Electronic sick note (eAU)
The electronic certificate of incapacity for work is the procedure by which employers retrieve the sick note data from the statutory health insurer instead of receiving a paper certificate.
As of:September 2026
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.
MetronHR works these figures out itself: time accounts, premiums, overtime and the limits of the German Working Hours Act, with every booking.
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.
Further reading
- Section 5(1) and (1a) EFZG, section 109 SGB IV
- Article 9 GDPR, Article 5(1)(c) GDPR
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: September 2026
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Related terms
Incapacity for work
Incapacity for work exists where an ill person cannot perform the work they last performed, or can do so only at the risk of making things worse. What matters is the specific work, not the illness as such.
Continued pay
Continued pay is the continued payment of remuneration during illness-related incapacity for work and on statutory public holidays, without work being done.
Child sickness days
Child sickness days are working days on which insured people stay away from work to care for a sick child and receive child sickness benefit from the health insurer for it.