Contents
What has changed and what has not
What has changed is the route the proof takes: the medical practice transmits the data to the health insurer, and the employer retrieves it there. The yellow slip for the employer no longer applies for people with statutory insurance.
What has not changed is the employees' duty to report the incapacity and its expected duration without delay. The eAU replaces the proof, not the notification. Anyone not reporting in still breaches section 5(1) sentence 1 EFZG.
Who is not covered
People with private insurance, marginally employed people in private households, incapacity abroad and certificates from doctors without statutory health insurance accreditation. In those cases paper proof remains.
A separate procedure applies for child sickness days and for rehabilitation measures as well. The eAU covers only one's own illness-related incapacity.
What the retrieval requires
Retrieval is permitted only where the person has notified their incapacity. Retrieval on suspicion or in advance is impermissible under data protection law, because the necessity is absent.
The data retrieved is health data within the meaning of Article 9 GDPR. It belongs in the hands of those who need it for payroll, and not in a generally visible absence list.
Common mistake
Because the eAU can be retrieved automatically, phoning in sick gets quietly abolished. The duty to notify, however, exists unchanged, and without notification nothing may be retrieved at all.
This is not legal advice; for a specific case at your workplace you are better off asking someone qualified to give it.
Published by: AMNAU GmbH
Editorial responsibility: Ugur Aydogan, Product development.
Last reviewed: 2 September 2026