📝 Applying for BAföG
In brief
BAföG supports students whose own income and assets and whose parents' income are not sufficient to cover living costs during studies. The responsible office is the BAföG office of the Studierendenwerk (student services organisation) at your place of study. Important: training assistance is in principle paid only from the month in which the application was made – not retroactively for earlier months (§ 15 Abs. 1 Satz 1 BAföG). For parental income, the year-before-last principle also applies: as a rule, the income from the second-last calendar year before the start of the approval period is decisive.
Step by step
- Gather the formsForm 1 (application), Form 3 (parents' income statement) and, if you have your own income, Form 5 – forms are available online via the BAföG office or BAföG-Digital.
- Submit the application earlyThe main form is initially enough to secure the application month; you can submit missing attachments later without losing the application date.
- State parental incomeIn principle, the income from the second-last calendar year is decisive (year-before-last principle, § 24 Abs. 1 BAföG).
- If income fluctuates: apply for an updateIf current parental income is significantly lower than in the year before last, an update can be requested under § 24 Abs. 3 BAföG.
- Check the notice of decisionWhere the facts or legal position are unclear, the office may first decide provisionally; check the calculation sheet for allowances and the income taken into account.
Deadlines
- If you wait until all documents are complete, you lose months of funding – the retroactive effect only goes back to the application month.
- Parental income counts from the year before last, not the current year – if your parents' income has dropped, a separate application for an update is worthwhile.
- A missing proof of academic progress after the 4th subject semester can lead to funding being cancelled; exceptions exist only with serious, documented reasons.
- The exact amount of rates and allowances changes frequently – for your individual case, rely on your current notice of decision or information from the BAföG office, not on older leaflets.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
Rates and supplements – figures with uncertainty
The monthly requirement consists of a basic requirement (§ 13 BAföG), a housing supplement depending on whether you live with your parents or elsewhere, and a health and long-term care insurance supplement for those with statutory insurance (§ 13a BAföG). According to several consistent secondary sources, which could not be individually checked against the statutory text itself in this research, the maximum rate for students living away from home and with student health insurance is around €992/month; exactly which portion of this falls on basic requirement, housing supplement, health and long-term care insurance supplement was stated differently in different sources. For the individual case, only the current notice of decision or information from the BAföG office is decisive, not this page.
Parental allowances
Statutory allowances are deducted from parental income (§ 25 BAföG), which depend, among other things, on the parents' marital status and the number of other dependent children. The exact amount of these allowances is adjusted regularly; reliable euro amounts for September 2026, individually checked against the statutory text in this research, were not available without contradictions and are therefore not stated here.
Year-before-last principle and update
The basis is in principle the parental income of the second-last calendar year before the start of the approval period (§ 24 Abs. 1 BAföG). If it is foreseeable that actual income in the approval period will be significantly lower, an update can be requested (§ 24 Abs. 3 BAföG).
A question about your situation that this page does not answer? Write to us or use the contact form – we will tell you which office is responsible and what to bring. Free of charge, without individual legal advice.