Reporting data synchronisation, retroactive payment request

The Beitragsservice compares data with the registration authorities. Students who have not independently registered with the Beitragsservice are then often contacted and a retroactive obligation to pay fees is claimed. If you live in a flat with others and can prove that one of the others is already paying contributions, you are of course not liable to pay contributions, which must then be clarified. A retroactive exemption can also help.

Families, partnerships and shared flats treated equally

Persons of legal age who are tenants (or owners) of a residential unit or who are registered there are responsible for paying the contribution. If there is more than one resident, only one person is responsible for the payment flow, regardless of their relationship to each other. Families and shared flats are therefore treated equally.

Avoid double-payer situations

The residents of the shared flat who are not responsible for payment transactions to the Beitragsservice must deregister with the Beitragsservice on their own initiative, naming the person who is now responsible for payment. Anyone who fails to deregister will have to pay the full €18.36 per month until the deregistration is completed.

Dispute over responsibility for payment?

If the residents of a residential unit do not agree on who is responsible for payment, each is jointly and severally liable. Consequently, the Beitragsservice could choose any person from the flat to collect the total contribution. However, persons exempt from (or exempt from) the licence fee cannot be used for this purpose. They can also fulfil the requirements for exemption in such cases at the time of a change of payment responsibility, even if they had not previously applied for exemption under the umbrella of the WG (§ 2 Para. 3 RBeitrStV).
In other words: If not all are exempt, one* must pay, whereby the apportionment within the WG is a private problem that those exempt from contributions do not have to participate in solving.

Are shared flats different from shared flats?

If students rent a traditional single-family flat and share the rent, this is generally considered to be a shared flat, which the Broadcasting Contribution Service would not dispute. The type of tenancy agreement is irrelevant. There is only one flat and not a collection of individual flats that are connected to each other via a corridor and with a kitchen and bathroom. If the corridor of such a flat becomes a little straighter and longer and the landlord happens to be a student union or another public organisation, the situation does not really change. Unfortunately, this is not always the case:

The Beitragsservice has developed its own account of the problem, which centres on whether an area is exclusively accessible by a group of students with keys belonging only to them. Quoted here:

"You live in a student hall of residence? If your room is off a generally accessible corridor, it is classed as a flat. It does not matter whether you have your own bathroom or kitchen: The contribution of €18.36 per month must be paid per room.

If several rooms are separated from a generally accessible corridor or stairwell by a separate flat door, this is a shared flat. A monthly fee of 18.36 euros is due per shared flat." (as of 8/2021)

This means that, for the Contribution Service, separation is the core of the definition of a flat, but not the shared use of a bathroom or kitchen. This definition of "flat" is quite spartan and would be inadmissible in social housing. However, § 3 Para. 1 No. 1 RBeitrStV refers to "living or sleeping". "Sleeping" alone is therefore sufficient, so that all other functional features of a normal flat may be missing.

Exemption or reduction

Furthermore, persons with a social benefit or BAföG certificate can be exempted. Groups to be exempted are listed in § 4 Para. 1 RBeitrStV (e.g. also relating to unemployment benefit II, but not housing benefit). Certain disabled persons are granted a reduced contribution rate in accordance with § 4 Para. 2 if they are not already exempted by a social benefits notification. The application deadlines were improved again on 1 January 2017: The exemption is always effective for as long as the exempting social benefits notice is valid, but for a maximum of 3 years back (Section 4 (4) RBeitrStV). The deadline regulation also applies analogously to applications for reductions. The exemption or reduction applies to spouses and registered partners as well as to children under 25 years of age of the exempt persons/partners/spouses (interesting for persons receiving BAföG if their partners do not receive BAföG).

Online application tool of the Beitragsservice

The forms are generated by an online tool of the Beitragsservice. However, it should be made clear that even going through the tool at the end transmits data that does not yet constitute an application. Only the written application is valid - signed and accompanied by the correct supporting documents.

Exemption condition for students: BAföG notification

Enrolment does not count for students. Only those who can attach the relevant supplementary sheet of a BAföG benefit certificate to the application form are exempt. However, the BAföG benefit must have been issued for housing independent of parents. BAföG benefit recipients living with their parents are not exempt, but are not liable to pay contributions under their parents' roof if the parents pay or the family is exempt from contributions.

Student parents not entitled to BAföG benefits

If the children of students are entitled to citizen's allowance benefits, this triggers an exemption for the entire community of need.

If a single parent student only receives additional needs for single parenthood according to § 27 SGB II, but the children in the household do not receive benefits according to SGB II, the entire community of need should also be exempt by the SGB II notification.

The hardship clause

Updated on 11 November 2019: There is still a general hardship clause (Section 4 (6) RBeitrStV), the interpretation of which has so far been restrictive in case law. All fully enrolled students who are generally not entitled to BAföG benefits, but actually live below the BAföG requirement level, were ignored by the authors of the agreement and case law (students on leave of absence could receive unemployment benefit II and be exempt). This should now change:

With the ruling of the Federal Administrative Court of 30 October 2019, the hardship case is to be interpreted more broadly, which is clarified in the court's press release. The Beitragsservice has now written something about this on its own website, but does not offer an online application for this situation (as of 09/2023).

However, a previously existing concretisation of the case of hardship has always been possible:
"A case of hardship exists in particular if a social benefit according to paragraph 1 nos. 1 to 10 has been denied in a decision issued by the competent authority on the grounds that the income exceeds the respective need limit by less than the amount of the licence fee."