German cover letter format: DIN 5008, the four paragraphs, and when you can skip it

In the US and UK, the cover letter is a loosely-structured motivation essay that many recruiters skip. In Germany, it's the Anschreiben — a formal business letter with a standardized layout — and some employers still read it before your CV. At the same time, a growing number now mark it optional. Both things are true. Here's how to navigate that.

It's a business letter, not an essay

A German Anschreiben follows the conventions of DIN 5008, the German industry standard for business-document layout. That sounds bureaucratic, and it is — but it also makes the letter easy to get right, because the skeleton is fixed:

• Sender block — your name, address, phone, email, each on its own line, top left.
• Recipient block — company, department or contact person if known, address.
• Date line — city and date (Berlin, 17.07.2026), right-aligned.
• Subject line — bold, no "Betreff:" prefix: Bewerbung als [exact role title from the ad] ("Application for [role title]"). Use the employer's own wording for the title, including any reference number.
• Salutation — a named contact if you can find one (Sehr geehrte Frau Weber, — "Dear Ms Weber"), and finding one is worth five minutes: the ad, the team page, a call to reception. If there's genuinely no name, Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, ("Dear Sir or Madam") is still correct and safe with traditional employers — but it increasingly reads as boilerplate, and many recruiters now prefer Guten Tag ("Good day") or a team salutation like Sehr geehrtes Recruiting-Team, ("Dear recruiting team"). Match the formality of the ad itself.
• Body — three to four short paragraphs (below).
• Sign-off — Mit freundlichen Grüßen ("Kind regards") — no comma after it; German letters don't take one, an English-vs-German trap even natives fall into — then your name.

One page. Not one-and-a-bit — one.

The four paragraphs

1. Introduction — which role you're applying for, where you saw it, and one concrete sentence on why you're a fit. Skip the throat-clearing ("hiermit bewerbe ich mich…" — "I hereby apply for…" — is considered dated filler even by German standards).
2. Fit — take two or three requirements from the job ad and map each to something you've actually done. This is the paragraph that gets read: specific projects, technologies, and responsibilities — facts, not adjectives.
3. Motivation — why this employer specifically. One honest reason (the product, the domain, the technology) beats three generic ones.
4. Closing — your earliest start date, your salary expectation if the ad asked for one, and an invitation to talk.

Salary expectation and start date (Gehaltsvorstellung, Eintrittstermin)

German job ads frequently ask for two things international candidates tend to leave out: your Gehaltsvorstellung (salary expectation) and your frühestmöglicher Eintrittstermin (earliest possible start date). When the ad asks, answer in the closing paragraph. Omitting them when they were explicitly requested reads as not having read the ad, and some HR teams filter on exactly that.

How to phrase it: one sentence, stating annual gross pay — German offers are negotiated on the yearly gross figure (brutto), never monthly take-home:

Meine Gehaltsvorstellung liegt bei 68.000 € brutto pro Jahr; mein frühestmöglicher Eintrittstermin ist der 1. Oktober 2026. — "My salary expectation is €68,000 gross per year; my earliest possible start date is 1 October 2026."

Adjust the numbers; keep the directness. A single figure or a narrow band both work — a narrow band (say, 65,000–70,000 €) quietly signals you're negotiable, while a wide one signals you haven't researched the role. And if the ad didn't ask, don't volunteer a number — you'd only give away negotiating room.

Tone: the biggest adjustment

The German register is direct, factual, and restrained. The superlative-heavy enthusiasm that reads as confident in a US letter ("I am incredibly passionate about…", "world-class") reads as inflated here. The fix is mechanical: wherever you'd write an adjective about yourself, replace it with the thing you did.

Instead of "I am passionate about embedded systems," write "I spent the last three years shipping firmware for battery-management systems in series production."

Do you still need one in 2026?

Honestly: it depends on who you're applying to, and the trend is real but uneven.

• Startups and internationally-run employers increasingly mark the letter optional, and some application forms don't even have a field for it.
• Traditional employers and the Mittelstand — Germany's established small and mid-sized companies — still largely expect one. If the ad asks for vollständige Bewerbungsunterlagen ("complete application documents" — what that full set includes), a letter is part of that set.

The five-second version:

Also know when it gets read: most recruiters screen the CV first and open the Anschreiben only for candidates who survive that cut — often as the tie-breaker between similar profiles. Two consequences: your CV has to stand alone (never park a key fact only in the letter), and the letter's job is to add what the CV can't — the why-this-company, the context behind a career switch, the thing that makes you a person rather than a table.

Can you write it in English?

Match the job, not your comfort zone. If the posting is in English or the workplace is English-first, an English cover letter is normal and expected. If the posting is in German, a German letter is the safer choice — but never let a letter claim German fluency you can't back up in a phone screen. A perfect C1-sounding Anschreiben above a "German: B1" skills line sets up an interview that starts badly.

This is exactly the trap our letter tooling is built around: it drafts the formal German letter only from facts that are actually in your CV, and it can show a side-by-side plain-English gloss of every paragraph — so you can check each claim yourself before you send it. To try it against a real role, match your CV first and generate the letter from any result — no account needed to run the match.

The bottom line

The Anschreiben rewards the same things the Lebenslauf does: structure and restraint. Follow the DIN 5008 skeleton, answer what the ad actually asked (role title, salary, start date), argue your fit with facts instead of adjectives, and keep it to a page. And if the employer says it's optional and you have nothing specific to say — a good application without a letter beats a padded one with it.

Want the full picture — CV format, who reads what, and how to submit? Start with the how to apply in Germany guide, or read the companion post on the German Lebenslauf.