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Forschungszulage Consulting: The Process in 4 Calls

Jan 30, 2026 · Erich Lehmann · Updated Aug 27, 2026

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Perplexity

The process as a timeline: from first conversation to payout

The application runs in two stages: first the Bescheinigungsstelle Forschungszulage (BSFZ) assesses whether your project qualifies as research and development under the law. Only then can the tax office assess the allowance. Between the stages sit waiting times you cannot influence; before them sits the work that decides success and funding amount.

Free assessment call (approx. 30 min): We give you an honest read on whether an application is worthwhile for you and which retroactive years are in scope.
Calls 1 to 4 (under 5 hours in total): Documents, figures, projects, review. Details below.
Submission via the BSFZ portal: Applications are filed exclusively through the BSFZ's online portal. There is no paper route.
BSFZ review (roughly two to three months): The BSFZ assigns your application to one of the assessing institutes. You cannot influence which one, and processing times vary by institute and workload.
The certificate: It covers the entire project including its full duration and can be used across several fiscal years.
Assessment at the tax office: Your tax advisor claims the allowance via ELSTER as part of the tax return. This is where the detailed review happens.
Offset or payout: The allowance is usually offset against the assessed income or corporate tax. If it exceeds that tax, the surplus is refunded. The details are in our article on the Forschungszulage payout.

Across the whole path from preparation to assessment, 6 to 9 months is a realistic range. This is why applying for the BSFZ certificate early pays off: without it, the tax office cannot assess anything at all.

Before you start: what you need, and what you explicitly do not

The most common reason companies keep postponing the application is the assumption that they first have to spend weeks collecting documents. We have deliberately set it up the other way round.

What you actually need:

Someone who can explain your projects technically. Usually the CTO or a lead developer, and only for a single call, not for a multi-week marathon.
Someone who connects us to your tax advisor, typically from finance or the management team.
The willingness to review the draft once before submission.

What you explicitly do not need:

No prepared document list. Which documents matter depends on the founding date, legal form, contractors, and affiliated companies. The checklist is built in call 1 and is company-specific.
No finished project descriptions. We write them; you correct them.
No retroactively reconstructed timesheets. We set up time tracking so that it also holds up in the following years.
No homework between calls.

Calls 1 to 4 in detail

Call 1: Finance Checklist (~30 min)

We clarify which documents you actually need, as a company-specific checklist rather than a generic list. Example: depending on the founding date, business statistics may only be needed for 1 year instead of 3. On top of that, depending on your setup, payroll tax documents, contractor invoices, or details on affiliated companies may be required. Important: no homework between calls, you simply forward the checklist to your tax advisor.

Call 2: Finance Review (~30 min)

Once the documents are in, we structure the data ourselves: employees, time periods, salaries, contractors. In the call we only clear up the remaining questions. For you this is typically not work, just review. Goal: after this call, nothing should be missing for the application.

Call 3: Product & Innovation (~45 min)

The most important call in terms of substance, and the only one that genuinely needs your technical people. We identify and scope your innovation projects and allocate employees and contractors per project by percentage, as a practical estimate in a clear table. Novelty and technical risk are discussed at a high level here; the technical wording is our job afterwards.

Call 4: Final Review & Submission (~30 min)

You receive an asynchronous review in advance, a link with the complete summary that you can work through at your own pace. If everything checks out, we submit. If the case is more complex or feedback remains open, we use call 4 as an in-depth product call and submit afterwards.

Why we write the text and you do not: your application is not read by administrative clerks but by technical assessors. They want to know the current state of the art, what exactly is technically new about your approach, and which concrete technical risk you faced. Product marketing language convinces nobody there. More on our Forschungszulage consulting page.

Responsibility matrix: who supplies what

The most common friction in the process is not technical, it sits at the interface with the tax advisor. So here is who owns which part, explicitly.

Task	Us	Tax advisor	You
Company-specific document checklist	●
Provide payroll and financial data		●
Structure data, prepare costs per project	●
Scope and delineate the innovation projects	●		○
Allocate staff to projects by percentage	●		○
Write the technical project descriptions	●
Technical review of the draft			●
Submission in the BSFZ portal	●
BSFZ follow-up questions and requests	●
Time-tracking setup for the following years	●		○
Assessment request via ELSTER, tax return		●
Evidence in a tax audit	●	○

● accountable · ○ contributes input

The tax step deliberately stays with your tax advisor: as an external service provider we are not allowed to file the tax return. From us he receives the complete cost breakdown per project and year, prepared so that he can claim it directly.

After submission: follow-up questions, revisions, decisions

Once submitted, the application is done from your side, but not from ours. What can happen next:

A request for additional information from the BSFZ. If the information on the three criteria is incomplete or evidently flawed, the BSFZ asks in writing for additions within a set deadline. As a rule there is one opportunity to respond, so the answer needs to be thorough. We handle that communication.

