Quick referenceWorking whilepregnant

You are under no obligation to tell your employer the moment you find out. There is no legal deadline, and many people wait until after the first scan, somewhere between weeks 12 and 20. It is your news to share when you are ready.

There is no rush, but nothing at work changes until you tell your employer. The day-to-day safeguards of maternity protection (Mutterschutz) can only be put in place once they know, and a short note in writing with your due date is enough. Your protection from dismissal starts at the beginning of pregnancy whether you have told them or not, and there is more on that below.

Maternity protection is the law that protects you around the birth. It applies to employees (and, in large part, to students and trainees), whatever your nationality. It gives you leave around the birth itself:

• Six weeks before your due date. This part is optional, and you may keep working if you wish and say so.
• Eight weeks after the birth. These weeks are not optional, and your employer cannot ask you to work through them.
• Twelve weeks after for a premature or multiple birth, or if your baby is later found to have a disability.

During this protected time you do not lose income. You receive maternity pay (Mutterschaftsgeld) from your health insurer, and your employer tops it up to your full average net salary (Arbeitgeberzuschuss), so in practice you are paid roughly what you earned before. If you are privately insured or self-employed, maternity pay follows a different route, and familienportal.de explains yours.

Germany protects a pregnancy that cannot safely carry on alongside your job. Where the work has to change, or stop, it can do so before the protected period begins, without losing pay and without it counting as sick leave. This is an employment ban (Beschäftigungsverbot), and it comes in two forms.

A general ban (generelles Beschäftigungsverbot) applies when your specific work cannot be made safe for pregnancy: heavy lifting, night shifts, exposure to certain substances, standing for long stretches. Your employer must first try to adjust your role or move you; only if they cannot are you released from work.

An individual ban (individuelles Beschäftigungsverbot) is written by your doctor or midwife when continuing to work would risk your health or the pregnancy. It can be full or partial (for example, reduced hours, or no standing), and it can begin at any point in pregnancy.

Sometimes you need to stop work sooner than you planned. Exhaustion, pain, bleeding, raised blood pressure, signs of early labour, or needing more rest than the job leaves room for. If that is you, there are two routes, and they are different:

• An individual employment ban (Beschäftigungsverbot). This is usually the route when it is the pregnancy that means you cannot carry on at work. Your doctor or midwife writes it, you keep your full salary, and your sick days stay untouched for later.
• Ordinary sick leave (Krankschreibung). This is the route for an illness that happens to come at the same time as the pregnancy. You are signed off sick as anyone would be, on sick pay.

You do not have to work out which of the two applies. Telling your doctor or midwife how you are feeling, and how you are managing at work, is enough. They decide which route fits on medical grounds. Adjusting your hours, changing what you do, or stopping altogether when your health asks for it is common, legitimate, and nothing to apologise for.

If you lose your baby, your job and your income are protected while you take the time you need. After a stillbirth you keep the full maternity-protection period and the protection from dismissal. Since June 2025, a miscarriage from the thirteenth week of pregnancy also carries protected time away from work, with no sick note needed; familienportal.de has the current details, and for earlier losses your doctor signs you off for as long as you need. There is more in After a Loss.

From the day you are pregnant until at least four months after the birth, you have special protection from dismissal (Kündigungsschutz). Your employer cannot give you notice during this time, save for very rare cases that need official approval from the state authority. This protection applies whether you have been there ten years or ten weeks.

It also reaches back: if your employer did not know you were pregnant when they gave you notice, you can tell them within two weeks of receiving it, and the dismissal usually falls away. If you take parental leave (Elternzeit), the protection continues through it.

Your job is kept for you. After your leave you return to the same job, or an equivalent one on the same terms. Time on maternity protection and parental leave does not cost you your position.