How to Pay Rent in Germany: Dauerauftrag, SEPA and the Rules (2026)

Once you have signed the lease and the deposit is paid, paying the rent each month is the easy part in Germany, provided you set it up correctly the first time. Almost everyone uses a standing order, the money has to leave your account by a specific date, and cash is rare. This guide covers how tenants actually pay, what to put on the transfer, and the few rules worth knowing.

The standing order (Dauerauftrag) most tenants use

The normal way to pay rent in Germany is a Dauerauftrag, a standing order. You set it up once in your bank's app or website: the landlord's IBAN, the monthly amount, a reference, and the day it should run. From then on the bank sends the same payment automatically every month until you cancel it, so there is nothing to remember and nothing to miss.

It is different from a Lastschrift (direct debit), where the landlord would pull the money from your account. With a standing order you stay in control, since you decide the amount and the date and you can change or stop it yourself at any time. For rent, which is the same figure every month, the standing order is the simpler and safer choice.

Set it to run on the first working day of the month. Rent is legally due early (more on that below), and giving the transfer a day or two of buffer means a weekend or a public holiday never makes you late.

When the rent has to arrive

Under section 556b of the German Civil Code, rent is due by the third working day of the month. The important detail, confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice, is that you only have to send the money by that date, not that it has to arrive by then. As long as your transfer leaves your account in time, a day or two of bank processing is not your problem.

Even so, the safe habit is to have the money leave on the first working day. A standing order timed to the first gives you margin, and it means you are never arguing about whether a payment that landed on the fourth was late.

What the transfer needs

A German bank transfer runs on SEPA, so all you need from the landlord is their IBAN; the older BIC is no longer required for domestic or EU transfers. Put the amount as the Warmmiete from your contract, and use the reference field properly: your name, the flat address or number, and the month the payment is for, plus any tenant reference the landlord gave you. Something like "Miete 09/2026, Musterstr. 1, Wohnung 3" is enough.

A clear reference matters more than it looks. If a landlord manages several flats and a payment arrives with no month and no address, it can be misfiled, and months later that turns into a "you missed a payment" conversation you do not want. The reference is your paper trail.

Cold rent, warm rent, and what you actually send

Your contract names two figures. The Kaltmiete (cold rent) is the rent for the flat itself. On top sits the Nebenkostenvorauszahlung, a monthly advance toward running costs like water, heating, and building upkeep. Together they make the Warmmiete (warm rent), and that combined figure is what you pay each month and what the standing order should be set to.

Once a year the landlord reconciles those advance payments against the real costs in a Nebenkostenabrechnung, which can leave you owing a bit more or getting a bit back. That is a separate settlement and does not change your normal monthly rent. If you want to check one for errors, see our guide to the Nebenkostenabrechnung, and for how the two rent figures differ in detail, the Kaltmiete vs Warmmiete guide.

Is cash allowed?

In theory rent can be paid in cash, but in practice almost nobody does, and most landlords expect a bank transfer. A landlord cannot reasonably insist you turn up with cash every month, and you should not want to: a transfer leaves a clean record on your bank statement, which is exactly the proof you need if a payment is ever questioned. If a landlord ever pushes for cash only, treat it as a reason to be careful rather than a normal request.

Paying rent before you even have a German account

Newcomers hit a chicken-and-egg problem: you need a flat to register your address, and you often need a registered address and sometimes a German account to pay in the normal way. In the gap, a transfer from an EU account works fine over SEPA, and services like Wise or a neobank (N26, Revolut) give you an IBAN quickly so you can set up the standing order before your traditional bank account is fully open. Once your regular account is running, move the standing order over to it.

The short version

Set up a Dauerauftrag to the landlord's IBAN for the Warmmiete, timed to the first working day of the month, with a reference that names you, the flat, and the month. Rent is due by the third working day, but you only have to send it by then, not have it arrive. Skip cash, keep the bank statement as your proof, and the monthly rent takes care of itself.