SCHUFA Holding AG is the name of a private company keeping credit records of individuals in Germany.
Contents
- What is SCHUFA : a somewhat intrusive credit record
- What is SCHUFA : an efficient way to limit your debts
- FAQ
- How do i order copy of my SCHUFA record?
- Does a loss of income or employment impact my score negatively?
- Help, i am stuck: I need a SCHUFA record to rent a flat, but i can’t get one until i’m registered somewhere.
- What should i do if i get a negative entry in my SCHUFA record?
- How do i keep my score high?
- Are there any other institutions rating consumers in Germany?
- 2 more important things
What is SCHUFA : a somewhat intrusive credit record
The company will track all bills or fines you might have left unpaid and put them in your credit record history. That’s why people say “SCHUFA” , they often mean the record held by the company.
Your record will be check by companies like Deutsche Telekom when opening a phone account or by your bank when you apply for a loan. They will then be able to tell if you have debts or not and if you can be trusted as a customer.
The company is basically rating your ability to pay your bills. This record (called SCHUFA Auskunft) will follow you everywhere as consumer in your everyday life, you‘d better keep it clean !
As a foreigner, it will be automatically created when you have completed your Anmeldung at the Bürgeramt, opened a bank account, and subscribed to a first contract with an internet provider for example.
What is SCHUFA : an efficient way to limit your debts
The cleanest SCHUFA score (called “Basisscore” you get at the beginning is rated at 100%, in theory however. If you don’t pay your bills, this score will decrease accordingly to how much you have been naughty. If it does, it can limit your ability to undertake other contracts which can be frustrating. However, this system is preventing that you become overwhelmed by debts overtime. However, even if you pay all your debts, your score will go down a few percents for some reason. It is completely fine to have score down to 95% for example.
To give you perspective, here are the different “Basisscore” tiers and what they mean. It measure the probability with which you will honor your bills, credits, contracts, etc.
| Score value | Risk assessment – Level of risk |
|---|---|
| > 97,5 % | Very low |
| 95 % – 97,5 % | Low to negligible |
| 90 % – 95 % | Satisfactory to elevated |
| 80 % – 90 % | Fairly elevated |
| 50 % – 80 % | Very elevated |
| < 50 % | Critical |
That’s not all bad you see ?! Schufa actually stands for : “Schutzorganisation für Allgemeine Kreditsicherung” which roughly translates to “Organisation for general credit safety protection”
As a foreigner, try to “populate” your record with positive entries by paying your phone bills, electricity and gas bills and so on. It will come handy when you will want to apply to a loan in the bank. In my experience, even if you have been for a while in Germany, if your SCHUFA Auskunft doesn’t look clean, it will be hard to convince your bank.
Landlords will almost always require for your credit record to be able to rent their property.
FAQ
How do i order copy of my SCHUFA record?
You can order a record from the company directly on the following website. It costs only 24,95€. (click on Bonitätauskunft on the homepage) : https://www.meineschufa.de/. Some Postbank centers do offer to print one for you on the spot as well for the same fee. No need to be a Postbank customer. This report is the preferred by landlords, because it contains all the details.
However, you are entitled to one free record per year that you can also get from the same website here. On this page, click “Jetzt bestellen” on the right “Datenkopie (nach Art. 15 DS-GVO)“ column. Enter your data on the page that follows. You will be able to upload a copy of your passport (“Dokumentupload” > “Kopie des Reisepasses”) and a copy your Meldebescheinigung with it.
Does a loss of income or employment impact my score negatively?
Not at all. Your current employment situation is not relevant for your SCHUFA score. Making use of unemployment benefits is also not relevant.
However, if through that loss of income, you run into trouble paying your expenses on time, this will be reflected negatively and lower your score.
Help, i am stuck: I need a SCHUFA record to rent a flat, but i can’t get one until i’m registered somewhere.
This is typical chicken-&-egg situation for many foreigners moving to Germany: landlords ask for a SCHUFA record for you to rent their flat, but you don’t have one since you are not registered (Anmeldung) and can’t open a bank account… because you don’t have a place yet. If you are in this situation, you might want to go for a flat share (WG) and register there until you find your own place. You can also turn to services like Wunderflats, which lets you rent furnished flats without a SCHUFA record.
What should i do if i get a negative entry in my SCHUFA record?
Their FAQs on the matter is not giving any magic formula unfortunately. The only thing you can do is try to resolve the cause of that negative entry as soon as possible and keep the rest of your financial related affairs in order. This mainly means paying all your bills and credits in time, and never use your overdraft possibilities if possible.
