, on top of interest.

The Basiszinssatz is a statutory reference rate that is republished twice a year, so the headline percentage changes. Quote the formula, not a number you saw in an old article, and calculate the rate applicable to each period of default.

Do not let the claim expire while you are being patient

The German limitation regime is short and, crucially, it does not run from the invoice date.

§ 195 BGB: "Die regelmaessige Verjaehrungsfrist betraegt drei Jahre." The standard limitation period is three years.

§ 199(1) BGB then sets the starting point: the period begins, unless another commencement is prescribed, at the end of the year in which the claim arose and in which the creditor obtained knowledge of the circumstances giving rise to the claim and of the person of the debtor, or would have obtained such knowledge but for gross negligence. § 199(4) BGB adds a long-stop: claims other than those under paragraphs 2 to 3a become time-barred, irrespective of knowledge or grossly negligent ignorance, ten years from when they arose.

The year-end rule produces a predictable and very common trap: an invoice issued in February 2023 is time-barred at the end of December 2026, not in February 2026. Foreign creditors who assume a rolling three-year clock from the invoice date lose claims that were still alive, and creditors who assume the deadline is further away than it is lose them too. December is, for this reason, the busiest month in German debt recovery practice.

Serving a dunning order is one of the standard ways of stopping the clock, which is another reason the procedure is worth starting before the year in which the limitation period ends.

When the Mahnverfahren is the wrong tool

The procedure is superb for one thing: undisputed money claims. It is the wrong tool where:

• The debtor has already disputed the invoice in writing. If a defence has been articulated, an objection is near-certain, and you will have spent time and fees to arrive at the lawsuit you could have filed at the outset.
• The claim is not for a fixed sum of money. Delivery, rectification, injunctive relief and declaratory claims are outside the procedure.
• The debtor is insolvent or about to be. A title against an empty company is an expensive souvenir. Check the debtor's status before spending anything; German insolvency publications are public.
• You need speed against a disappearing asset. Then you are looking at interim measures, not at a dunning order.

The European alternative, and the enforcement question

A creditor established in one EU member state suing a debtor in another can use the European Order for Payment under Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006, which serves a similar function across borders and produces an order enforceable in other member states without a declaration of enforceability. The German Mahnverfahren and the European order are alternatives, not steps in a sequence; which is preferable depends on where the debtor's assets sit and on whether you expect an objection.

For creditors outside the EU, the practical question is different: the German title is enforced in Germany, against German assets, so the value of the exercise depends on the debtor having something in Germany to attach. Establish that first. A bank account, receivables from German customers, stock, vehicles and real property are all attachable; goodwill and a nice website are not.

What to prepare before you start

Even though the court will not ask for documents, your file should contain them, because an objection converts the matter into litigation without warning and the litigation timetable is unforgiving.

• The contract or purchase order, and the general terms you rely on — including proof that they were incorporated.
• The invoices, with delivery or performance evidence.
• The reminders, and the date the debtor was put in default, because the interest calculation depends on it.
• Correspondence in which the debtor acknowledged the debt or asked for time — an acknowledgement can restart the limitation period.
• The debtor's exact legal name and register details. A dunning order against a slightly wrong entity name is a wasted filing.

Handled properly, the sequence from application to enforceable title takes weeks rather than the year or more an ordinary claim would take, and the fee scale is a small fraction of litigation costs. Handled carelessly — wrong entity, wrong court, an objection that was entirely predictable — it becomes a delay you cannot afford at the point when the debtor's finances are deteriorating.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

Rules, fees and thresholds change. Confirm anything in this guide with the official source before you act.

• BAMFimmigration authority
• Bundesrechtsanwaltskammerbar association — verify a lawyer