Do I pay exit tax for a company with losses?

Question

I own a GmbH that is not particularly profitable and has made losses in recent years. If I move away from Germany now, do I have to pay German exit tax?

Answer: Exit tax even for companies with losses

The short answer is "possibly yes". In any case, you will have to pay fees for a tax advisor, and roughly speaking, you can expect about €5k per company holding. So if you hold shares in 3 companies, that's already approx. €15k in tax advisor costs for the move.

The valuation of your company takes place using the so-called "simplified capitalized earnings method" (more on this here). Simply put (haha), it can be summarized as follows:
  • The value of your company amounts to 13.75 * the average profit of the last 3 years.
  • From this, you can further deduct an arm's length managing director's salary, if you haven't paid yourself one yet (€120k-€150k! see link above).

If the resulting value is very low, then the net asset value of the company becomes relevant - in other words, your company may still have value even though it is making losses. Perhaps you have items in your inventory that are valuable, e.g., laptops. And for software companies, it is certainly most relevant that the software you have developed within your company should also have a certain value.

That is the net asset value of your company.

Earnings value low? Net asset value counts.. maybe

In principle, it could be that the net asset value is used for the valuation of your company in the context of the exit tax if your earnings value is very low; this means that you will probably never come out with a company value of zero.

At the same time, however, the value could still be very low. Assuming your company had €20k net asset value and €0 earnings value, then the exit tax on €20k would be "only" approx. 30%, i.e., approx. €6k. Considering the other sums involved in this topic, that is not particularly much, so you could simply pay the exit tax here and would not have to set up any of the complex structures described on this website.
By the way: Join our Telegram community to exchange ideas with other people who have solved the German exit tax for themselves!
Dr. Oliver Eidel avatar

Dr. Oliver Eidel

Ich bin Oliver und bin Unternehmer aus Deutschland - mein bekanntestes Unternehmen ist OpenRegulatory, welches eine Compliance-Software für Medizinprodukte-Hersteller anbietet.

Seit 2025 musste ich mich mit der deutschen Wegzugsteuer auseinandersetzen, da ich nach Thailand auswandern möchte. Auf dieser Webseite teile ich meine Erkenntnisse, die ich mir relativ mühsam durch (teure) Gespräche mit Steuerberatern erarbeiten musste. Hoffentlich spare ich dir dadurch Zeit und Steuerberatergebühren! :)