A business meal receipt in Germany, the Bewirtungsbeleg, is the written note that proves a business meal to the tax office. It needs five details: place, date, participants, purpose and amount (section 4(5) sentence 1 no. 2 of the Income Tax Act, EStG). For a meal in a restaurant, purpose and participants are enough, as long as the restaurant's bill is attached. You write the note promptly and sign it. The bill must be machine-generated and electronically recorded, and if the restaurant runs an electronic till, also secured by a certified security device (TSE); a handwritten bill is not enough. With customers and business partners, 70 percent of the reasonable cost is deductible as a business expense, while the input VAT is recoverable in full (section 15(1a) of the VAT Act, UStG). If you only treat your own employees, the full amount counts. As of November 2026, per the law, R 4.10 of the Income Tax Guidelines (EStR) and the Finance Ministry (BMF) letter of 19 November 2025.
This is the legal position under the provisions cited and not tax advice for your case. A business meal is not a per diem; it often goes into the same expense report but follows its own rules. The flat rates for travel days are in Per Diem Germany 2026: Rates and Template.
A business meal receipt template to copy
Copy the left column and fill in the right one for every business meal. The example values are made up.
For the purpose, R 4.10(9) EStR requires that it shows the connection with a business transaction or business relationship. "Business lunch" alone does not; the project or the quote does. For participants, names are the rule; only where that is unreasonable, such as a company tour with many visitors, do a number and a group description suffice.
Required details on the receipt and on the bill
What the restaurant's bill must show depends on its total (BMF letter of 19 November 2025).
"Speisen und Getränke" (food and drinks) as a single line with a total is not enough; labels like "Menü 1" or "Lunch-Buffet" are fine (para. 6). A date stamp or a handwritten date does not count (para. 7).
How much you can deduct: 70 percent and full input VAT
For a meal with a business occasion, the law disallows 30 percent of the reasonable cost as a business expense. That also covers your own share and that of your employees at the table (R 4.10(6) sentence 7 EStR). You still recover the full VAT on the bill as input tax: section 15(1a) UStG expressly exempts business meals from the input tax ban, as long as the cost is reasonable and documented.
Since 1 January 2026, a restaurant bill usually carries two VAT rates: 7 percent for food, 19 percent for drinks (section 12(2) no. 15 UStG). Suppose a business entitled to deduct input tax takes two customers out. The bill reads as follows, with a 10 euro tip shown on the bill:
The tip counts as part of the meal cost and therefore falls under the 70 percent too (R 4.10(5) sentence 4 EStR). Also easy to miss: business meal costs must be recorded individually and separately from other business expenses (section 4(7) EStG), otherwise the deduction is lost. In practice: a separate account.
For comparison: the IRS generally allows 50 percent of business meals (Publication 463, 2025 returns). Germany allows 70 percent but is stricter on paperwork.
Meals for employees and other special cases
If you treat only your own employees, R 4.10(7) EStR classes this as a general operational matter, so the 70 percent limit does not apply and the cost is fully deductible. Once a customer joins, it is a business meal for everyone present.
Whether the employee receives taxable wages is a separate question. The 2026 wage tax handbook lists an exemption limit of 60 euros for a working meal during an exceptional work assignment, such as an unusual business meeting (R 19.6(2) LStR), and an allowance of 110 euros per employee for company events. Two more distinctions from R 4.10 EStR:
- Coffee, tea and biscuits at a meeting are a courtesy, not a business meal, and fully deductible (para. 5).
- Meals at home generally count as private living costs, even with business partners (para. 6 sentence 8).
The restaurant bill: TSE, tips, over 250 euros
If the restaurant uses an electronic till, the tax office only accepts bills that are machine-generated, electronically recorded and secured by a TSE (BMF, para. 13). Handwritten or merely machine-printed bills exclude the cost from the deduction completely. How to spot the TSE: the till receipt shows a transaction number and the serial number of the till or the security module, often as a QR code (para. 14). What a TSE is and who needs one is explained in Cash Book Apps Compared.
If the TSE fails and the receipt shows it, the deduction stays allowed (para. 15).
A tip not shown on the bill you prove yourself, for example by having the recipient acknowledge it on the bill (para. 8).
Above 250 euros, a till receipt may later be corrected with an e-invoice (para. 13). When businesses must receive and send e-invoices is covered in German E-Invoicing: Dates and Exemptions.
Digital business meal receipts: what the BMF requires
Bill and note may both be digital, and paper bills may be scanned (paras. 18 and 19). The BMF sets six conditions in para. 22:
- You create the note promptly, or add the details promptly to the digital bill.
- The time of creation or addition is recorded electronically.
- You sign or approve the document digitally.
- The time of that approval is recorded as well.
- Note and bill are stored electronically and linked, for example by cross-reference.
- The process meets the GoBD (the German rules for digital bookkeeping) and is described in your process documentation.
The key sentence is in para. 20: if no meal note can be matched to a bill, the deduction is to be denied. How to set up filing that holds up is in Digital Receipt Filing That Holds Up. Apps for capturing the bill are compared in Receipt Scanning Apps: The Best Tools.
Where an AI employee can help, and where it cannot
In my business, Peter, my AI employee for receipts, has matched the credit card statement line by line against the receipts since 19 August 2026. He uses a CSV export of the statement and reports whatever does not match exactly as open. Peter does not book entries; approval stays with me and my accountant. His page lists no separate step for business meal receipts.
An example of what that step could look like if Peter learns it: he finds a card payment to a restaurant and checks three things. Is the bill there, with a transaction number? Is a note with purpose and participants linked to it? Above 250 euros, does it show tax number, invoice number and the host's name? If anything is missing, he reports the line as open and adds nothing. He does not do this today: he only takes on additional steps once they have been taught, tested and approved. What else AI handles in bookkeeping today is in AI Bookkeeping: What Actually Works Today. A test run with sample receipts is shown in Credit Card Reconciliation: An AI Test Run.
Frequently asked questions
What has to be on a business meal receipt in Germany?
Place, date, participants, purpose and amount. For a restaurant meal, purpose and participants are enough if the bill is attached. Add date and signature. The template above covers every field.
How much of a business meal can I deduct in Germany?
With customers and business partners, 70 percent of the reasonable, documented cost as a business expense, calculated on the net amount if you deduct input tax (section 4(5) sentence 1 no. 2 EStG, as of November 2026). Meals for your own employees only are fully deductible.
Is a handwritten restaurant bill valid?
Not in Germany. The bill must be machine-generated and electronically recorded (BMF, para. 1; R 4.10(8) EStR), and TSE-secured if the restaurant has an electronic till (para. 13). A handwritten bill rules out the deduction completely. For meals abroad there is an exception: if no machine-generated bill can be obtained there, the foreign bill may suffice in individual cases (BMF, para. 23).
Does a business meal on a trip belong in the expense report?
It can go in the same report but is treated separately: the per diem follows the travel times, the business meal needs its own receipt with the bill and falls under the 70 percent limit.
How to continue
Copy the table as your template and take your last business meal. Fill in every field and check the bill against the list above: transaction number present, food itemised, your name on it above 250 euros? Then set up a separate account for business meals in your bookkeeping if you do not have one yet. Tools for the whole expense report are compared in Expense Apps for German Businesses Compared.
There is no template for Peter's exact setup, but the learning path he grew out of is in my community AI Employee Framework.
