What personal details belong on a German CV?
A German CV always includes your name, address, phone number and email. It traditionally also lists date and place of birth, nationality and marital status. These extra details are entirely optional under the AGG anti-discrimination law, and younger applicants and international firms increasingly omit them.
Essential contact information
Every German Lebenslauf opens with a clear block of personal and contact details, usually under a heading such as Persönliche Daten or simply at the top beside your name. This is non-negotiable and should be complete and current.
Include your full name, a postal address, a reachable phone number with the international dialling code if you are applying from abroad, and a professional email address. A LinkedIn or Xing profile URL is a welcome modern addition, and Xing in particular is still widely used in the German-speaking market. Make sure any links you list are hyperlinked and correct, because recruiters do click them.
For newcomers, one small detail matters: use a sober email address based on your name, not a nickname, and format your phone number so a German recruiter can dial it without guessing the country code.
Traditional details: birth, nationality, marital status
Beyond contact information, German CVs have a long tradition of stating date of birth (Geburtsdatum), place of birth (Geburtsort), nationality (Staatsangehörigkeit) and marital status (Familienstand). Some older-style CVs also mention number of children. None of these are legally required, and their presence is a matter of custom rather than obligation.
For foreign applicants these fields carry a little extra weight. Nationality can prompt a recruiter to think about work authorisation, so if you hold an EU passport or an existing German work permit it can be worth stating to pre-empt the question. If your status is more complex, you may prefer to address it in the cover letter rather than as a bare line in the CV.
Marital status and place of birth add the least value and reveal the most about protected characteristics, so they are the first items many candidates now drop.
Optional under the AGG, and increasingly omitted
The 2006 Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz (AGG) reshaped this convention. Because date of birth, nationality, marital status and a photo all reveal protected characteristics, employers cannot require them, and a clear trend has emerged toward leaving them off, especially at large corporates, tech companies and international employers.
This puts you in control. Including the traditional details signals cultural familiarity to conservative German employers; omitting them aligns with modern, bias-aware hiring and is completely acceptable. Neither choice can lawfully be held against you. A sensible middle path is to keep date of birth and nationality where they genuinely help, and drop marital status and place of birth.
Whatever you decide, be consistent across your application. If a structured template lays out the personal-details block cleanly, you can add or remove fields without the header looking sparse or unbalanced.
What never belongs on a German CV
Some information should stay off the page entirely. Do not include your religion, political affiliation, health status, salary history, or a national identity or social security number. These are either irrelevant, legally sensitive, or an invitation to discrimination, and listing them marks you as unfamiliar with local norms.
There is also a formatting point worth remembering. Your personal details are the first thing an applicant tracking system tries to read, and if the name, phone number and email are locked inside a graphic header or a two-column sidebar, the parser can miss them entirely, leaving your application effectively anonymous to the software. Keep the details as clean, selectable text near the top, and run the file through an ATS check to confirm the machine captures every field before a human ever opens it.
Keep the personal-details section focused: enough for a recruiter to contact you and understand your basic eligibility, and no more. Combine this with the correct length, formatting and closing signature from the rest of this guide, and your Lebenslauf will read as locally fluent to both the software and the person behind it.
| Detail | Status | Guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Essential | Always include, prominently at the top |
| Address | Essential | A current postal address is standard |
| Phone and email | Essential | Use a professional email and country code |
| Date of birth | Optional | Common but not required under the AGG |
| Nationality | Optional | Useful to signal work authorisation |
| Marital status | Optional | Increasingly omitted; adds little value |
| Place of birth | Optional | Often dropped; reveals protected data |
| Religion, politics, health, salary | Omit | Never appropriate on a German CV |
Keep reading
FAQ
Do I have to include my date of birth on a German CV?▼
No. Date of birth is customary but optional under the AGG anti-discrimination law. Many applicants still include it to match convention, while international and tech employers increasingly expect it to be left off.
Should I state my nationality as a foreigner?▼
It can help. Listing an EU nationality or existing German work permit pre-empts questions about work authorisation. If your status is more complex, consider addressing it in your cover letter rather than as a single line on the CV.
Is marital status still expected?▼
Less and less. Marital status is optional and reveals protected characteristics, so it is one of the first details modern applicants drop. Traditional German SMEs may still expect it, but omitting it is perfectly acceptable.
What personal details should never appear?▼
Never include religion, political affiliation, health status, salary history, or identity and social security numbers. They are legally sensitive or irrelevant, and listing them signals unfamiliarity with German application norms.