Business Meal Deductions in Germany 2026: The 70/30 Rule, VAT and Receipts
Diana
Updated on:
Lunch with a client, dinner after a pitch, coffee with a partner — business meals are one of the most-misfiled categories in German bookkeeping. The rules are quirky: you can deduct only 70 % as a business expense, but 100 % of the VAT — and only if the receipt is filled out correctly. Here is what applies in 2026 for freelancers, sole traders, UGs and GmbHs, what your Bewirtungsbeleg needs to contain, and where business meals get rejected during a tax audit.
What counts as a "Bewirtungskosten"?
Bewirtungskosten ("entertainment expenses" in tax-speak, but really just meals and drinks) are costs of feeding people for a business reason. German tax law splits them sharply by occasion, and this distinction decides how much you can deduct:
Geschäftlicher Anlass (business occasion, § 4 Abs. 5 Nr. 2 EStG): meals with clients, suppliers, business partners, prospective hires, or journalists. The 70 % rule applies.
Betrieblicher Anlass (internal occasion): meals with your own employees, or you alone on a business trip. Fully deductible at 100 %.
What is not a Bewirtung: your own lunch while traveling (covered by the Verpflegungspauschale per-diem), gifts to business partners (separate rule, € 50 net per person per year), and office snacks like cookies or water bottles (these are just regular operating expenses at 100 %).
Bewirtungsbeleg in 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes
Norman auto-detects restaurant receipts, asks for occasion and attendees, splits 70/30 for income tax and still claims 100 % VAT in the UStVA. Photograph the receipt — done.
The 70/30 rule: Why only 70 %?
The legislator assumes that every business meal includes a personal-enjoyment component — after all, you eat too. So § 4 Abs. 5 S. 1 Nr. 2 EStG allows only 70 % of reasonable entertainment costs as a deductible business expense. The remaining 30 % count as non-deductible business expenses — they do not reduce your taxable profit.
Important: the 70 % applies to the net amount, not the gross. And the 30 % loss is not a VAT loss — you still deduct 100 % of the input VAT (see next section).
Worked example: business dinner at € 178.50 gross
You invite a client to dinner. The restaurant bill is € 178.50 gross (€ 150 net + € 28.50 VAT at 19 %). Here is how it lands in your books:
Gross invoice — € 178.50
Net amount — € 150.00
VAT (input tax) — € 28.50
Deductible as business expense (70 % of net) — € 105.00
Non-deductible (30 % of net) — € 45.00
Input VAT (100 % recoverable) — € 28.50
Your taxable profit drops by € 105, not € 150, not € 178.50. At a 35 % personal income tax rate, that saves about € 37 in income tax. Combined with the € 28.50 of recovered VAT, your real-world saving on a € 178.50 bill is around € 65.
Tips count too
A tip to the waiter is part of the entertainment expense and gets the same 70 % treatment. But it must be documented — either printed on the restaurant receipt ("Tip € 10.00") or confirmed in handwriting by the recipient. No proof, no deduction.
VAT: 100 %, not 70 %
This is where the most expensive beginner mistake hides. Many freelancers conservatively claim only 70 % of the VAT — and hand the rest to the tax office. In fact: with a proper Bewirtungsbeleg, you deduct 100 % of the VAT, even though only 70 % of the net cost reduces profit. This is anchored in § 15 Abs. 1 UStG and the BMF letter of 30 June 2021 (ref. IV C 6 - S 2145/19/10003 :003).
Condition: you must be on the regular VAT regime (i.e. not a Kleinunternehmer), and the receipt must satisfy the standard invoice requirements of § 14 UStG. This is exactly where many receipts fail in practice — see the next section.
The Bewirtungsbeleg: What must be on it in 2026
A Bewirtungsbeleg is more than a restaurant bill. It has two parts: the receipt from the restaurant and your own note on occasion and attendees. Both must be present and consistent — if one is missing, you lose the full deduction, not just the 70 %.
What the restaurant must provide
Since the BMF letter of 30 June 2021, it is settled: the receipt must be machine-generated, electronically recorded, and TSE-secured. A handwritten note or a PDF typed up after the fact no longer qualifies. The receipt must show:
Full name and address of the restaurant
Tax number or VAT ID of the restaurant
Invoice date and date of the meal (often the same, sometimes not)
Sequential invoice number
Itemized food and drink (not a single "food and drinks" line)
Net amount, VAT rate, VAT amount, gross amount
TSE signature (transaction number, serial number, timestamp) on cash-register receipts
For bills over € 250 gross: your name and address as the host
The € 250 threshold is the only place a stripped-down receipt is still accepted — below it, the host's name may be missing. Above € 250, it must be on the receipt, otherwise no business-expense deduction and no VAT recovery.
