Bureaucracy Relief Act (BRA) IV: digital employment contract, digital job reference, etc.

The aim of the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act (BEG IV), which came into force on 1 January 2025, is to reduce bureaucracy. It is also intended to make things easier for employers, for example with regard to job references, employment contracts, notices or applications for expectant parents.

The BEG IV and labour law

The BEG IV is intended to reduce bureaucratic red tape and, among other things, simplify formal requirements in order to reduce the administrative burden on companies.

This also applies to labour law: the BEG IV is intended to ease the burden on employers as well.

1. Digital employment contract

Informal employment contracts can still be concluded. However, § 2 of the German Law on the Written Form of an Employment Relationship (NachwG) previously required proof of the employment conditions in written form. This meant that a written form requirement effectively applied to employment contracts, so employment contracts had to be printed out and signed by both parties. The electronic form was previously expressly excluded for the proof.

Since 1 January 2025, proof based on Art. 50 BEG IV has also been possible in text form – thus paving the way for ‘digital employment contracts’. If the employment contract is concluded in such a way that it can be read and stored, the requirements for text form are met. For a proof in the sense of the Nachweisgesetz (German Proof of Employment Act) and for a digital employment contract to be effective, it is now sufficient for the employer and employee to agree by sending a PDF by email, by text message or by messenger service.

Note: A voice message, e.g. via a messenger service, does not correspond to the text form – the ‘text’ is missing.

In addition, written form requirements have also been explicitly replaced by the possible text form in other places:

• Temporary employment contracts, § 12 para. 1 sentence 1 AÜG (Art. 55 BEG IV),
• age limit agreements, § 41 para. 2 SGB VI (Art. 63 BEG IV),
• taking care time or family time, § 3 PflegeZG (Art. 68 BEG IV) or § 2a FPfZG (Art. 69 BEG IV).

However, there are exceptions: in some cases, written proof of the working conditions must still be provided, so a digital employment contract is not possible.

This applies to contracts in sectors with a high risk of undeclared work (see § 2a of the Act to Combat Clandestine Employment, e.g. construction, hospitality, etc.) and to the limitation of an employment contract (§ 14, para. 4 of the Act on Part-Time Working and Fixed-Term Contracts).

2. Digital employment reference

But it is not only the ‘digital employment contract’ that has changed: originally, a reference could only be legally provided in writing, but now a ‘digital reference’ is also permissible with the employee’s consent.

In this case, Section 630, sentence 2 of the German Civil Code (BGB) and Section 109, paragraph 3 of the German Industrial Code (GewO) expressly declare electronic form to be permissible. However, a qualified electronic signature is required for this form of certificate, unlike the text form.

3. Display requirement: digital display partially possible

The BEG IV has also led to changes with regard to the ‘physical’ obligation to display certain protective regulations in the company: Since 1 January 2025, it has been possible, for example, to make the Working Hours Act (Section 16 of the Working Hours Act, Art. 52 BEG IV ) and Section 47 of the Youth Employment Protection Act, Art. 53 BEG IV, available in digital form, e.g. via the company’s usual information and communication technology, such as the intranet.

However, this simplification does not currently (3/2025) apply to other laws requiring posting – so it is important to keep track of these.

4. Applications for parents-to-be

The BEG IV has also made it easier to fulfil the formal requirements for parental leave.

Until now, both the claim by (expectant) parents and the refusal of parental leave or part-time parental leave by the employer had to be made in writing. Since 1 January 2025, the right to parental leave (Section 16 BEEG) and to part-time work during parental leave (Section 15 (7) BEEG) can be requested in writing, for example by email (Art. 57 BEG IV). Equally, employers can now also reject these applications in text form if the conditions for doing so are met (Section 15 (4) BEEG).

Rules: a confusing start

The BEG IV has provided some relief in that digital solutions are now sufficient in some cases instead of written form. This is a well-intentioned start that will certainly lead to less administrative work in some cases.

However, as some written form requirements in labour law have not been adapted, it is important to look at the details of when the written form is still mandatory in order to avoid the risk of declarations and contracts that are invalid in terms of form.

One important point: termination of an employment contract must continue to be in writing.