Short Answer
You can claim a flat rate of six euros per day for working from home even if you lack a dedicated closed-door office room. This Home Office Pauschale is capped at a maximum of 1,260 € per calendar year.
What Most Expats Don't Realize
You spent the entire year working from your kitchen table and assumed you were ineligible for any tax breaks because you didn't have a separate, designated "Arbeitszimmer." You didn't track your remote work days and casually filed your return without claiming the special flat-rate allowance. You simultaneously claimed standard travel costs on random days, which triggered a system conflict that resulted in a total cash loss of 750 € in missed deductions.
What To Do
- Keep a simple digital spreadsheet or calendar explicitly marking which days you worked 100% from home.
- Deduct the commuting allowance only for the specific days you physically traveled to your employer's office.
- "Ich mache die Home-Office-Pauschale für zweihundertzehn Tage geltend." (I am claiming the home office allowance for two hundred ten days.) — type this justification into the income-related expenses section of your tax software.
The Truth
The old law required a separate room with a door, but the pandemic forced the government to accept that modern apartments aren't built for 19th-century bureaucracy.