Buying a Small Business
Buying a Small Business in Germany
Know what you are buying before you pay for it
Price: $9.99, €9.99 or £8.99, taxes included.
The short version
In Germany taking over a small business is a Betriebsübernahme: the staff move with it by law, the seller’s unpaid business taxes can follow the business, and if you keep the name over the door, so can his old debts. This page is about what to check before you pay.
The contract said in plain words that the buyer was not taking on the seller’s debts. The tax office sent him the bill anyway. In another case a buyer moved the business into her own new company and kept its name; the higher regional court of Cologne made that company pay €76,160 the business owed. One filing, made when the name moved, would have ended the claim before it began.
Germany keeps no register of sale prices. So on 25 September 2026 I opened all 6,420 businesses listed on the state succession exchange, one by one, and the book prints their asking prices by trade and for all sixteen German states — then shows you how to check the one in front of you.
What’s inside
- 0The German market in one chapter
- 1What you are actually buying
- 2What sellers ask, and what buyers actually pay
- 3Eighteen trades that are 80 % of the market
- 4Where the businesses actually are
- 5The sign over the door, and the debts it brings
- 6The seller's unpaid taxes
- 7The staff come with the business
- 8The premises: the lease and the landlord
- 9Permission to run it: the trade notice, the permit and the master craftsman
- 10The money: what you can borrow and what nobody will pay for
- 11The contract, the notary and the taxes of the deal
- 12Reading the seller and his books
- 13The seller who opens again down the road
- 14The first months
- 15If you are not a German citizen
- 16What we do not know
- Appendices
- AHow the numbers were counted
- BPrices by trade and by Land
- CThe whole check in one list
- DWhere to check for yourself
- EThe German words in this book
From the book
Businesses listed for sale on the state exchange nexxt-change, read one by one on 25 September 2026.
Of the 3,666 that named a price, the number asking €50,000 or less.
Of a year’s turnover: what the middle business sold for, across 6,416 handovers financed with a guarantee bank. The middle owner asks 0.60.
Appendix A explains how each number was counted. Appendix B gives the asking prices by trade and by state.
What it covers
The eighteen kinds of business in this book make up 80.47% of Germany’s small enterprises, those with fewer than fifty employees (German enterprise statistics, 2024).
Editions
- EnglishBuying a Small Business in Germany
Know what you are buying before you pay for it - DeutschEinen Betrieb in Deutschland übernehmen
Wissen, was Sie kaufen, bevor Sie dafür bezahlen
Buy here — EPUB + PDF
Price: $9.99, €9.99 or £8.99, taxes included. Nothing is added on top. Buying here, you also get:
- EPUB and PDF together. One for your e-reader, one for your computer or printer.
- The seller-questions checklist, as a separate file you can fill in. Every question the book tells you to ask the seller about a business in Germany, in order, with space for the answers: 9 pages, 143 boxes you fill in on screen or on paper. Amazon does not carry it.
- Every new edition of this book, free. When the book is corrected or brought up to date, I send you the new files.
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EnglishBuying a Small Business in Germany
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DeutschEinen Betrieb in Deutschland übernehmen
Sold through Link, the seller of record, which takes the payment and the tax. The files download straight away; the checkout asks you to agree to that first. Your copy carries your email; no special reading app. Terms of sale · Privacy
Chapter 1, “What you are actually buying”, is free to read before you decide.
No email needed.
When something changes that touches this book — a court decision, a law, a figure — it goes into the letter for the countries you follow, at most once a month. Each item comes with its source and date.
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