Contract deadlines under control: a register for your firm

Most deadlines in the register come from the contract itself. For some contract types, however, the law sets guard rails the register should know about, because they determine the next notice date or override a contractual clause.

For many businesses the most important one is the commercial lease. Under an open-ended lease of business premises, ordinary notice is permitted no later than the third working day of a calendar quarter, effective at the end of the following calendar quarter (German Civil Code, Sec. 580a(2)). That is the statutory period; if the lease agrees its own, the register records the contractual one. Anyone who wants to end the lease on 31 December 2027 therefore needs the notice delivered by the third working day of July 2027; if it arrives later, the end moves back by one quarter. Fixed-term leases add a second trap: if the tenant keeps using the premises after the lease expires, the tenancy is extended for an indefinite period unless one side objects within two weeks (German Civil Code, Sec. 545). Leases can exclude this rule; whether your own lease does belongs in the register as a field.

The form of the lease also affects the deadlines. A lease of business premises concluded for longer than one year without text form is deemed to run for an indefinite period (German Civil Code, Sec. 578(1) and (2) in conjunction with Sec. 550). In that case the notice period under Sec. 580a(2) applies, even if the contract states a fixed term. For the register this means: alongside the agreed term, it records in which form the contract exists, and amendments are logged with date and form.

For phone and internet contracts there is a rule that also benefits businesses. If such a contract renews automatically after the initial term, the end user can cancel it at any time afterwards with one month's notice (Telecommunications Act, Sec. 56(3)). In good time before the renewal, the provider must inform the end user on a durable medium about the renewal and the right to cancel; that letter is a good prompt to check the register entry. The cap of 24 months on the initial term applies first of all to consumers (Telecommunications Act, Sec. 56(1)), but under the Act it also covers micro and small enterprises unless they have expressly waived it (Telecommunications Act, Sec. 71(3)). That concerns the vast majority: in 2024, 82.9 percent of enterprises in industry, trade and the covered service sectors in Germany were micro enterprises and a further 14.0 percent were small enterprises (Destatis).

With insurance, a renewal agreed in advance is invalid to the extent that each renewal runs for more than one year (Insurance Contract Act, Sec. 11(1)). The notice period must be the same for both sides and may be no shorter than one month and no longer than three months (Insurance Contract Act, Sec. 11(3)). Policies with a duration of more than three years can be cancelled by the policyholder at the end of the third or any subsequent year with three months' notice (Insurance Contract Act, Sec. 11(4)). These restrictions on freedom of contract do not apply to large risks (Insurance Contract Act, Sec. 210(1)).

The framework for cloud and software services is new. The Data Act has applied since 12 September 2025 (Data Act, Art. 50). Contracts for data processing services must contain a maximum notice period for initiating a switch of provider that may not exceed two months (Data Act, Art. 25(2)). From 12 January 2027, providers may no longer charge switching fees for carrying out the switch (Data Act, Art. 29(1)). The fee rule does not apply to services whose main features have largely been tailored to a single customer and that are not offered on a broad commercial scale (Data Act, Art. 31(1)). What else the regulation covers is described in the article on the Data Act and machine data.

Where no specific statute applies, the contract decides. The rules that protect consumers against long terms in standard business terms, such as an initial term of no more than two years and, after an automatic renewal, a notice period of no more than one month (German Civil Code, Sec. 309 No. 9), do not apply to standard terms used towards businesses (German Civil Code, Sec. 310(1)). A maintenance contract with a three-year term and six months' notice is therefore possible between businesses, and it is exactly this kind of contract that slips into the next renewal most easily without a register.

Notice period and notice date are two different things. The notice period says how long before the end of the contract notice must be given. The notice date is the specific calendar day by which the notice must have reached the other party. What matters is receipt: a declaration made to an absent person takes effect at the moment it reaches them (German Civil Code, Sec. 130(1)). A letter posted on the last day that only arrives the next day is too late.

Two subtleties deserve a rule of their own in the register. The first is renewal: after every missed date, the end of the term moves by the renewal period, and the next notice date has to be recalculated. A register that stores the notice date as a fixed date shows a date in the past after the first renewal. The second is weekends, public holidays and postal delivery times: anyone who plans for the last possible day depends on things outside their control. The register therefore sets its own dispatch date a few working days before the legal notice date.

For business premises a simple step helps: notice for 31 December may also arrive earlier than the third working day of July. Delivering it at the end of June costs not a single day of the lease and avoids the question of whether a Saturday in the first week of July counts as a working day.

A register that only stores data is a better spreadsheet. What makes the difference is the reminder, and not just one but two, each with a clear task. The first leaves time for a decision, the second makes sure the notice goes out. The register also defines what happens afterwards.

Eight and two weeks are not a legal requirement but a suggestion for contracts where an alternative has to be found. A software subscription with a data migration may need more lead time, a trade journal less. The register should therefore allow the lead time to be set per contract type.

Reminders go to roles, not to people. If the responsible person is on holiday or has left the business, the reminder reaches the deputy. How deputies and deadlines work together in digital workflows is described in the article on approval workflows; what happens to access and responsibilities when someone leaves is covered in the article on accounts and access rights when staff join and leave. A calendar entry does not replace this: it knows no deputy, does not recalculate after a renewal and does not say whether notice was given. The article on inspection deadlines describes the same experience for work equipment.

Besides the ordinary notice dates, the register knows a second type of deadline. Anyone who wants to terminate a continuing contract for good cause can only do so within a reasonable period after learning of the reason for termination (German Civil Code, Sec. 314(3)). The date on which the business learns of a serious breach of contract therefore goes into the entry immediately, together with a task for the responsible role.

A register does not have to start with new software. For a small portfolio, a well-built spreadsheet is enough at first, as long as it calculates the dates and someone maintains it. The limits show with reminders, deputies and the link to the document.

Which option fits depends less on the number of contracts than on how many people sign contracts. As long as one person signs and maintains everything, a spreadsheet will do. As soon as purchasing, fleet, IT and management each enter into their own contracts, you need roles, deputies and the link to the archive. When a spreadsheet reaches its limits is shown in the article on replacing spreadsheet workarounds.

We do not build an off-the-shelf register, but set it up where your documents already are or are meant to be in future. This includes mapping the filing channels, capturing and text-recognising the existing documents, defining the mandatory fields and linking every entry to the contract document, as described on the document digitisation page.

We set up the reminders with lead time, deputies and alerts for missed dates as a notification workflow, as described under process automation. Where the register needs data from accounting or the merchandise management system, such as the recurring payments for the initial search, we connect the systems through data integration. If you first want to clarify who signs contracts in your business today and where they end up, the work starts with a process analysis.