Schlussrechnung (final invoice) under VOB/B: deadline, verifiability, payment

What the Schlussrechnung is

The Schlussrechnung settles the entire work: contract sum, Nachträge (change orders), hourly-rate work, less all interim payments. It triggers the due date of the remaining amount. Abschlagsrechnungen, by contrast, are interim invoices, as described in Abschlagsrechnung under VOB/B.

Deadline: by when must it be submitted?

Under § 14 para. 3 VOB/B, for work with a contractual execution period of at most 3 months, the Schlussrechnung must be submitted within 12 working days of completion at the latest, “unless otherwise agreed”. For each further 3 months of execution period, 6 working days are added.

What happens if you miss the deadline? If you do not submit the verifiable invoice even though the client has set you a reasonable deadline, the client can, under § 14 para. 4, draw it up itself at your cost. This rarely happens, but it is a sign that you are losing control of the billing.

Verifiable means: comprehensible

§ 14 para. 1 VOB/B requires you to bill your work in a verifiable way:

• Lay out the invoice clearly, keep the order of the items and use the descriptions from the contract.
• Attach quantity calculations, drawings and other documents, as far as they are needed to prove type and extent.
• Make changes and additions to the contract specially recognisable in the invoice. On request you bill them separately.

The joint determinations (measurement, Aufmaß) should, as work progresses, be made jointly where possible (§ 14 para. 2). For anything that is hard to determine once work continues, request the joint determination in good time.

A verifiable invoice is not a “good invoice” but one that the client can recalculate without queries. If quantity evidence is missing, the client has a formal reason to delay payment.

When is the final payment due?

Under § 16 para. 3 no. 1 VOB/B, the claim to final payment falls due promptly after checking and determination, at the latest within 30 days of receipt of the Schlussrechnung. The period can be extended to at most 60 days if this is objectively justified by the particular nature or characteristics of the agreement and expressly agreed.

Two rules help you in practice:

• If the client does not raise reasoned objections to verifiability by the end of the period, it can no longer rely on a lack of verifiability later.
• If the check is delayed, the undisputed balance must be paid immediately as an interim payment.

If the client does not pay despite the due date, under § 16 para. 5 no. 3 VOB/B it falls into default of payment at the latest 30 days after receipt of the invoice (without a further grace period), if you have fulfilled your obligations and the money due has not reached you in time, unless the client is not responsible for the delay. You are then entitled to interest under § 288 para. 2 BGB (for businesses nine percentage points above the base rate) and, if the client is not a consumer, the flat fee of 40 euros under § 288 para. 5 BGB. What happens next is explained in What to do if the client does not pay?.

The reservation on final payment: the trap at the end

VOB/B has an exclusion effect (§ 16 para. 3 nos. 2 to 6):

1. If the contractor accepts the final payment without reservation, further claims are excluded. This applies only if it was informed in writing about the final payment and pointed to the exclusion effect.
2. It is equivalent to a final payment if the client definitively refuses further payments in writing and refers to payments made.
3. Claims made earlier but not yet dealt with are also excluded if they are not reserved again.
4. The reservation must be declared within 28 days of receipt of the notification. It lapses if you do not, within a further 28 days, submit a verifiable invoice for the reserved claims or, if that is not possible, give detailed reasons for the reservation.
5. The cut-off periods do not apply to a request for correction because of measurement, calculation and transfer errors.

In practice this means: if the client cuts your invoice and writes “final payment”, calculate the 28 days at once and lodge the reservation in writing. Whether the exclusion effect applies at all also depends on whether VOB/B has been effectively agreed (as a whole); with consumers and with a modified VOB/B it can be invalid under the law on standard terms (AGB-Recht) (case law not evaluated here).

In a BGB contract: § 650g para. 4 BGB

Without VOB/B, the rule is: the remuneration is payable when the customer has accepted the work (or acceptance is not required) and the contractor has issued a verifiable final invoice. It is verifiable if it contains a clear statement of the work performed and is comprehensible to the customer. It is deemed verifiable if the customer has not raised reasoned objections to its verifiability within 30 days of receipt (§ 650g para. 4 BGB).

Checklist for the Schlussrechnung

1. Reference to the contract, order and Nachträge (date, number).
2. Items in the order of the bill of quantities (Leistungsverzeichnis), with quantities from the joint measurement or a quantity record.
3. Nachträge and additional work shown separately or recognisably.
4. Interim payments deducted with invoice number and date; remaining amount clearly visible.
5. Security retention (Sicherheitseinbehalt), if agreed (see Security retention and surety bond).
6. Mandatory details under § 14 UStG and, where applicable, the reference to § 13b UStG.
7. Payment term and bank details; document receipt.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and status

• § 14 paras. 1 to 4 VOB/B – billing
• § 16 paras. 3 and 5 VOB/B – payment (2016 version, checked against the statutory text in the BauWalker corpus)
• § 650g para. 4 BGB – inspection of the condition; final invoice
• § 288 paras. 2 and 5 BGB – default interest and flat fee
• Stand: 19.10.2026. Whether your contract effectively incorporates VOB/B and provides its own periods depends on the individual case.
• Quotations of statutory text are given in translation; the German wording is authoritative.