Coffee roasters in Germany are subject to coffee tax. 2.19 EUR per kilogram of roasted coffee goes to the state. When must the coffee tax be paid, how does the procedure work, and how can roasters handle it easily and practically? A short guide for roasters, compiled by Black Hen Roastery in Saarbrücken.
Since 1948, coffee roasters have had to pay coffee tax. Until further notice, roasters must pay 2.19 euros per kilogram of roasted coffee to the state. There is no lower or de minimis threshold. Every gram counts – the tax becomes due when the roasted coffee enters a commercial cycle. Efforts by the BMZ and Fairtrade to abolish the coffee tax on fair trade coffee fizzled out in 2021.
Unlike a tax return, where documents must be sent to the tax authorities, the coffee tax for coffee roasters is levied by the Federal Customs Administration. This physical inspection is reminiscent of the origin of the coffee tax in the 18th century, when so-called coffee sniffers searched for coffee. Tegernseer Kaffeerösterei has written an interesting blog post about this.
What does a coffee roastery have to do now?
Our friends at Black Hen in Saarbrücken have summarized the process and documented it with pictures.
Guide for coffee roasteries
Author: Kolja Conrad
When founding a roastery, a so-called "tax warehouse" must be applied for at the responsible main customs office. A distinction is made as to whether a roastery will tax the roasted coffee directly during production (most common case) or only upon sale.
This is particularly the case if there are plans to sell at least some of the roasted coffee abroad (e.g., within Europe), where this coffee tax is naturally not levied. Here, a "proper" tax warehouse must be set up, to which unauthorized persons have no access, but customs officials do have access at any time for inspection purposes. The less complex option is therefore to tax the coffee immediately after the roasting process.
Step 1: Weigh green coffee
The green coffee is weighed before roasting, and the weight is recorded batch by batch in the "roast log". Since defined batch sizes are used and this information is also interesting for inventory management, this does not represent any additional effort.
Step 2: Weigh roasted coffee
After the roasting process, the roasted coffee is weighed and the roasting loss is determined. This usually happens when filling the coffee from the destoner into larger buckets. These values are also noted in the roast log.
Step 3: Update the roast log
The amount of roasted coffee produced on a roasting day and the amount of green coffee used for it are summarily recorded in the roast log.
Step 4: The warehouse book
At the end of each month, the produced quantities of roasted coffee from all roasting days are added up and recorded in the "warehouse book", stating the batch numbers.
In addition, this quantity must be submitted to the main customs office using form 1807 "Monthly tax declaration for coffee and/or coffee-containing goods". For each kilogram of roasted coffee, €2.19 coffee tax is due, which must be paid by the 10th of the following month.
Step 5: Stock declaration for coffee / Form 1830
Here, in principle, only the monthly quantities are finally summarized and any deviations are addressed. This "stocktaking" serves as a kind of inventory, which must be notified to the customs inspectors 14 days in advance – even if it usually means no more than printing a form. This stock declaration only needs to be carried out once a year at the end of the year.
Notes on the procedure
Roasted coffee that has already been taxed but is not sold for whatever reason must be collected and destroyed under the supervision of a customs officer in order to reclaim the paid tax. For this, an "application for relief from coffee tax" must be submitted in the monthly coffee tax declaration.
Each main customs office can decide in what form the roast log is kept: analog, digital, as an Excel table, Cropster extracts, etc.
In Saarland, the roast log must be kept manually, as this procedure is allegedly tamper-proof.
Customs officers can inspect the roast and warehouse log at any time, both announced and unannounced. All sums are recorded and checked to what extent the stated roasting loss is realistic or not.
If the monthly declaration of coffee tax or the inventory (or the prior notification) is missed, fines of up to €8,000.00 can be imposed.
There is no brochure or kind of training course that informs the future tax warehouse owner about their duties and obligations. Here, one relies on the willingness of the responsible customs officers to explain everything.
In detail, however, it turns out that very few have had contact with roasteries during their training or career, and usually do not even know exactly what needs to be done and how (and refer to the "Practical Handbook Coffee Tax" by Uwe Mühlenhardt and Johannes Hielscher).
Notes on coffee tax itself
The otherwise very strict declaration requirement for food products is sometimes very lax for coffee (and tea) products (what exactly is in the package? where does the coffee come from?). Allegedly (!) this is related to the fact that the coffee industry lobby does not want to legally challenge the completely anachronistic coffee tax in exchange for lax declaration requirements. High tax revenues in exchange for lax declaration requirements, so to speak – but one would have to check whether this is true.
I view the previously mentioned effort to waive the coffee tax for fair trade coffee with mixed feelings. Fundamentally, I find it quite striking that the German federal government receives almost as much money for 1kg of roasted coffee as a farmer who cultivated the coffee (in the lower price segment) – only to send part of it back to the global South as development aid (simplified).
Relief for fair trade coffee would reduce price pressure and actually ensure that more of it comes onto the market. On the other hand, it would become even more lucrative for the industry to undermine and trick fair models.
For questions regarding coffee tax
Black Hen: Contact
German Coffee Association: Contact
