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Apply for relief from energy tax for agricultural and forestry enterprises Steuern und Abgaben

As an agricultural or forestry business, you can receive tax relief for your consumption of gas oil, vegetable oil and biodiesel under certain conditions.

  • Basic information

    Energy tax is a consumption tax levied on coal, gas, oil and other energy products. The energy tax is a self-assessment tax. This means that anyone who has to pay the tax must submit a tax return to the relevant main customs office and calculate the energy tax themselves. You must also calculate any tax relief yourself.

    As an agricultural and forestry business, you can have part of the energy tax already paid on gas oil, vegetable oil or biodiesel refunded or reimbursed.

    One of the prerequisites for tax relief is that you use the fuels for which you wish to claim tax relief as part of your daily work in agriculture and forestry, for example by using agricultural tractors or other machinery and vehicles that are needed in agriculture and forestry.

    The following relief rates apply to this so-called agricultural diesel allowance:

    • Gas oil: EUR 0.21480 per liter
    • Vegetable oil: EUR 0.45000 per liter
    • Biodiesel: EUR 0.45033 per liter

    There are two restrictions for gas oil:

    • Businesses that carry out agricultural and forestry work for other businesses do not receive tax relief on gas oil.
    • Beekeeping businesses can receive tax relief for a maximum of 15 liters of gas oil per bee colony.

    Requirements

    • Your business must be active in agriculture or forestry, i.e.
      • Your business cultivates agricultural or forestry land, also in connection with animal husbandry or
      • you operate
        • a beekeeping business or
        • a transhumance sheep farm or
        • a pond farm or
        • a pumping station for the irrigation and drainage of agricultural and forestry land or
      • Your business carries out work for one of these businesses, for example as a contract business, cooperative business, business of a machinery association or as a water and soil association.
    • The tax relief is considered state aid. You must therefore meet the relevant requirements under state aid law.
    • The total amount of relief for gas oil, vegetable oil and biodiesel must be at least EUR 50.00 per calendar year.

  • Procedure

    If you would like to apply for tax relief in writing:

    • Go to the website of the Directorate General of Customs and call up either the complete "Application for tax relief for agricultural and forestry businesses" (form 1140) or the "Simplified application for tax relief for agricultural and forestry businesses" (form 1142).
      • Form 1140 can be used by all applicants.
      • You can only use form 1142 if
        • you submitted a complete application (Form 1140) or a short application (Form 1142) last year which was not rejected,
        • there have been no changes to the type of business, the group of persons or the number of bee colonies since your last complete application (Form 1140) and
        • your company is not in difficulty within the meaning of European state aid law at the time of application and use of the energy products.
    • Complete the application (form 1140 or 1142) in full.
    • If you are submitting an application for the first time: Attach all the necessary documents. If you are submitting a subsequent application, you only need to submit the documents if the main customs office asks you to do so.
    • Send the application by post to the main customs office responsible.
    • The main customs office will check your tax return and send you a notice of relief if the assessment is different.

    If you would like to apply for tax relief electronically:

    • From January 4, 2021, it will be possible to submit a fully electronic application via the Citizen and Business Customer (BuG) portal, without the need to additionally send the printed compressed application as before.
    • For legitimization, please use your ELSTER certificate from the state tax authorities or your new ID card with the additional function "electronic proof of identity (eID)".
    • A one-off registration is required to apply for agricultural diesel relief via the BuG portal.
      • To register, please go to our website and follow the link "Create a new account here". Then select the "Business customer account" and have your Elster certificate ready for the rest of the registration process.
    • Simplified registration: With the provision of the "Agricultural diesel relief" service, you will receive a link by e-mail on January 4, 2021, which you can use to register in the BuG portal in a simplified manner. The prerequisite for simplified registration is that your e-mail address is available to the main customs office responsible for you.
    • IMPORTANT: You can only use one agricultural diesel number per e-mail address to register in the BuG portal.
    • Within the BuG portal, you will be asked a series of questions to decide whether the short application or full application is offered.
    • The BuG portal gives you, as the applicant, the opportunity to track the status of your applications.
    • In the BuG portal, it will be possible to contact the customs administration online in a convenient way - for example, to submit the necessary documents - and to receive digital notifications of discharge in the event of a different assessment.

  • Necessary Documents
    • Receipts or delivery certificates for energy products received for beneficiary and nonbeneficiary purposes, including.
      • Addresses of the consignee and the supplier,
      • date of delivery, quantity delivered and
      • the amount to be paid
    • to the extent that you, as the applicant, are required to do so: Records for all beneficiary vehicles and machines showing the date and scope of the work performed and the volume of energy products consumed
    • for beekeepers: a colony declaration as proof of the number of colonies (form ZSA 143)
    • Certificates of contract work and neighborhood assistance and the gas oil consumed in the process (Form ZSA 148).

  • Competent Department

  • Forms

  • Fees / Costs

    gebührenfrei

  • Deadlines & processing time

    What deadlines must be paid attention to?

    You must apply for tax relief in writing to your responsible main customs office or electronically in the BuG portal by September 30 of the year following the calendar year in which gas oil, vegetable oil or biodiesel was used.

    How long does it take to process

    Depending on the time of application (January to September), about 3 months on average. Online applications are processed preferentially.

  • Legal Bases

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This page has been automatically translated by DeepL. We cannot guarantee that the translation is correct.

The official information in German is complete and correct. 23.07.2025

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