From Video Doctor Visits to Teacher Time-Tracking: Germany's 2026 Workplace Rules Come Into Focus

Germany's occupational safety and health landscape is undergoing a broad recalibration in 2026, driven by updated regulations, pilot projects, and court rulings that touch everything from mental health assessments to digital sick notes. The changes affect businesses of all sizes, but small firms and public-sector employees face the most immediate practical shifts.

Psychological risks take centre stage in revised hazard assessments

In May 2026, the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) published an overhauled handbook on workplace risk assessments (Gefährdungsbeurteilung). The update places a new emphasis on psychological hazards — a response to rising sickness absence rates that have already caused significant production losses in earlier surveys. While employers have been legally obliged since 1996 to systematically evaluate working conditions to prevent accidents and occupational diseases, the BAuA now offers specific guidance on identifying and mitigating mental strain at work.

Small businesses gain breathing room under DGUV Vorschrift 2 reforms

Since 1 January 2026, comprehensive changes to the accident-prevention regulation known as DGUV Vorschrift 2 have taken effect. The employee threshold for simplified mandatory occupational health care has been raised from 10 to 20 workers, giving small and medium-sized enterprises more flexibility. Alongside that relaxation, the regulation formally anchors digital options for company doctor consultations. Telephone or video advice is now permitted, but only after an initial physical site inspection has been completed. A maximum of one-third of the required service hours may be delivered remotely, with exceptions allowed up to 50 percent.

The list of recognised qualifications for safety specialists has also expanded. In addition to engineers, degrees in physics, chemistry, biology, human medicine, ergonomics, and work and organisational psychology now qualify — provided the individual can prove relevant further training.

The new emphasis on psychological risk assessments underscores a challenge many employers face: keeping hazard documentation truly comprehensive. A free toolkit with 41 ready-to-use templates and checklists helps you identify and mitigate workplace risks — from fire safety to lone working — without starting from scratch. Download the free Risk Assessment Toolkit

Bremen schoolteachers trial digital time-recording app

Following landmark rulings by the European Court of Justice and Germany's Federal Labour Court (BAG), digital working-time recording has become the de facto standard across many sectors in 2026. While hospitality and hotel businesses already face strict obligations to log start, end, and duration of daily hours, the practice is spreading to new fields.

In Bremen, a pilot project beginning in the 2026/27 school year will test a specialised app for logging the working hours of teaching staff. Nine schools will participate from August. Teachers will document not only classroom instruction but also preparation time, grading, and parent meetings — once per day, without minute-by-minute tracking. The aim is to reveal the real workload. Violations in the private sector can bring fines of up to €30,000. Trust-based working time remains legally possible, but does not absolve employers of the duty to record maximum hours and rest periods. Medical associations such as the Marburger Bund have criticised a proposed reform of the Working Time Act that would replace daily limits with weekly ones, warning that open-ended daily work endangers health.

Courts clarify vacation, sick-leave, and union-access rules

Several rulings in the first half of 2026 have settled important questions. On 2 March, the Thuringia State Labour Court (Az.: 4 Ta 15/26) declared that blanket company rules limiting consecutive vacation to two weeks are invalid. Workers are entitled to longer breaks unless urgent operational reasons object.

The Schleswig-Holstein State Labour Court, meanwhile, strengthened employers' hand regarding sick notes. A certificate of incapacity loses its evidentiary value if it covers the entire notice period exactly. In such cases, the employee bears the burden of proving they were genuinely ill.

With regulatory landscapes shifting so quickly, having a solid base of health and safety documentation is more important than ever. A free comprehensive toolkit provides risk assessments, COSHH checklists, fire safety templates, and more — all ready for immediate use in your workplace. Download the free Health & Safety Toolkit

The Federal Labour Court also specified the digital access rights of trade unions. Employers must tolerate union information campaigns, but are not required to actively support them — for example, by providing internal email lists or linking to union content on the intranet.

Taken together, the new rules, trials, and precedents paint a picture of a regulatory system adapting to digital realities while trying to protect workers' health — especially mental health — in an era of blurred boundaries between work and private life.

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