Negative records are impacting your score up to 3 years after you resolved your unpaid bills case and it can be kept as a “FYI side note” for up to 6 years overall. Here is a more detailed table.
| Information entry | How long it stays in your record |
|---|---|
| Entries about credits / loans | 3 years after paying it back |
| Credit / loan requests | 12 months after request |
| Entries about your current bank accounts and credit cards | When closing the account |
| Requests from third-party companies | 12 months after request at the latest. |
| Entries about paying your bills late | 3 years or 4 years in case of unresolved disputes or longer sometimes. |
| Entries coming from the Amtsgericht concerning your possible debts | 3 years or sooner if debt has been declared resolved by the Amtsgericht. |
| Customer accounts with third-party companies | 3 years |
How do i keep my score high?
To keep a good SCHUFA score (above 95%), those are the few recommended things:
- Don’t open too many bank accounts in different banks and limit the amount of credit cards you own
- Don’t switch bank account too often
- If possible, try to keep healthy reserve in the accounts you own
- Pay your bills on time
- Check your SCHUFA-score once a year and correct any mistakes you might see
Are there any other institutions rating consumers in Germany?
As it turns out, there are several. SCHUFA remains the most important and influential one but other ones can hold data about you. That is a bit scary i know, and quite unexpected from a country so strict about data privacy. You can find out about them and request a record from each via this website for free.
2 more important things
The SCHUFA will hold information about you long after you leave Germany and at a European level too. If you plan to leave unpaid bills behind and then come back to Germany, you might have to think twice before doing it. It could become harsh back fire in the near future.
This system makes that your personal wealth, your personal property or yearly income doesn’t have any influence on your record ! You could be the richest man in the world but still have the worst record if you didn’t pay your bills. Just bear that in mind.
I hope this introduction to a very German institution cleared things up fro you. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.
399 Comments
Hello Bastien,
Thanks for running this website. Very helpful!
My current situation is that I want to leave Germany for couple of months and work from my home country for a while.
I have already informed landlord (living in WG) about my leave. What I am concerned of it, whether “paying rent” is absolutely necessary for the Schufa? Do they check those kind of payments? I will still remain my Anmeldung, already agreed with landlord and flatmates to still get post on this address and not to cause any issues in future. Hope this approach works 🙂 Thanks in advance
Hey Sophie. Not paying rent in Germany does not lead to a negative penalty on your SCHUFA score, if this is what you ask.
Hi, does SCHUFA checks the ‘ARD Radio’ bill?
Hey Sai. If you don’t pay them, yes it will impact your SCHUFA score negatively.
Hi . I have question: I moved from Netherlands in April. And when I ask my Schufa score for the first time was like 400 hight risk . And when I contact the Schufa they told me this score because I’m new in Germany and they don’t know about my kredit history . How that possible?? And why ?
Hey Marwan. Yes, that is not unheard of. This is why you need to populate your SCHUFA record as fast as possible.
Hi actually I want to ask a question I just buy a mobile from Vodafone on contract but I go back to my country and can’t come back to Germany now I am planning to apply for another Eu country does this Schufa have any effect on my visa because due to pandemic I can’t pay my installments
Hey Yousaf. Do you mean that you want to leave the country without paying for the phone fully? Not sure i understand…
Hi , If we pay minimum dues of the credit card properly on time, will it the scufa score will be reduced. Will that also be considered as payment missed? or will it be considered as payment paid?
Hey Pavithra. What do you mean by “dues”, you mean bills?
Hey, I was wondering if there is a standard “starting rate” for everyone?
I am in Berlin from a bit more than 2 years now, I have a good Job and always paid bills/rent on time, never had any trouble and my actual score is 257… is that good? Is this going to be better with time? I see the best score is below 200, do I have any chance to jump in the best class? How long it usually takes?
Thanks for any reply!
F.
Hey Francesco. Where do you take those values from? The one i am aware of in expressed in %.
Hey!
I have a question, I just got my Schufa check as I am planning to rent an apartment. However, they did not give me a score but only “Es liegen uns zum
ausschließlich positive Vertragsinformationen vor.” had this, and no score in terms of number. What does this mean, is it normal? Am I still able to use this to rent an apartment?
Thank you very much!
Hey Grace. Yes, this is normal. It only means that there is no data yes. You can still use this in my opinion. At least, it shows the landlord that you don’t have negative entries.
Hi! Thanks for providing all this helpful info!
