Basically you can your tax return for the previous year at the beginning of the new year. But you don’t need to be that quick: the tax offices won’t start processing until mid-March anyway.

So you won’t receive your notice and a possible tax refund much sooner if you submit it now. They will only end up further up the list if they are processed from mid-March.

When you should even wait

But perhaps you are still missing important documents such as the income tax certificate for 2025 or the annual tax certificates from your banks.

The latter make your work easier and are relevant if you have not used your exemption order or have not made full use of it. Or if you have earned capital gains abroad that still have to be taxed.

High income and interest in electric cars? Wait and see

Even if you do so soon, wait a little longer to file your tax return want new e-car funding and had a higher income in 2025 than in previous years.

There are certain income limits that apply to the funding – and the average of the last two tax assessments counts when it comes to whether and how much funding you will receive.

If you turn in early, you may have more work

If you are not affected by this and already have all the relevant documents, there is nothing wrong with submitting your tax return relatively early. Except perhaps that the data reported electronically on the pre-filled tax certificate may not yet be available.

Also that some legal changes Not necessarily in Elster yet either or your tax software is integrated, is not a problem: The tax software therefore only shows you a result that differs slightly from the later tax calculation.

Use tax software

To make things generally quicker and easier, we recommend a tax software.

We are still working on our test for the 2025 tax year, so you could wait a little longer for that too. But that’s not absolutely necessary. Because the providers of our recommendations from the previous year have been able to convince again and again in recent years.

These are: Wiso Tax 2024, TaxSparDeclaration (tax year 2024), Tax 2025, Check24 Tax, Taxbot, Taxfix, Smart Tax, TaxGo, Income Tax Compact.