The very diverse areas of activity for coaching, consulting, and training range from support in personal development, work, and career to areas in companies such as marketing and human resources. Teaching activities include tutoring or offering courses and seminars, such as yoga, swimming, hiking, chess, or cooking. This page gives you an overview of the most frequently asked questions. Our roadmap guides you through 10 key steps to launching a business or a liberal profession in Munich.
The job titles coach, consultant, or trainer are not legally protected. The use of these terms is therefore open to anyone and is not tied to a specific qualification.
Regulated activities in the health sector and the skilled crafts trade
For services related to the health sector, you should check whether these may only be carried out by licensed doctors, psychotherapists in accordance with the Psychotherapists Act, persons with a non-medical practitioner’s “Heilpraktiker” license (for psychotherapy), psychologists or similar professions. If you are planning to offer courses related to the crafts sector such as baking, producing chocolates or ice cream, please check with the local Chamber of Skilled Crafts about possible restrictions.
Right at the beginning, you need to clarify whether your planned self-employed activity is classified as a trade-like business or a liberal profession. The decision has a number of legal and tax-related consequences.
A university degree related to the planned focus of your activity such as:
- a degree in business administration or economics for business consulting
- a degree in sports science for fitness training
- a university degree in psychology or related subjects such as education, social education worker, social worker for a life coach
- a degree in business psychology for a career coach
- a certified music teacher for offering music lessons
- a qualified nutrition scientist for nutritional counseling with a therapeutic purpose
can lead to classification as a liberal profession if the service you offer matches your occupational profile.
Classification can be difficult. Several activities can only be allocated to the liberal professions following a case-by-case examination. Get advice from the Institute for Liberal Professions. For individual tax advice, please contact a tax consultant of your choice.
How and where do I register? Visit registration to learn more.
Regardless of whether you are starting up as a main or sideline business, it involves planning ahead, making financial decisions, and completing a series of legal activities. Our roadmap guides you through 10 key steps to launching a business or a liberal profession in Munich.
It is possible run both, a business as a trade and a business in one of the liberal professions. These so-called mixed activities can be the case, for example, if a alternative practitioner (liberal profession) also sells food supplements, dietary or other health products (trade). Further examples are described by expert network of the federal business start-up portal. If you want to avoid losing your status as a liberal profession, you should separate the liberal profession and commercial activities for tax purposes. This means: either separate invoices are issued for the liberal profession and trade activities or they are listed separately in one invoice. In the income tax return, however, the income must be declared separately. Otherwise there is a risk that the income from the liberal profession will be classified as a trade and thus be liable to trade tax.
Therefore, check which of the mixed activities is to be classified as a trade or a liberal profession. And whether the activities can be clearly separated from each other (“separable mixed activity”) or not (“inseparable mixed activity”).
The Institute for Liberal Professions (Institut für Freie Berufe) will answer any questions regarding difficulties in delimitation. . For individual tax advice, please contact a tax consultant of your choice.
Coaching and counseling can be classified as liberal professions, provided that this activity belongs to the psychological, pedagogical, socio-educational, medical, legal and theological professions on the basis of your relevant university education (exception: alternative practitioner for psychotherapy “Heilpraktiker”).
Depending on which activity you actually pursue and which qualifications you have, there may be different approaches to tax freelancing:
a) Access via consulting combined with a university degree that matches your self-employed services
- Example: Consulting business economist in conjunction with a degree in business administration or economics and your self-employed work covers at least one major field of business administration or economics.
- Example: Counseling life coach in conjunction with a degree in psychology or education and your self-employed work covers at least one major field of these subjects.
b) Access via teaching
Teaching requires you to impart skills and knowledge personally and independently as part of a teaching activity. The teaching character must be guaranteed throughout – selective instruction is not sufficient. What is required is an academic program related to a specific subject area, which is taught in the context of courses, seminars, or workshops, i.e. coaching in groups.
