Business meals and the Bewirtungsbeleg: what you can deduct in Germany in 2026

What are business meal expenses (Bewirtungskosten)?

Business meal expenses (Bewirtungskosten) are business expenses for food, drinks and other consumables that you offer to other people for a business reason – lunch with a client, dinner with a potential customer, a coffee with a cooperation partner in a café. This also includes incidental costs such as tips and cloakroom. Your own share of such a meal is part of the business meal and is counted at 70%.

Not business meals, on the other hand, are your own meals without a guest (private living costs; when travelling there are per diem allowances instead, see travel costs), small courtesies such as coffee, water and biscuits at a meeting in your own office (fully deductible), and product tastings in your own business.

70% or 100%: what is deductible?

The deduction depends on who is being entertained and for what reason. The 30% reduction only applies to business-related meals for people outside your business:

Required details on the entertainment receipt (Bewirtungsbeleg)

For the deduction you must record in writing under § 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 2 EStG: place, date, participants, occasion of the meal and amount of the costs. For a meal in a restaurant, the occasion and participants are enough, because the invoice you attach supplies the rest. You must record these details promptly and sign or approve them electronically:

• Participants by name, including yourself and your employees – “team and client” is not enough.
• A concrete occasion, for example “project meeting on online shop relaunch with company X” – “working lunch” or “client relations” is not enough.
• For a meal outside a restaurant (e.g. catering at home), also place, date and amount.
• Signature or electronic approval by you as the host.

Requirements for the restaurant invoice (BMF 2025)

The BMF letter of 19 November 2025 applies to business meals from 1 January 2025 and replaces the 2021 letter. The restaurant invoice must be machine-generated; if the restaurant uses an electronic cash register, it must come from the TSE-secured system – recognisable, for example, by the transaction number or the serial number of the security module. Handwritten receipts are generally not accepted.

Tips, card payment and business meals abroad

Tips are part of the business meal costs and are also deducted at 70%. They contain no VAT, so no input VAT either. Because tips are often not on the invoice, the burden of proof is on you: have the waiter acknowledge the tip on the invoice or pay it by card so that it appears on the payment slip. With card payment you only need a separate payment slip if the payment method is not already on the invoice.

The same documentation requirements apply to business meals abroad. If you cannot get an invoice there that meets all German requirements, the tax administration accepts a less detailed foreign invoice if you can credibly show that a complete one could not be obtained. You cannot deduct foreign VAT as input VAT in Germany.

Input VAT: 100% despite the 70% rule

For VAT purposes, business meals are fully deductible: you deduct the entire input VAT, not just 70% of it (§ 15 Abs. 1a UStG only excludes unreasonable and undocumented expenses). The requirement is a proper invoice; above €250 it must be issued to you as the recipient. Since 1 January 2026 the reduced rate of 7% applies permanently to food in restaurants, while drinks remain at 19%. One invoice therefore often shows two tax rates that you have to record separately (VAT (Umsatzsteuer) for the self-employed).

As a small business (Kleinunternehmerregelung) you have no input VAT deduction; in that case 70% of the gross amount is a business expense.

Example: booking a business meal correctly

You invite two clients to a restaurant for a project meeting. The invoice: food €120.00 net + €8.40 VAT (7%), drinks €40.00 net + €7.60 VAT (19%), total €176.00. Plus a €14.00 tip, acknowledged by the waiter. You pay €190.00 with your business card. This is how it is booked (SKR03, contra account 1200 Bank):

Digital entertainment receipt: photo instead of paper

Restaurant invoices may arrive as an e-invoice or in another electronic format, and you may digitise paper invoices. You can record the occasion and participants as a digital self-made receipt (Eigenbeleg). The firm link is what matters: the digital self-made receipt must be clearly linked to the invoice, for example in the same booking or via a receipt number, and archived in an unalterable way. A mere photo without these details is not enough.

In practice this means: photograph the invoice right after the meal, enter occasion and participants, approve – done. You may then destroy the paper if your process is described in your procedure documentation (Verfahrensdokumentation) (GoBD and retention periods). You must keep the receipt for eight years.

Gifts to business partners: the €50 limit

Gifts to people who are not your employees are only deductible if the acquisition costs of all gifts to the same recipient in the financial year do not exceed €50 (§ 4 Abs. 5 Satz 1 Nr. 1 EStG; until 2023 the limit was €35). The net amount counts if you are entitled to deduct input VAT, otherwise the gross amount. If the limit is exceeded by even one cent, the entire gift is non-deductible – and the input VAT is lost as well.

• Records: book gifts separately (SKR03 4630 deductible, 4635 non-deductible) and note the recipient’s name so that the €50 limit per person can be checked.
• Promotional giveaways up to €10 (pens, calendars) do not count as gifts and need no recipient list.
• An invitation to a meal is a business meal, not a gift; a restaurant voucher, on the other hand, is a gift.
• For the recipient a gift is generally taxable; with the 30% flat-rate tax under § 37b EStG you pay this on their behalf.

Business meals with Kontelio

When you record an expense on a business meal account in Kontelio, Kontelio asks for the occasion and participants and automatically books 70% as a deductible and 30% as a non-deductible business expense, with the input VAT in full – separated by tax rate if you create one line each for food and drinks. How to record expenses in a monthly rhythm is described in the guide bookkeeping for the self-employed. You photograph the receipt directly with your smartphone; it is linked to the expense and archived for ten years in line with GoBD. The amounts flow into the correct Kennzahlen of the Anlage EÜR (SKR03 accounts 4650 and 4654) and into the advance VAT return. More on receipt capture on the page managing receipts digitally.

Frequently asked questions