Reports on foreign trade to the Bundesbank
If you do business across borders, you have probably already had to deal with the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (AWV). Unfortunately, we cannot change that. However, we can take care of the corresponding reporting obligations to the German Bundesbank for you.
Domestic investors who carry out transactions abroad are generally free to do so in accordance with foreign trade regulations, but are subject to statistical reporting obligations in capital and payment transactions with foreign countries, which primarily serve to prepare the German balance of payments. The reporting obligations apply, among other things, to
- incoming and outgoing payments (transactions),
- existing foreign receivables and liabilities and
- cross-border holdings in (fund) companies and other companies (direct investments).
Reports in accordance with the AWV must be submitted to the Deutsche Bundesbank in electronic form via the General Reporting Portal Statistics (AMS), the ExtraNet platform or your own interfaces.
We handle the timely delivery of the corresponding Z4 and K3/K4 declarations on your behalf as a third-party submitter.
- You save the effort of data preparation.
- In addition to the technical issues, we also support you in specialist issues relating to reporting and the necessary data basis.
- We monitor the timelines and ensure that the data supplied is plausible in terms of content and technically valid.
- You do not need any specialised technical knowledge, but simply provide us with basic data about your portfolio in Excel format. We convert this data according to the recipient’s specifications and prepare it as an .xml file.
Notifications in accordance with the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance
Anlage Z4 „Zahlungen im Außenwirtschaftsverkehr“
Incoming and outgoing payments must be reported in Annex Z4 “Payments in foreign trade”. This must contain comprehensive information on the underlying transaction and the corresponding key performance indicators in Annex LV, including
- Amount of payment (if > EUR 12,500)
- Date of payment
- Offsetting or contribution
- Key figure according to the bill of quantities for the type of transaction
- Document type of the transaction
- Purpose of the payment
Direct investment reports (K3/K4)
The status of cross-border equity investments pursuant to Sections 64 and 65 of the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (AWV) must be reported annually to the Deutsche Bundesbank via Annex K3 or K4 for the statistics on direct investment stocks. They provide information on the capital relationships arising from investments by residents in companies abroad and investments by foreigners in companies in Germany. Since 30 June 2019, forms K3 and K4 have also only been accepted in XML format.
- Companies and private individuals to whom 10% or more of the shares or voting rights in a foreign company with a balance sheet total (converted) of more than EUR 3 million are directly attributable are required to report on Annex K3 of the AWV. If a company held directly abroad is dependent on the German investor (majority shareholding), the other foreign shareholdings dependent on this foreign company must also be reported. Annex K4 must be used accordingly if a domestic company is attributable to foreign investors.
- If an earlier reporting obligation no longer applies, this should be reported to the Deutsche Bundesbank by means of a false report. This also applies in the event that the balance sheet total or operating assets no longer exceed the threshold of EUR 3 million.
Your benefits at a glance
We also offer other reporting services, such as reports to WM Datenservice (EDDY_neu), reports to BaFin and the Bundesbank or to the savings bank interface. A large part of the data required for this is already available through the reports to your invested insurance companies. This data can be easily processed for further outputs.
