Amendments to the reporting system (AWV notifications) have come into effect.

The German Federal Government's so-called Bureaucracy Relief Ordinance of December 11, 2024, includes several adjustments to the reporting requirements for capital and payment transactions (Sections 63 et seq. of the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance), which entered into force on January 1, 2025. We present the key changes. Increase in Reporting Thresholds: According to Section 67 of the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance, German residents are generally required to report incoming payments from foreign nationals and outgoing payments to foreign nationals to the Deutsche Bundesbank if a certain amount is exceeded. The Federal Government raised this reporting threshold from EUR 12,500 to EUR 50,000 or the equivalent in another currency, effective January 1, 2025. The reporting threshold for certain payments by domestic financial institutions has also been raised accordingly (see Section 70 Paragraph 3 of the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (AWV)). The reporting thresholds for capital transactions have also been increased. According to Sections 64 and 65 of the AWV, domestic companies are required to report cross-border corporate holdings if a domestic company directly holds at least 10% of the shares or voting rights in a foreign company, or if one or more economically linked foreign companies together hold at least 10% of the shares or voting rights in the domestic company, and the balance sheet total of the foreign or domestic company in question exceeds a certain amount. This amount has now been increased from EUR 3 million to EUR 6 million. Furthermore, the Federal Government has also adjusted the reporting thresholds concerning receivables and payables to foreign companies (Section 66 of the AWV). The reporting obligation only applies since January 1, 2025, if the total receivables and payables exceed EUR 6 million at the end of each month (previously the threshold was EUR 5 million). Adjustment of Reporting Deadlines: The reporting deadlines for payments to or from foreign nationals (§ 67 AWV) are now standardized and are based on working days instead of calendar days. For payments to or from foreign nationals, the deadline is now always the seventh working day of the month following the payment (§ 71 para. 6 AWV). Receivables and payables to foreign nationals (§ 66 AWV) must now also be reported by the tenth working day (instead of the tenth calendar day, as before) of the following month (§ 71 para. 3 AWV). The same applies to additional reportable receivables or payables arising from financial relationships with foreigners that exceed EUR 500 million at the end of a quarter; These must henceforth also be reported by the 50th working day (instead of the previous 50th calendar day) after the end of the quarter (Section 71 Paragraph 4 AWV). If a resident who was required to report for the previous reporting date is no longer required to do so because the amount falls below the thresholds, they must now report this by the 15th working day of the following month (and not, as before, by the 20th calendar day of the following month) (§ 71 para. 5 AWV).

The reporting date for cross-border company participations (§§ 64, 65 AWV), which already referred to working days rather than calendar days in the previous version of § 71 AWV, remains unchanged (cf. § 71 paras. 1 and 2 AWV).

Amendments and clarifications in connection with payment notifications

With the amendments to the AWV, the Federal Government expressly clarifies that the transfer of crypto assets within the meaning of § 1 para. 1 sentence 4 KWG is considered a payment (§ 67 para. 3 Page 2 No. 2 AVW) and introduces new key figures for this purpose as of January 1, 2025 (key figures 804, 814, 824 and 834). Furthermore, interest on foreign bonds and money market instruments will henceforth be explicitly exempt from the reporting requirement (Section 67 Paragraph 2 No. 4 AWV).

Reporting Formalities

Despite electronic submission via data formats, the paper forms have so far remained part of the AWV as attachments. They have now been replaced by so-called survey charts. According to the Bundesbank, the survey charts will be available from mid-2025 in the revised General Reporting Portal Statistics (AMS). The previous XML format can initially still be used. From summer 2025, the Bundesbank plans to make new XML schemas available, which will become mandatory from summer 2026. When reporting assets held abroad by German residents, the previously optional fields relating to the key figures of the German group (total assets, annual turnover, and number of employees) will become mandatory. What you should do now: Failure to submit, incomplete, or incorrect reports constitute administrative offenses punishable by a fine of up to EUR 30,000 per violation. It is therefore essential to familiarize yourself with the changes to the reporting requirements in detail and, if necessary, adapt internal processes within the company to ensure compliance with the reporting obligations.