Viewing a WG in Germany: Contract, Kaution, and Move-In Checks

A WG viewing Germany international students get after weeks of messages is where the housing search becomes a lease. The listing, the platforms, and the search from abroad are in student accommodation. This page starts when someone offers you a time slot.

The checks below are national. Rent levels differ by city; the contract rules do not. Budget ranges sit in cost of living and the cost of living calculator.

TL;DR

• Name the other party: dorm, owner, or main tenant (Hauptmieter).
• If it is a sublet, see permission to sublet before you pay.
• Kaution on housing: max 3 x Nettokaltmiete, payable in three monthly parts if it is a cash deposit.
• No transfer before a signed contract and a key date. No cash to a personal account abroad.
• Move-in: damage list with photos, meter readings if you pay energy, and Wohnungsgeberbestätigung for Anmeldung.

Three people who might hand you a contract

A friendly tour by a roommate is not a landlord. If the person at the door cannot say which of the three you are, do not pay a deposit that day.

Untermiete permission Germany law starts from a simple rule: a tenant who wants to leave the flat in someone else's hands needs the landlord's permission (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, § 540). Subletting part of a flat is slightly different. If the tenant has a legitimate interest, the landlord must allow it unless there is an important reason to refuse (§ 553). Interest and refusal are arguments between the main tenant and the owner. They are not a reason for you to skip the paper. Ask for the Untervermietungserlaubnis, or the clause, and keep a copy.

If the main tenant leaves, your right can end with theirs. A sublet is only as strong as the contract above it.

Zwischenmiete is a sublet with a known end, often while the main tenant is away for a semester. Plan to leave on the end date unless you have a written extension. Ask what happens if they return early.

Mietvertrag WG Germany

Mietvertrag WG Germany rooms should be in writing before any money moves. Read these lines out loud if the showing is rushed:

• Full names of both sides, and the address plus which room
• Start date, and end date if there is one
• Kaltmiete (base rent) and what the Nebenkosten figure is: advance (Vorauszahlung) or flat fee (Pauschale)
• Whether heating (Heizkosten) is inside that figure or separate
• Deposit amount and due dates
• Who pays electricity, internet, and the broadcast fee
• Notice period, in weeks or months, and which side can use it

A fixed end date on a lease of living space is not decorative. For a normal tenancy, a time limit is valid only if the landlord states a statutory reason in writing when you sign: they will need the flat back for themselves or family, they will renovate in a way that makes letting impossible, or they will house an employee (§ 575). A bare date with no reason can be void, and the lease is then treated as open-ended. Sublets and dorm contracts are often genuinely temporary. Do not "fix" a strange clause yourself. If the end date is the whole point (you leave when the main tenant returns), the date should be in the contract you sign.

Notice is not always three months

The ordinary notice period for a tenant on an open-ended housing lease is three months to the end of a month (§ 573c). Two shorter patterns show up in student housing, and they are easy to mix up:

• A furnished room inside the flat where the landlord (or main tenant) actually lives, when the legal conditions in § 549 (2) No. 2 are met, can be ended by notice that arrives by the 15th and takes effect at the end of that same month (§ 573c (3)). The room has to be part of their dwelling and predominantly furnished by them. The short clock does not apply just because a listing says "möbliert", and it does not apply if the space was let as a lasting household with family.
• An unfurnished room, or a flat where everyone is a co-tenant and nobody is "the landlord living there", does not automatically get that two-week pattern.

If the draft says you can be asked to leave in two weeks, ask which paragraph they mean. A sentence in a template is not the statute.

Kaution three months Kaltmiete

Kaution three months Kaltmiete is the ceiling, not a suggested bill. There is no automatic deposit. The landlord can ask only if the contract agrees one.

For housing, section 551 of the Civil Code sets three limits that matter on viewing day:

1. Cap. The deposit may not exceed three times the monthly rent excluding operating costs that are shown as a flat rate or as an advance. Multiply Nettokaltmiete by three. Do not multiply Warmmiete. A clause that takes more is void to your disadvantage.
2. Instalments. If the deposit is cash, you may pay it in three equal monthly parts. The first is due when the tenancy starts. The next two are due with the following rent payments. A clause that forces the full sum on day one and waives this right does not stick.
3. Separate account. A cash deposit must be held at a bank, apart from the landlord's own money, at the usual rate for savings with three months' notice. Interest is yours and adds to the deposit. Student and youth dorms do not have to pay that interest.

Worked cap: Kaltmiete €400, Nebenkosten advance €80, so you transfer €480 a month in rent. The legal maximum deposit is €1,200 (3 x €400), not €1,440 (3 x €480). You could pay €400 with move-in, then €400 with the next two rents.

Pay the deposit only when all of these are true:

• The contract is signed
• The account holder matches the landlord named in the contract
• You have a receipt
• Keys are handed over on a dated day, not "after the transfer clears, we post them"

Refuse Western Union, crypto, and a "cousin abroad who handles deposits". The same refusal is in the housing search guide. It still applies after a real viewing.

When you move out, the landlord may keep the deposit only against concrete claims (damage, unpaid rent, an open operating-cost bill). There is no fixed statutory "we return it in 14 days" rule. Courts often allow a few months to inspect and to finish the operating-cost statement. Photograph the room when you leave.

Text of the cap: BGB § 551.