Mine is a tough one to ask. I lived in Stuttgart for a period of 7 months. My 3 last months there i rented a small apartment. Having difficulties with the language at the beginning i ignored some letters from the TV licence company & the garbage service. On te 7th month i had a tragedy back home and i had to leave the country. Prior to that i got to de-register myself from the City council. I sent an email to my apartment agency to let them know i’m leaving & i closed my bank account. Unfortunately i didn’t think of taking care of the TV licence letters, the garbage service, i also left the electricity account on my name for the apartment, and didn’t close the health insurance (gesundheitkasse) neither. As i said it was a tough period of my life and i wasn’t making the right decisions. Do you think my debt is accumulated further more & if i want to return to Germany some day, will my credit score be on rock-bottom? Thanks a lot 🙂
Hey Bobby. Life’s not easy sometimes but there is no telling how the different companies reacted. As far as they can tell, you just stopped paying/replying so yes, there is a good chance there might be a debt mountain pilling up. That is unless those companies took steps to recover money and in the process realized you left the country and stopped there. There is no way to know for sure. Your SCHUFA score is probably going to impacted negatively either way though.
Hi,
I have a case where I received a Balif letter asking for 125 euros. Basically myself and my partner live in Switzerland and purchased an apartment in Leipzig but unfortunately they sent the land tax bill/document to the wrong address. We realised in March and called them and payment was done immediately. The Office in Leipzig confirmed everything was paid over the phone and quoted a reference.
Unfortunately the Balif letter received this month was for another identical amount to the one paid as they had split the original payment between myself and my partner. The bill was paid (including additional 40 euro for Balif) just in time so no court action is needed (would have been required to appear in person if not paid) but now I wonder if we can have this removed from the Shufa or if it even appears as we do not live In Germany?
Seems very unfair as they had sent all other letters to Switzerland.. would we need to contact the local Leipzig office to ask them to have this removed?
Many thanks,
Adam
Hey Adam. You can check your SCHUFA records first to see if it’s showing at all, then call an office to get it corrected if needed.
What about past slip ups before I’ve even received a Schufa score? I had a prepaid sim card ….I thought it deactivated with no debts owed. When I came back to German and use it again it shows unpaid debts. Will this factor into my Schufa score once I get one?
Hey Constance. That’s a great question and i simply don’t know. The best would be to call them and ask directly?
Myself and two friends are looking for an apartment in Berlin. I will be arriving before them and finding a flat for all of us. Do landlords require SCHUFA from all tenants or would they be satisfied with just one from me? If this is the case is it still possible for my two friends to register with that landlord?
Hey Caoimhe. As a rule, they want to see the SCHUFA record of everybody that will be on the contract. Some landlords maybe more flexible. Your friends can register of course, provided they are either hauptmieter with you, or untermieter.
Hi, Is it possible that I get my Schufa in English?It is needed for a firm in the Caribbean. I ordered it recently with a mobile option for one year however the firm is unable to understand the details. What can I do? To translate the entire thing is quite expensive.
Hey NOS. Yeah, not an English version around sorry.
Hello Mr. Bastien. I think I have a complicated problem with SCHUFA and I would like to have your opinion. It’s a long story and complicated. Can you please contact me to talk. Thank you
No. I am not a consultant.
haha awesome !
Hi,
I took a credit card loan of 2000€. actually, I am unemployed from last 6 months. i suppose to repay the money by end of March 2020. due to financial problems, I didn’t. Now bank proceeds to close the credit card contract. Now, they trying to reclaim the debt with a collection agency. i would like to know what option available to have a good schufa rating. I am ready to pay full amount. But I want to keep a good schufa score.
please suggest me.
Hey Mohana. Contact the collection agency and pay what you owe asap. There is no other way unfortunately.
Hey! When do I need to get a new SCHUFA? My last one is from April 18 when applying for my current place. Now I am applying for new apartments, does that mean I need to get a new one?
Hey Ava. Depends on the landlord really. The most recent it is, the best i suppose.
Hi there, thanks for this article! I am going for a viewing at a WG, and have been asked to provide Schufa. I have just arrived in Berlin and have not got Anmeldung yet, so am I not able to get Schufa? The current flatmate has told me that I can get it if someone with a German bank card pays for it for me. Any insight appreciated!
Hey Jessica. You have fallen in the typical issues of newcomers in Germany. You don’t have SCHUFA record yet and therefore can’t produce one. The best you can provide at this point is a so called “Mietschuldenfreiheitsbescheinigung“, which a paper filled in by your former landlord stating you haven’t left the contract with unpaid rent.
Hello Bastien,
I realise you might not be the best resource for these questions but maybe you can provide some guidance.
What happens when someone is unable to make credit card payments if they are unemployed? Here is a hypothetical example: say someone has 3.000 EURO of credit card debt that they are unable to pay and the bank proceeds to close the credit card contract. I assume that they would then try and reclaim the debt with a collection agency but what happens if the person no longer lives in Germany and has not registered German address? You talk about their being fines should the person return to Germany and have to but in the case the person is not to return is a negative SCHUFA score a problem after 3 or even 6 years.
In this instance do you think the bank might be willing to close the matter if the person is to offer a settlement amount (albeit much less than the total amount owed) and then consider the matter resolved as opposed to going to a collection agency?
