Quick Guide to Starting a Freelance Business in Germany (as an English Speaker)

I have recently been asked several times how to start being a freelancer in Germany. I do not consider myself an expert on the topic, but since I had to go through the process myself, I can at least provide you with some pointers. As such, this article is not a comprehensive how-to guide (you will find a lot of those online), but more of a list of the most important things you should be aware of when you start freelancing.

If you are still unsure if you want to freelance, watch this first (starting at 13'35"):

Keep in mind as you are reading that I am a freelancer in IT. Another business domain can be extremely different from mine - and you will know better than me what the truth is. Therefore, take everything I say with a grain of salt.

That said, let's dive in!

Note: This article contains affiliate links. If you subscribe via them, you and I both may get a small bonus at no additional cost to you.

Rules of Engagement

According to German law, you can be self-employed in several different ways, which is why it is important to understand the differences and which one to go for. Read about it here:

Note: My article discusses only freelancing, therefore, if you choose to become another legal entity, you can safely stop reading here.

Freelancers are independent contractors and, as such, they have to preserve their independence. If they do not, they are considered to be engaged in false self-employment (i.e. in reality, they are in permanent employment) and both the freelancer and their client/employer will be fined. Read more about it here:

Taxes

Your freelance journey begins by switching your current tax number to a freelance tax number (by sending an application to the Tax Office). To understand more about what that means in practice, though, it is best to get familiar with what taxes you will need to pay as a freelancer and how those are calculated.

There are several providers of software tools, with the help of which you can do your own taxes in English. I can recommend Accountable, Kontist, and Sorted. Kontist is a full service with Tax Advisors, a bank account, etc., therefore, it costs more. I have not used Accountable, but it has been gaining traction recently. I personally prefer and use Sorted. All of these tools will help you with applying for a freelance tax number, therefore, you do not need to do this in advance.

The best way to understand how to do your own taxes is by reading the FAQ articles of the above-mentioned tools:

Additionally, Kontist has Youtube videos, but they are in German:

Here is the place to say that, if you speak German, you can use the German official and free tool for taxes Elster. (Note: The English-speaking tax tools essentially provide you with a paid user interface on top of Elster, plus help you out with tax tracking and reporting by enforcing the local rules in the background.) Elster's FAQ section is made by Taxfix, therefore, it comes in English too:

If you feel uncertain about doing your own taxes, you can find yourself a Tax Advisor who speaks English (or any other language of your choice) by using the nationwide Tax Advisor search engine at:

Why you need a Tax Advisor and not an Accountant is explained here:

Finding Clients

Like with any other starting business or start-up, the biggest challenge is finding clients. To achieve this, a) people have to know you exist, and b) they also have to know what product/service you offer. After that, with a few satisfied clients under your belt, you will become a word-of-mouth recommendation.

In other words, you will need to increase your visibility, expand your network, and make a name for yourself by providing top quality in your niche. This, in essence, is your high-level action plan.

1. Find Your Niche

You have to decide what product/service you offer. This is crucial. Your name should become a synonym for the work you do. Your online profiles and CV should lead the reader straight to the point (you only get a few seconds of their attention span anyway). Do not be afraid to make it as specific as possible - specific is good; generic and all over the place is not.

How to boost your LinkedIn profile:

You also have to be a specialist in your field. Freelancing is not for newbies. Clients hire freelancers to get a job done - immediately! Not to train you. They train their permanent employees (sometimes also with the help of freelancers). You have to already be in a shape where you can jump up to the challenge right away and get the job done.

If you do not know your niche, then do not start freelancing just yet. Start a side hustle instead. See what works and what does not, and why. Only when you are sure you have found your niche, go for it.

How to start a side hustle:

2. Increase Your Visibility

Make as many freelance profiles as you can and keep applying for freelance projects every day. I call these "hooks". Place your hooks all over the Internet - social networks, recruitment platforms, company HR databases, whatever. Keep an eye on how the market is going and have as many interviews as possible. Only by talking to people, you will find the answers to the questions you have.

