Sick Abroad: What the Certificate Is Worth
Updated: Aug 23
Anyone who falls ill while on holiday abroad owes more notifications than at home and proves the incapacity for work differently. For employers who doubt such a sick note, the point of attack shifts as well. The decisive question is: which country does the certificate come from?
1. Three duties instead of one
Anyone unable to work owes an immediate notification of that incapacity and its expected duration, at home and abroad alike (section 5 (1) sentence 1 Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz = German Continued Remuneration Act, EFZG). Where the place of stay at the onset of the incapacity lies abroad, further duties are added (section 5 (2) EFZG).
What must then be reported is the incapacity for work, its expected duration and the address at the place of stay, by the fastest available means of transmission. The employer bears the costs this causes. Employees covered by statutory health insurance must additionally notify their health insurance fund themselves, because the report does not run through the treating practice in these cases. The return to Germany must be reported without undue delay as well.
The electronic procedure does not help here, because doctors practising abroad are not connected to it. The certificate therefore still has to be submitted on paper. As long as the duties under section 5 (2) EFZG remain unfulfilled, the employer may refuse continued remuneration (section 7 (1) no. 1 EFZG).
2. The evidentiary value of the foreign certificate
A certificate issued abroad has, in principle, the same evidentiary value as a German one. It is required, however, that it shows that the treating doctor distinguished between mere illness and an incapacity for work (Bundesarbeitsgericht = Federal Labour Court, judgment of 15 January 2025, case no. 5 AZR 284/24; judgment of 19 February 1997, case no. 5 AZR 83/96).
What the certificate does not create is a statutory presumption that the incapacity actually exists. Once the employer has shaken its evidentiary value, the employee must set out in detail which complaints existed, how these affected the work owed and what was medically prescribed. Whether several individually unremarkable circumstances are sufficient in combination is decided by an overall assessment of the individual case.
3. The special case of the European Union
A stricter standard applies to certificates issued in other EU states. Under the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, putting forward circumstances that raise serious doubts about the incapacity for work is not sufficient. The employer must instead produce evidence from which an abusive report of incapacity can be established (CJEU, judgment of 3 June 1992, case no. C-45/90 – Paletta I; judgment of 2 May 1996, case no. C-206/94 – Paletta II).
A certificate from an EU state is therefore harder to challenge than a German one. The German rules on shaking evidentiary value apply in full only where the illness occurred outside the Union.
The origin of the certificate may therefore determine whether doubts can be turned into a dispute about continued remuneration at all. Where the evidentiary value is barely open to attack, the notification and proof duties under section 5 (2) EFZG remain the more reliable starting point.
Unsure how to assess a sick note from abroad?
Whether a certificate issued abroad is sufficient depends on what it shows, which country it comes from and whether the heightened notification duties were met.
If you are an employer with doubts about a sick note from abroad, or an employee whose continued remuneration has been refused, we offer you a short, free initial assessment. In this conversation we will clarify how your situation should be assessed and which next steps make sense.
