How to declare taxes in Germany as an App Developer | Mert Bulan
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How to declare taxes in Germany as an App Developer
A practical guide to filing your taxes on Elster as an app developer in Germany, covering the three forms you need to submit every year.
Mert Bulan<br>28 May 2026 – 11 min read
Elster is not only the name of the platform you use for tax declarations in Germany, it is also the German word for magpie.
I released my first app in April 2023. Since then, I published 10 more apps. Before I started my app development journey, I had so many questions about having an app business, especially when it comes to taxes in Germany.
Over the years, I’ve successfully submitted my tax returns without any issues. Thanks to a blog post in German, I had a starting point. So I thought it would be nice to share how I file my taxes, similar to that blog post, so other app developers can do it in a similar way.
I know that many people would like to develop apps and sell them on the App Store, especially with the rise of agentic coding, but they are hesitant because they are scared of the Finanzamt and don’t want to deal with the bureaucracy or pay hundreds of euros for a tax advisor. This is especially true if you need one who understands how the App Store works and can also speak English.
I have to mention that I’m not a tax advisor. The way I describe below is how I submit my tax returns, but your case could be different, or I might be doing something wrong. So I don’t take any responsibility for any issues this post might cause. I just want to give you a starting point so you can figure out what you need to do.
Before going into the details, I should mention that I have an Einzelunternehmen. If you don’t have one, this should be the first thing you set up if you’re not planning to form a company. You have to apply for an Einzelunternehmen in your city, and also for a new tax ID. If you’re living in Hamburg, you can do that online through the form here. For getting a tax ID, you can use the form here on Elster or use the English form here.
I should also mention that the revenue from the App Store is my only revenue. So if you have different revenue sources like freelancing, you might need to fill in your forms differently.
I use the AusweisApp to log in to Elster. Elster (short for Elektronische Steuererklärung) is the official online platform from the German tax authorities where you submit your tax returns. It is completely free to use.
So let’s get started.
The forms
If you don’t count your normal income tax form (if you also work full-time for example), there are three forms you have to submit for every calendar year. These are:
Einnahmenüberschussrechnung (Anlage EÜR)
Umsatzsteuererklärung (USt)
Gewerbesteuererklärung (GewSt 1 A)
The first one is the main tax form that shows how much you earned from your app business and how much you spent. The second form is for sales tax. This is quite simple because if you only have an app business like I do and receive money directly from Apple or Google, and since they handle the sales tax, you basically declare your sales tax as zero. The third one is for trade tax. You use the total profit from the first form here. Depending on your state and your profit, you might need to pay trade tax on top of income tax. This one is also quite straightforward.
Einnahmenüberschussrechnung
On the first step (Allgemeine Angaben) of the EÜR form, you fill in your personal details like first name, last name, and address. The important part is the 4th field. Here you enter the start date of your business and the end of the year. Your business start date is normally written on the letter you receive from the city after you apply for Einzelunternehmen. The 6th field is the type of your activity, which is software development for trade. The 7th field might be different if you also work as a freelancer. The 8th field is the type of income, which is commercial. The 9th field is the business owner, in our case the person filling the tax form. The 10th and 11th fields are not relevant if you didn’t close your business during the calendar year.
After entering the details about your business, it is time to enter the numbers. For that, you start with the third step (Betriebseinnahmen). Since Apple pays the sales tax, as an app developer you only receive the payment after sales tax. So you have to pick the field that fits our case, which is “Betriebseinnahmen, die umsatzsteuerfrei oder nicht umsatzsteuerbar sind oder nach §12 Abs. 3 UStG dem ermäßigten Steuersatz von 0 % unterliegen oder für die der Leistungsempfänger die Umsatzsteuer nach § 13b UStG schuldet”.
Since I only develop apps for the App Store, I enter the money I received from Apple during the calendar year. The important thing here is that you don’t enter how much sales or proceeds you had in, let’s say 2026, the number you see on App Store Connect. You enter the amount of money you actually received from...