What to check in the room

The protocol (Übergabeprotokoll) is not a statute. It is how you avoid a deposit deduction for a stain that was already there.

On the day you get keys, write and photograph:

• Existing marks, mould, broken blinds, windows that do not close
• How many keys, and for which door
• Meter numbers and readings if electricity, gas, or water will be in your name (Zählernummer and Zählerstand)
• Whether the heating works (run a heater for a few minutes in cold months)

Ask these before you sign, not after:

• How many people live there, and whose names are on the main lease
• Whether internet already exists, who holds the contract, and the minimum term (many consumer internet contracts run 24 months)
• Whether electricity is a shared contract or yours to open
• Who is already registered for the broadcast fee

If nobody holds an electricity contract, the local basic supplier (Grundversorger) covers the address at the default tariff until someone signs. Default tariffs are usually the expensive ones. In a WG the main tenant often already has the contract. Confirm which.

Broadcast fee is per dwelling, not per person

The Rundfunkbeitrag is €18.36 a month per Wohnung, billed as €55.08 for three months. One adult registers the flat. Roommates do not each owe a full fee.

Two student cases from the Beitragsservice:

• A dorm room that opens onto a public corridor counts as its own Wohnung. That room owes €18.36, even with a shared kitchen down the hall.
• Several rooms behind one apartment door, used as a WG, count as one Wohnung. One person pays, and the flat can split the bill.

A BAföG exemption covers the applicant. It does not automatically clear flatmates. The full fee stays due until everyone in the dwelling qualifies. Source: Rundfunkbeitrag for students.

SCHUFA new arrival Germany rent

SCHUFA new arrival Germany rent requests are a landlord habit, not a legal requirement to be handed a residential lease.

SCHUFA is a private credit file. A new arrival often has no file. That reads as "no history". It is not a negative score. Useful substitutes:

• Passport
• Zulassung or, better, Immatrikulationsbescheinigung (enrolment)
• Blocked-account confirmation or recent bank proof
• A German phone number once you have one

The free product is the data copy under data-protection law. The paid BonitätsAuskunft is a different document, and it is the one some landlords name. Do not buy either from a link inside a classified ad. After you have a German bank account, a file starts to exist; that step is in Girokonto after Anmeldung.

A landlord who will only accept a German guarantor you cannot produce is allowed to refuse you. You are allowed to walk away.

Nebenkostenabrechnung students Germany

Nebenkostenabrechnung students Germany renters meet the bill long after the viewing. Split the monthly number before you compare rooms:

Operating costs that can be passed on are listed in the Operating Costs Ordinance (Betriebskostenverordnung). A landlord cannot invent a category that is really their own repair.

If you pay an advance, the landlord must send a yearly statement. It has to reach you by the end of the twelfth month after the accounting period closes (§ 556 (3)). After that, a demand for extra payment is generally barred, unless the delay was not the landlord's fault. A credit in your favour can still be owed. The statute: BGB § 556.

A Pauschale does not get this yearly true-up. You will not get a refund, and you should not get a surprise top-up either.

A three-month Zwischenmiete may end before any yearly statement exists. Prefer a flat fee, or a written note that you will not be chased for a later heating bill, if you will be gone.

Wohnungsgeberbestätigung after move in

Wohnungsgeberbestätigung after move in is the form Anmeldung cannot start without. The person providing the housing confirms that you moved in. You register with the registration authority. The usual deadline is two weeks after you move in (Bundesmeldegesetz § 17).

Ask for the confirmation on key day, with your name, the address, and the move-in date. "We will email it sometime" is how people miss the two weeks. A hostel almost never issues one. Dorm offices do. A main tenant can, if they are the Wohnungsgeber for your room; some cities still want the owner. Take the form your Bürgeramt lists, not a screenshot of the lease alone.

Registration is a legal duty of its own. It is also the key to the bank, the tax ID, and the residence-permit file. Order of operations: first 30 days.

Broker fees

For ordinary residential lettings, the person who hired the agent pays the commission (Bestellerprinzip, in the Wohnungsvermittlungsgesetz). If the landlord commissioned the Makler, the fee is not yours. If you hired someone to search, you can owe their fee.

A private "finder fee" by bank transfer before a viewing is not that system. Treat it as a scam pattern.

Viewing checklist

1. Who is the landlord in law, and does a sublet have written permission?
2. Kaltmiete, Nebenkosten, heating, electricity, internet: five separate answers.
3. Deposit at or under 3 x Kaltmiete, with the three-instalment right left intact.
4. End date and notice period match the story you were told.
5. No payment before signature, receipt, and a key date.
6. Move-in protocol with photos and meters.
7. Wohnungsgeberbestätigung the same day.
8. Broadcast fee: is this room its own Wohnung or part of one WG payment?

Common mistakes

• Paying three months of warm rent as a deposit
• Signing with a roommate who has never asked the owner
• Treating "möbliert" as proof that you can be removed in two weeks, or proof that you cannot
• Comparing two rooms on Warmmiete while one hides electricity
• Leaving without the Wohnungsgeberbestätigung because the room looked fine
• Buying a SCHUFA product from a listing link

Official sources

• BGB § 551, deposit cap and instalments
• BGB § 556, operating-cost statement deadline
• BGB § 575, fixed-term leases
• Rundfunkbeitrag, information for students
• DAAD, accommodation

Related: Find housing from abroad · Anmeldung · Girokonto · Cost of living · Enrolment