Here I have to mention that independent recruiters are your best friends. Like everything else, the HR/recruitment business area has also improved a lot. Now it is full of extremely energetic, capable, and knowledgeable people, who want you to succeed as much as you do. If you are unsure about anything, they are your best sources of knowledge - they do this every day, they are constantly up-to-date, they have seen all edge cases, and they can provide you with their independent opinion or advice. And when you need a new freelance project, the best thing you can have is a nice relationship with a recruiter, who recruits for freelance positions in your field/niche - you simply call them and let them know your availability; they will do the rest for you.

Note that the interviewing process for hiring freelancers is not as rigorous as the one for permanent employees. It is enough to only talk to the Hiring Manager for around 20 minutes and the decision is made. I suppose that is because freelance projects and, therefore, contracts are rather short in duration (e.g. 2 to 6 months is standard), they have an end date, and, even before their end date, they can be terminated with a 2-week notice (10 working days) from either side.

That is why searching for a new freelance project even 1 month in advance is already too far ahead. You have to be searching within the last 2 weeks of your current freelance contract because all available open positions will require you to start pretty much immediately. It is very rare for the client to wait for you for more than ~3 weeks to start working with them, and that will only be if you offer a very unique product/service that no one else does.

All that said, here are my recommendations for where you should have a profile and apply for freelance projects:

• 9am.works
• Catalant
• EPH
• freelance.de
• GLG
• LinkedIn
• Malt
• Outsized
• TalMix
• Toptal
• YunoJuno

Here are some other websites to keep an eye on:

• 10x
• A.Team
• Andela
• Amoria Bond
• Anna Purna
• Arbeitnow
• Arc
• Atlantic Labs
• Berlin Startup Jobs
• Best Best Talent Platform
• Bosch
• ConStaff
• Crowd Consultants
• Darwin Recruitment
• EU Remote Jobs
• FlexJobs
• Freelancer.com
• FreelancerMap
• Freelancing.eu
• Gulp
• Guru
• Hays
• Himalayas
• Indeed
• Inter Quest Group
• Jelber
• Job Serve
• Jobicy
• Jobs in Network
• Just Remote
• Khibraty
• Matchtech
• Michael Bailey Associates
• Michael Page
• Notchup
• Opus Recruitment Solutions
• People Source
• Proteams
• Randstad
• Remote Tech Jobs
• Remote.io
• Remotive
• RemoteOK
• Robert Half
• Roc
• Simply Hired
• Square One Resources
• Talent International
• The Indie List
• Twago
• We Work Remotely
• Wellfound
• Westhouse Group
• Working Nomads

And a list of top freelance recruiting agencies compiled by 9am.works:

You can also read more about remote work locations here:

And here:

Lastly, there is a way to get hired overseas (without the need for a work visa or any other legal obstacles) by using an Employer of Record (EoR) (or Contractor of Record [CoR], a newly coined term). What that is:

A CoR operating worldwide:

A couple of EoRs operating in Germany:

3. Expand Your Network

If you are in Marketing, you already know all the tips and tricks on how to expand your network and amplify your message. The rest of us will have some learning to do (same as with the taxes - if you are in Finance, you are already a few steps ahead). Nevertheless, I believe nothing is impossible. Do any or all of the following:

1. Find and follow on social media well-known people in your field/niche (Doctors, Professors, writers, speakers, entrepreneurs, CEOs, etc.). Notice how they have created their online profiles and what their online behavior is. Comment under their posts (so their followers can see you) and engage with them in other ways, e.g. via email (so they can see you). Regularly post on your own profile in a similar fashion.
2. Find and join social media groups and communities (LinkedIn, Facebook, Discord, Discourse, Mighty Networks, Slack, etc.) in your field and be active in them.
3. Find and attend online or in-person meet-ups, events, talks, conferences, etc. in your field (Meetup, Eventbrite, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.). Get to know the people there, and let them know you.
4. Keep in touch with the people you meet at trainings and courses you decide to attend.
5. As part of your professional development, you may decide to go back to formal (university) studies and do a research. This is the best place to meet many like-minded people, from whom you can learn a lot too.
6. Last but not least, do not forget to stay in touch with your former colleagues. They are the people who know you the best. You can also ask them for a LinkedIn (or other) recommendation.