What you must add yourself
On the back of the receipt or on a permanently attached extra sheet, note:
The occasion of the meal — concretely: "Contract negotiation Project X" or "Acquisition meeting with Y GmbH". Vague phrases like "business meal" or "working lunch" have been rejected in audit proceedings more than once.
All attendees with first and last names, including yourself. For larger groups, list everyone you know plus "and 3 additional employees of X GmbH".
Place and date, if not already on the receipt.
Host's signature — yours.
These self-entries must be made promptly — ideally right after the meal. If they appear weeks later, just before a VAT audit, the tax office reasonably suspects a construction.
Where business meals get rejected
Auditors see these mistakes in roughly every second file:
Occasion too vague: "Business meal with Mr Müller" is not enough. The specific business discussed must be identifiable.
Attendees missing: just "with client" or just a company name without people — fails.
Thermal-paper receipts: faded after two years means no receipt at all. Scan or photograph immediately.
Handwritten "receipts" from bars or small venues without a TSE cash register: not deductible, full stop.
Pure drinks in a bar: drinks only (beer, wine, cocktails) without food is often classed as unreasonable — auditors assume private occasion.
Meals on weekends or late evenings without clear justification: collapses quickly when timing and occasion do not match.
Reasonable amount: Is there a cap?
There is no fixed Euro cap per head, but spending must be "reasonable by general standards". In practice auditors wave through € 50–100 per person without questions. For Michelin-level or € 300 per head, document the occasion especially carefully — for example a contract signing of significant volume.
Business meals in your books: accounts and VAT return
On the EÜR (income-surplus calculation) the 70 % deductible business meals go in line 26 ("Aufwendungen für Geschäftsessen / Bewirtung"). The 30 % non-deductible portion is tracked separately in the bookkeeping but never enters the EÜR — it does not reduce profit.
For the VAT return (UStVA) it is simpler: you claim the full input VAT from the restaurant invoice in line 55 (input VAT from other businesses). No 70/30 split applies on the VAT side.
Inside Norman, Lexoffice, sevdesk or DATEV the booking is split across two accounts: "Bewirtungskosten abziehbar" (70 %) and "Bewirtungskosten nicht abziehbar" (30 %). You do not need to split this yourself — the receipt runs through as a Bewirtungsbeleg and the tool handles the math.
Special cases
Employee meals in your own office
If you invite your employees for pizza at the office (or to a restaurant for a Christmas party), the 70 % rule does not apply — the 30 % haircut only kicks in for business occasions involving external people. Full deduction. Watch out for company parties: per employee and event, € 110 gross is tax-free; anything above is taxed as wages on the employee side.
You eating alone on a business trip
A pizza you grab between two client meetings is not a Bewirtung — it is covered by the per-diem allowance (€ 14 for 8+ hours away from home, € 28 for 24+ hours within Germany). You do not need to collect a receipt; the allowance depends on time away, not actual spend.
Catering and dinner parties with clients
If you invite clients to your home and hire a caterer, normal business-meal rules apply — 70 % deductible, 100 % VAT recoverable, plus a self-written note on occasion and attendees. It gets risky as soon as family or friends sit at the same table: the auditor will assume a private occasion.
Meals abroad
The German 70 % rule applies abroad too. But you cannot recover VAT — an Italian or French receipt does not carry German VAT. Split the gross amount 70/30 and book the 70 % as a business expense. For larger amounts, foreign VAT can be reclaimed via the EU VAT refund procedure in the respective country — usually only worth the hassle above a few hundred euros.
Business meals as a Kleinunternehmer
As a Kleinunternehmer under § 19 UStG you cannot recover VAT — the 100 % VAT bonus does not apply. The 70 % income-tax rule still does: you book 70 % of the gross amount as a business expense. On a € 178.50 bill that is € 124.95 — no need to separate net and VAT.
How much do business meals really save?
Think in terms of effective tax rate. At a 30 % marginal rate (income tax + solidarity surcharge), € 70 of deductible meal cost saves around € 21 in tax. Add VAT: on a € 119 bill, that is € 70 net × 70 % × 30 % = € 14.70 income tax saved plus € 19 of full VAT recovery = € 33.70 real-world saving. A € 119 meal costs you about € 85 — roughly a 28 % discount on every business dinner.
Someone who regularly entertains clients (twice a month × € 80) easily reaches € 2,000 of meal expenses a year and € 500–600 in tax savings. Enough to take collecting and documenting receipts seriously.
Conclusion
Business meals are one of the few corners of German tax law where formal details decide hundreds of euros. The rule is simple: 70 % of the net cost reduces profit, 100 % of the VAT comes back — as long as the machine-generated receipt is clean, the occasion and attendees are spelled out, and you signed it the same evening. Letting bookkeeping software handle the split avoids the most common mistakes; sticking with handwritten notes hands the tax office money every year.