Revise and resubmit. A negative BSFZ decision is not the end of the road. A project can be re-scoped, argued more sharply in technical terms, and resubmitted. If something about the project changes after certification, that goes through an amendment request, which is usually processed considerably faster than a first application.

The certificate. It is binding on the tax office and covers the entire project including its duration. One certificate can span several fiscal years; the assessment request is still filed per fiscal year.

The assessment at the tax office. This is where the detailed review happens for the first time: gross salaries, timesheets, employment contracts, invoices for contract research, and the correct calculation of the assessment base. The BSFZ only checked costs for plausibility; the tax office looks closely. Worth knowing: only the tax office's decisions are final. An application is not set in stone once it reaches the BSFZ, whereas a tax office decision is.

How long it takes

The honest answer: the bulk of the waiting time sits neither with you nor with us, but with the authorities.

Your preparation with us: four calls, under five hours of effort for your team, usually spread over a few weeks in calendar terms, because your tax advisor has to deliver between call 1 and call 2.
BSFZ review: plan for two to three months rather than exactly two. Processing time varies by assessing institute and workload; amendment requests are much faster.
Assessment and payout by the tax office: depends on the tax assessment, workload, and any follow-up questions.
In total: typically 6 to 9 months from preparation to actual effect, meaning offset or payout. Follow-up questions or a complex tax assessment can stretch that further.

Once the process has been set up cleanly, the following years are considerably faster: project documentation, time tracking, and responsibilities are already in place.

What can go wrong, and how we handle it

The four typical breaking points

The tax advisor does not deliver. The most common cause of delay between call 1 and call 2. This is why the checklist is company-specific and short: the more precise the request, the faster the delivery. If it stalls, we approach the firm directly.
The project is described too close to the product. The eligible phase ends with the test of a prototype. Market launch, rollout, and stabilising a production system no longer count. We therefore scope projects along technical uncertainty, not along your product roadmap.
Costs are claimed too cautiously. Claiming narrowly out of fear of follow-up questions leaves funding on the table. The BSFZ only checks costs for plausibility, and the tax office finds it easier to reduce an amount than to add to it later. What matters is that the allocation is justified in a traceable way.
The documentation does not hold up in a tax audit. At higher funding amounts, a detailed review is the rule, not the exception. Without solid timesheets and evidence, you risk a clawback years later. That is why setting up time tracking is part of the application with us, not a follow-up project.

And if you are already working with a consultant but unhappy: switching is possible even mid-process. What to watch out for is covered in our article on switching Forschungszulage consultants.

Which projects is this worth it for?

Not just lab research. Frequently eligible where genuine technical uncertainty and a methodical approach are present:

Software and AI: new model and data pipelines, robust real-time processes, novel system architectures
Production and processes: new methods, material or quality innovations
Hardware and IoT: new prototypes, measurement and control methods
B2B platforms with genuine technical uncertainty: scalability, latency, security, interoperability

What matters is not the buzzword, but: what was technically unclear, and how did you proceed systematically to resolve it? You will find concrete examples in the overview of requirements, and a first estimate of the amount in the calculator.

From 01.01.2026, the Forschungszulage becomes even more attractive, among other things through a higher assessment base and additional flat rates. If you are investing in development anyway, planning now pays off, and if you have already been working in an innovation-driven way in recent years: check retroactive eligibility, up to four years are possible.

Official contact point for the certificate: bescheinigung-forschungszulage.de

Walk through the process in a first call

Frequently asked questions

In four calls with under five hours of effort for your team in total: finance checklist (30 min), finance review (30 min), product & innovation (45 min), and a final review before submission. We structure the data, write the project descriptions, and submit via the BSFZ portal. You contribute expertise and review the draft.

Nothing. The first call exists precisely to build the company-specific document checklist. There is deliberately no generic document list up front and no homework between calls: the checklist goes straight to your tax advisor.

Under five hours in calls, spread across your team. Without support, it typically takes several days to weeks just to collect the documents and write the project descriptions. We write, structure, and prepare; you supply expertise and validation.

We identify the eligible projects, allocate staff and contractors by percentage, write the technical project descriptions, and submit the application to the BSFZ. Your tax advisor supplies the financial data and later claims the allowance in the tax return. As an external service provider we are not permitted to take over that tax step, but we hand him all figures fully prepared.

The BSFZ reviews the substantive eligibility of the project and issues the certificate. It checks the cost figures only for plausibility. The tax office reviews costs, calculation, and formalities in detail and then assesses the allowance.

If the information on the three criteria is incomplete or evidently flawed, the BSFZ issues a formal request for additional information with a deadline. Even after a rejection you can revise and resubmit, and an existing certificate can be adjusted through an amendment request. Only the tax office's decisions are final.

Plan for roughly two to three months for the BSFZ review, depending on the institute and its workload. Across the whole path from preparation through certification to assessment at the tax office, 6 to 9 months is a realistic range.

Yes. For BSFZ follow-up questions, tax office requests, or a later tax audit, we handle the communication and provide the evidence. We work fully success-based: our share is only due once the money has reached you.

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