Specifically on LinkedIn (but also on Twitter and other social networks), you will find many people whose main line of business is teaching others how to present themselves and increase their reach. You might want to follow such people too, at least in the beginning. Here are a few recommendations:

4. Provide Top Quality

4.1. Your Method

Needless to say, you have to not only be an expert in your field but have vision, passion, integrity, discipline, good organization, good communication, and so much more. In one word, you have to be a professional, act professionally, and leave your clients satisfied. There is nothing stronger than a word-of-mouth recommendation and you want to build the right reputation for it. You want people to immediately think of you when they have the type of problem that you solve. You want people to believe that only you can solve it (or that you can solve it best).

That is why it is also very important to have found your niche - the one that makes you passionate about life in general. You do not want to start another line of business that makes you as miserable as permanent employment does. Freelancing is your chance now to fix this.

4.2. Your Deliverable

In any line of business, work can be divided into projects and operations. Projects (not to be confused with freelance projects) are launched when there is something new to be done for the first time. Operations represent the daily work when nothing is new anymore, it is all repeatable tasks that simply have to be administered by someone. For example, implementing a new IT system is a project, and being placed at Reception to meet and greet clients every day is operations.

As a freelancer, you will be approached with offers for both projects and operations (even if disguised as a freelance project). You are free to work on either, but I would strongly advise that, regardless of what you are hired to do, you think about your work only in terms of it being a project, not operations. Why is that:

• DURATION: Projects have a start and an end date, just like your freelance contract. Operations do not.
• PURPOSE: Projects have a business justification, which is sometimes hard to identify in daily operational work.
• END DELIVERABLE: Projects are focused on their end deliverable, whereas operational work is focused on efficiency and time spent. Therefore, projects have success criteria, whereas operational work has KPIs.

By the nature of the contractual obligation, you will have a beginning and an end date for your work, and that is unavoidable. Therefore, you have to find a way to incorporate this into your assignment.

Purpose is rather underrated, but it is what brings meaning to your work and life. Now that freelancing gives you the choice, choose to go for purpose, i.e. ensure that there is some tangible business benefit for your client from what you will be doing for them. You will feel much better for it.

And last but not least, both you and your client should know what it is you are hired to deliver, and whether you have delivered it successfully. Combined with the previous point on purpose, this will help immensely later on when you (or your client) have to advertise your services to your next potential clients.

4.3. Your Pay

The quality of your work is determined by the ratio of what the client is getting (your deliverable and method, as listed above) vs. how much they have to pay for it. In the beginning, this will be hard to estimate exactly. Therefore, instead of guessing how much to charge, do your research and start with something in the mid-range:

Take care that you do not undersell yourself. This is the most common mistake beginner freelancers make:

Avoiding underselling is far more important than avoiding overselling. If you oversell, the worst that can happen is that you will get no clients. In that case, you will naturally be forced to adjust your rates to the market reality. But if you undersell yourself, you will get plenty of clients and you might never realize you are below market rates. You will, however, be doing not only yourself a disservice (by making it hard to raise your rates to market levels later on if it requires a huge jump), but also other freelancers in your field (by bringing the whole market down). Therefore, aim for the middle, but if you miss it, make sure you are on the high end, not the low.

5. Make a Name for Yourself

If you have done all the previous four steps correctly, there is nothing more to do here, except continue doing more of the same and reap the benefits. Note that the moment you stop the traction, your name will start fading away in people's minds. So, unless you want to retire, do not stop executing the above steps.

Additional Useful Links

In conclusion, I would like to recommend a few other resources to you.

A list of tools compiled by 9am.works:

Two books about freelancing:

Feel free to also join my Freelance Revolution groups on LinkedIn and/or Telegram, where you will find more resources and support.

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