After the Gewerbeanmeldung: the letters that will arrive

You've barely received your Gewerbeschein — the certificate confirming your Gewerbeanmeldung, the official registration of a trade business in Germany — and your letterbox starts filling up. Within a few days to weeks you'll hear from the Finanzamt (the tax office), from your chamber (the IHK, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, or the Handwerkskammer, the Chamber of Crafts) and from the Berufsgenossenschaft, the statutory accident insurance body. On top of that, almost everyone gets a stack of mail that looks like an official invoice but isn't one. In short: most of these letters are genuine, some of them require a written reply or an application — and another part belongs, unopened, in the recycling bin.

The reason for this wave of mail is simple: the trade office — in Munich, the Kreisverwaltungsreferat (KVR), the city's department for public order and licensing — automatically forwards your registration to several other bodies. Each of them then contacts you. So you haven't done anything wrong and you haven't forgotten anything; this is the completely normal sequence after a registration.

So that you know what needs doing right away and what you can safely ignore, here is the mail, one letter at a time.

These letters are genuine — and here's what they want from you

1. Finanzamt: the tax registration questionnaire

The most important letter. The Finanzamt learns about your registration automatically and asks you to complete the Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung — the questionnaire for tax registration. In it you state, among other things, what turnover and profit you expect and whether you want to use the Kleinunternehmerregelung, Germany's small-business VAT exemption. Your tax number is then issued based on your answers.

Today this questionnaire is usually submitted electronically via ELSTER, the German tax administration's online portal. The Finanzamt's cover letter normally points you exactly there. Replying is mandatory — no questionnaire means no tax number, and without a tax number you can't issue proper invoices.

2. IHK or Handwerkskammer: compulsory membership

Most trade businesses are compulsory members of a chamber by law. For founders in Munich, depending on your activity, that is either the IHK für München und Oberbayern or the Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern. Shortly after registering you'll receive a welcome letter, often together with a contribution notice or a data questionnaire.

Good to know: business founders and small trade businesses can, under certain conditions, be exempted from the contribution or pay a reduced rate. Whether and how that applies to you is best clarified directly with your chamber — the exact conditions and thresholds change and are not spelled out in the standard letter. Anyone registering a licensed craft trade will additionally receive mail about entry in the Handwerksrolle, the register of craft businesses.

3. Berufsgenossenschaft: the statutory accident insurance

Every business belongs to a Berufsgenossenschaft — the carrier of Germany's statutory accident insurance. You are obliged to register with the Berufsgenossenschaft responsible for your industry promptly after starting, and that applies even if you have no employees (yet). Whether you as the owner are compulsorily insured yourself depends on the individual Berufsgenossenschaft. Your Berufsgenossenschaft will tell you the exact registration deadline — stick to it, because this registration is a legal obligation, not an offer.

4. Other genuine mail that may arrive

State statistical office: in Bavaria, the Landesamt für Statistik may send questionnaires. For some surveys, responding is compulsory.
Deutsche Rentenversicherung: for certain self-employed activities, the German pension insurance checks whether compulsory pension insurance applies.
City or municipality: the Gewerbesteuer (trade tax) is handled later via the municipality — in Munich, that means the city itself.

This mail you may ignore: beware of fake invoices

Almost every freshly registered business receives letters with names like "Gewerberegister", "Zentrales Branchenverzeichnis" or "Register für Gewerbetreibende" — official-sounding German for "trade register" or "central business directory". They look official, show an amount, a payment deadline and a bank account number — and are in reality paid offers for entries in private directories that nobody needs.

Here's how to recognise them:

No real authority demands money for a "register entry" paid to a private account. Official notices explain what a demand is based on.
The small print often contains the word "Angebot" or "Vertragsangebot" — German for "offer" or "contract offer" — frequently printed faintly or tucked away at the margin.
A short payment deadline, an unusually high amount, a sender based abroad: all warning signs.

Throw this mail away. If you have accidentally signed or already paid, a revocation or a challenge of the contract is often possible — and for exactly that you need a clean, properly formatted letter.

How to reply to the genuine mail in the correct form

A good portion of these letters requires a written response from you: the reply to the Finanzamt, an application for a contribution exemption at the chamber, the registration with the Berufsgenossenschaft, an objection to a notice, or the revocation of a contract that was slipped past you.

German authorities expect form. A letter following DIN 5008 — the German standard for formal business correspondence — has a correctly positioned address block, a clear subject line, a date and, crucially, the reference number (Aktenzeichen) from the letter you are responding to. If the reference number is missing or the address sits in the wrong place for the window envelope, your request may in the worst case land on the wrong desk and get delayed.

If you don't want to set up an office suite and hunt for a template, the letter generator can help. It creates letters following DIN 5008 directly as a PDF — free of charge, without sign-up and GDPR-compliant, because your input stays in the browser. You enter sender, recipient, subject including the reference number and your text, and you get a correctly formatted letter you can print or send as a file. For the questionnaire reply, the exemption application or the revocation of a fake invoice, that is entirely sufficient.

Why the wave of letters is especially dense in Munich

The procedure itself is the same throughout Germany — the mail arrives in Passau just as it does in Pasing. What sets Munich apart is the sheer number of new businesses: in a city with this founder density, a correspondingly large number of registrations run through the KVR, and the responsible bodies — the Finanzamt, the IHK für München und Oberbayern, the Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern — process them on an assembly line.

For you, that mainly means one thing: the letters are standard procedure, not personal. Work through them one by one, separate genuine mail from advertising disguised as invoices, and reply in proper form. Then the whole matter is done in one or two afternoons.

Legal note

This article is general guidance, not legal or tax advice. Deadlines, contribution rules and exemptions change and depend on your individual case. Clarify specific questions with the responsible authority, your chamber or a tax advisor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to reply to every letter after the Gewerbeanmeldung?

No. You must respond to genuine official mail — Finanzamt, chamber, Berufsgenossenschaft — often with an application or a reply form. Advertising disguised as an invoice for "register" entries, on the other hand, can be ignored.

How do I recognise dubious mail after the Gewerbeanmeldung?

By a payment deadline plus a bank account number for a supposed "register entry", by the word "Angebot" (offer) in the small print, and by inflated amounts. A real authority justifies every demand and never charges money for a voluntary directory entry.

How quickly does the questionnaire from the Finanzamt arrive?

Usually within a few weeks of registering, because the trade office informs the Finanzamt automatically. Submission today mostly runs via ELSTER; the cover letter explains the route.

Do I really have to join the IHK as a small business?

Chamber membership is compulsory for most trade businesses. However, there are exemptions and reductions for founders and small operations. Whether they apply to you is something you'll learn directly from your chamber.

In what form do I have to reply to authorities?

In writing and traceably: with a correct address block, subject line, date and the reference number from the letter. A letter following DIN 5008 fulfils that — and you can use the DIN 5008 letter generator for it free of charge.