You also talk about SCHUFA having an impact on a European level but should the person leave Germany how does a negative SCHUFA score impact their credit worthiness elsewhere (either within or outside of Europe).
Otherwise might you know who someone could talk to if they have problems of this nature and no do not speak German.
Thanks
F
Hey Fritz. I cant really comment on this matter as the SCHUFA logic is not disclosed to anybody. If this person would leave Germany and only return after a long while, then yes, in theory the SCHUFA would not impacted anymore. In theory. The settlement option is a possibility but i believe you’d rather negotiate installments to repay the whole sum than negotiation the sum down. I can’t really direct you to anybody else. Maybe try a lawyer?
Hey Bastien,
Unfortunately the bank doesn’t want to negotiate a payment plan and insists that the debt go to a collections agency despite repeated attempts to resolve. Since the person in question has already moved away from Germany and doesn’t plan on ever returning so what do you think makes the most sense? A lawyer would certainly be an expense that is not financially feasible. Plus how would the debt collection agency know where this person is now located?
Hi,
I have missed the payment of 1800 euro of credit card and radio bill of 550 euro but recently i have paid the bills and cleared the matter. I settled in 2-3 months after I got notice.
How much impact will this have on my schufa score? And can I get personal loan from a bank. ?
Best Regards,
Krishna
Hi! Can I still ask for Schufa in case I already did Abmeldung to a foreign country? I was with registered address for several months. I can still access the mail there though. Thanks!
Hey Mememe. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . You can always try, it’s for free.
I am living in a WG and in two months I am going to another apartment due to the family reunion. And I need to cancel the previous rent. Is that a bad point?
Hey Gent. Not necessarily, if you respect the cancellation notice time and terms.
Thanks so much for sharing this article … stumbled upon your wonderful website in my search for flats to rent in Germany ….the more research I do, the more confused i get … so this SCHUFA can’t be applied for unless you have a registered address ( Anmeldung) am I right ? and are there any other platforms ( housing websites ) to rent a 1 BR flat ( not shared ) without having to provide a SCHUFA ? ( aside from Wunderflats which are CRAZY EXPENSIVE btw ) Thanks in advance.
Hey Gabs. Another way would be get into a WG first, to register an address.
Hi ! Thanks a lot for your reply. Do you have more info on this pls ( website, etc …) ? Thanks a lot !
Also, not all landlords ask for Schufa. I survived without Schufa in Germany for 3 years and 4 temporary flats (i.e. fully furnished flats, but you live in them on your own). Most do want to see it though, especially if you get the flat though Immobilien Welt.
Thanks so much ! That’s kind of a relief to know lol 🙂 May i ask which websites did you use to find your flats through ?
Hello, i got already a positive schufa rating and i am planning to apply for a loan in my bank . I am just afraid if i applied for a loan , will it automatically affect my score because i have an existing loan even if i paid it on time?
Hey Noel. Just make sure you ask for the conditions of a loan first, and not make a loan application in itself. This way, just asking for information won’t affect your score.
Hi! Thanks for this article, it’s of great help. I do have a question. I understand the Schufa is possible only once per year. Once I register, can I order it even if I haven’t paid any bills (i.e. I register within the first week of arrival to Berlin and immediately take the Schufa)? What would be the score then?
Hey Maria. Not exactly. You can order it as many times as you want, it’s free once per year. Your Schufa report might simply state there is nothing about you yet.
This SCHUFA thing blows my mind! I thought that Germany was the most strict country in EU in terms of GDPR, but here you go- a private company gets all your personal information and no one ever ask if you are ok with it.
Do you think I can demand to delete all the information related to me basing on Global Data Protection Regulation?
Great article by the way!
Hey Alex. Haha i know, Germany is very logical on this point. I don’t know regarding your question. Here is a very long article about the topic.
Hey Luca !
According to your tip 1 you can ask for a shufa without sending it to the place your angemeldet and take it directly at postbank or ?
Thanks in advance !
Hey. You can get one at a Postbank yes.
Hi, and thanks for sharing this info! I paid my bill late and the collecting agency(Inkasso) got involved, but in the end I paid all the Bills. Will I have a negative Schufa entry? What’s the impact on the Schufa record?
Hey Trish. It depends on multiple factors so i can’t really reply on this one. The best way to check is to order a record once bills have been paid to see the impact.
Hi, and thanks for running this amazing website! Does paying your rent late impact your Schufa score? In my case it is a private renter (so I’m not sure if or how they would communicate that information to the relevant info-gathering place), and the rent was payed a day or two late on several occasions. Thanks!
Hey Luca. Can’t be sure about anything but only a few days late is probably not having any impact on your score.