Translate an employment contract into German

What changes when an employment contract goes into German

Employment contracts are built on concepts from one legal system, and German labour law does not always have a matching term. The translation has to say what your contract says, not rewrite it under German law. Common equivalents, whether your source is English or French:

• permanent contract → unbefristeter Arbeitsvertrag; fixed-term contract → befristeter Arbeitsvertrag
• probationary period → Probezeit; notice period → Kündigungsfrist
• collective agreement → Tarifvertrag; post-termination non-compete → nachvertragliches Wettbewerbsverbot
• garden leave → usually rendered as Freistellung; gross annual salary → Bruttojahresgehalt

Some concepts have no German counterpart: at-will employment, the French cadre status, French RTT days. These are best kept in the original wording with a brief explanation in German. A German-speaking reader will understand the clause, but the contract is still governed by the law it names; translating it does not turn it into a German-law contract.

German-specific points in a contract

Several features of German show up straight away in an employment contract:

• Every noun is capitalised: der Arbeitgeber, die Vergütung, die Arbeitszeit. A lower-case noun is an obvious error.
• Long compounds: “continued pay during sickness” becomes Entgeltfortzahlung im Krankheitsfall. Clause headings and table cells grow; German text often runs 20 to 35% longer than English.
• Amounts and dates: a full stop separates thousands and a comma marks decimals, so 2.850,00 €, not €2,850.00. Dates are written 01.03.2025 or 1. März 2025.
• Plurals: German distinguishes one and many, 1 Urlaubstag but 25 Urlaubstage. If your contract is a template with a field such as {days} days of annual leave, check the form is still correct once the field is filled.
• Register: the contract refers to the parties in the third person; any covering letter addresses the employee formally with Sie.

For Switzerland, Standard German drops the ß (Strasse, not Straße); in Austria, January is often Jänner. Tell your reviewers which country the employee works in.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Your contract is handled by Themis, the engine specialised in legal texts. It accepts Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF and CSV, and returns the file in its original format: a Word contract comes back as Word, with numbered clauses, salary tables and signature block in place.

The quote appears as soon as you upload, based on the exact word count; German is charged at the base rate (×1 coefficient). A typical contract of around 3,500 words, about 9 pages, is delivered within minutes and kept in your account. The Professional level suits a contract you will send on; Premium adds a cross-review.

What Manuce does not do:

• No sworn translations. If a German authority, court or body asks for a beglaubigte Übersetzung, only a sworn translator can provide it.
• No scanned PDFs. A signed contract scanned as an image, with no selectable text, cannot be read.
• No legal advice. Manuce translates your contract; it does not check it against German employment law.

Preparing the contract before upload

A little preparation avoids most corrections:

• Use the source file, not the signed scan. The Word file, or a PDF exported from your word processor, contains readable text.
• Fill in variable fields: name, job title, start date, salary. An empty placeholder such as [SALARY] is reproduced as it is, and the 2.850,00 € convention cannot be applied to a missing figure.
• Leave room in the layout: with longer German text, a 9-page contract may gain a page. Avoid fixed-height text boxes and forced page breaks just before the signatures.
• Note the terms to keep unchanged: the name of the collective agreement, the company name, statutory references such as section 86 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Check them in the free extract, then in the full translation.

Checking the German translation

When the file comes back, review first what binds the parties:

1. Figures: salary, weekly hours, length of the Probezeit, Kündigungsfrist periods, number of Urlaubstage. Compare line by line with the original.
2. Dates and proper names: no personal or company name should have been translated.
3. Concepts without equivalents: at-will clauses, cadre, RTT; make sure they are explained rather than replaced by a different German concept.
4. Signature block: “Signed at Manchester on…” usually becomes Manchester, den…; check it has not been pushed onto a page of its own.
5. Human review: if a German-speaking employee is going to sign, have it read by a lawyer or HR professional who knows the governing law.

In practice

1. Export the contract as Word or a text-based PDF, with all fields filled in.
2. Upload the file, choose German and a level, then review the quote.
3. Check the free extract: Probezeit, Kündigungsfrist, number format.
4. Pay and download the translated contract from your account.
5. Have figures, dates and signatures reviewed before sending it on.