Individual instruction, i.e. individual coaching, must be based on a curriculum. If this is not the case, your self-employed work could be categorized for tax purposes not as coaching but as consulting, see a).
If the activity requires the preparation and development of a program specifically tailored to the needs of an individual and not limited to one subject area, this no longer constitutes teaching activity in an organized and institutionalized form. Rather, this is an consulting activity, see a).
c) Access via self-employed work as a psychotherapist in accordance with the Psychotherapists Act or a licensed alternative practitioner for psychotherapy “Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie”
d) Access via an educational activity for children and young people
Please note:
Do you impart your knowledge in online formats? Remember that self-employed work as a liberal profession is characterized in particular by the fact that the service is provided personally and on one’s own responsibility. It is therefore imperative that there is a clearly interactive exchange in an individual and specific form within the framework of online services.
Do you offer other services, such as the sale or download of books, e-books, training plans or products? Do you arrange or rent out premises for courses? These activities could be classified as a trade like business. In these cases, check whether a so-called “separable mixed activity” or an “inseparable mixed activity” exists.
Guides provided by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action on the BMWK business start-up portal.
These guides are in German only but offer valuable insights you need to make an informed decision. Please use a translation tool of your choice to read them in your preferred language:
- GUIDE Teachers, tutors and coaches – liberal profession or trade-like business? (PDF, 76 KB)
- GUIDE Consultant business economist as liberal profession (PDF, 506 KB)
“False” self-employment and employee-like employment
It can be difficult to distinguish between dependent employment and self-employment for teachers, trainers, coaches, lecturers and consultants on a fee basis. The “Insurance law assessment of teachers and lecturers” – in German „Versicherungsrechtliche Beurteilung von Lehrern und Dozenten“ – by the GKV-Spitzenverband, the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund and the Federal Employment Agency provides a guide. Practical examples are presented by the German Association of Entrepreneurs and the Self-Employed.
Special feature: “False” self-employment and employee-like employment
Do you also offer your services online?
Whether it’s a live broadcast or a pre-produced recording for on-demand viewing via streaming or download – there are a number of legal and tax issues to consider in online business.
Social insurance
In Germany, people are covered by the so-called social insurance system. Learn which one of these insurances is mandatory when pursuing self-employment as a main or a sideline occupation.
Practical advice:
It happens time and again that the tax office accepts self-employment registrations as a liberal profession without closer examination. Those affected then wrongly assume that the tax office recognizes the classification as a liberal profession. However, in the event of a tax audit, the tax office can subsequently determine a trade at any time and initiate a retroactive trade registration and trade tax payment. Therefore, please note: The only way to be sure that your business is classified as a liberal profession is to obtain “binding information” from the tax office, which, however, involves very high requirements, time and costs.
In some cases, however, it can also happen that the trade office considers an activity that the tax office classifies as freelance in the tax sense, i.e. not subject to trade tax, to be commercial from the perspective of trade law and requires a business registration. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) and Chamber of Crafts (HWK) are automatically informed of the business registration.
The tax office and the trade office may come to (apparently) different assessments “as the terminology of tax law is not identical to that of trade law. Due to the lack of transferability of the tax law regulation to the trade regulations, the decision of the tax office has no binding effect on the trade authority.” Source and reasoning in detail is available from Bavarian Administrative Court Munich: Bayerisches Verwaltungsgericht München, M 16 K 14.5250, Urteil vom 22. September 2015.
Regardless of whether you are starting up as a main or sideline business, it involves planning ahead, making financial decisions, and completing a series of legal activities. Our roadmap guides you through 10 key steps to launching a business or a liberal profession in Munich.
For dance, gymnastics, tennis, fencing, golf, skiing, mountaineering, swimming or similar lessons, you generally need to register a trade. This is because the trade office argues that you do not need a university degree to practise. This usually also applies to yoga, fitness and personal training. The trade offices also do not classify homework supervision and tutoring outside of school as a “service of a higher nature” and require a business registration.
Classification can be difficult. Several activities can only be allocated to the liberal professions following a case-by-case examination. Get advice from the Institute for Liberal Professions. For individual tax advice, please contact a tax consultant of your choice
Guide provided by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action on the BMWK business start-up portal.
This guide is in German only but offers valuable insights you need to make an informed decision. Please use a translation tool of your choice to read it in your preferred language:
Attention pension insurance!
This also applies if the activity is only carried out on a sideline or part-time basis and contributions are already paid into the statutory pension insurance scheme as part of your main job. You should therefore check whether you are compulsorily insured in the pension insurance scheme with your self-employed activity, what contributions you have to pay and whether there are any allowances. Civil servants are also affected.
The German Pension Insurance informs:
- Selbständige Lehrer: Wann Beitragspflicht in der Rentenversicherung besteht und welche Freibeträge es gibt
- Versicherungspflichtige Selbstständige
- Leistungen, Beitragszahlung, Befreiung, Beispiele
The statutory pension insurance scheme is spart of Germany’s statutory insurance system. Learn which one of the other insurances is mandatory when pursuing self-employment as a main or a sideline occupation.
“False” self-employment and employee-like employment
It can be difficult to distinguish between dependent employment and self-employment for teachers, trainers, coaches, lecturers and consultants on a fee basis. The “Insurance law assessment of teachers and lecturers” – in German „Versicherungsrechtliche Beurteilung von Lehrern und Dozenten“ – by the GKV-Spitzenverband, the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund and the Federal Employment Agency provides a guide. Practical examples are presented by the German Association of Entrepreneurs and the Self-Employed.
Special feature: “False” self-employment and employee-like employment
Do you also offer your services online?
Whether it’s a live broadcast or a pre-produced recording for on-demand viewing via streaming or download – there are a number of legal and tax issues to consider in online business.
Social insurance
In Germany, people are covered by the so-called social insurance system. Learn which one of these insurances is mandatory when pursuing self-employment as a main or a sideline occupation.
Practical advice:
It happens time and again that the tax office accepts self-employment registrations as a liberal profession without closer examination. Those affected then wrongly assume that the tax office recognizes the classification as a liberal profession. However, in the event of a tax audit, the tax office can subsequently determine a trade at any time and initiate a retroactive trade registration and trade tax payment. Therefore, please note: The only way to be sure that your business is classified as a liberal profession is to obtain “binding information” from the tax office, which, however, involves very high requirements, time and costs.
In some cases, however, it can also happen that the trade office considers an activity that the tax office classifies as freelance in the tax sense, i.e. not subject to trade tax, to be commercial from the perspective of trade law and requires a business registration. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) and Chamber of Crafts (HWK) are automatically informed of the business registration.
The tax office and the trade office may come to (apparently) different assessments “as the terminology of tax law is not identical to that of trade law. Due to the lack of transferability of the tax law regulation to the trade regulations, the decision of the tax office has no binding effect on the trade authority.” Source and reasoning in detail is available from Bavarian Administrative Court Munich: Bayerisches Verwaltungsgericht München, M 16 K 14.5250, Urteil vom 22. September 2015.
Regardless of whether you are starting up as a main or sideline business, it involves planning ahead, making financial decisions, and completing a series of legal activities. Our roadmap guides you through 10 key steps to launching a business or a liberal profession in Munich.
The expert network of the federal business start-up portal has answered the question “liberal profession or business” of numerous self-employed coaches, consultants, trainers, and teachers.
We have compiled a list of examples:
- for coaches and consultants under the section “Praktische Beispiele für Coaching und Beratung”.
- for teachers, trainers and others doing courses and workshops under the section “Praktische Beispiele für Kurse, Seminare, Trainings.”
These examples are in German only but offer valuable insight you need to make an informed decision. Please use a translation tool of your choice to read them in your preferred language.