What are annual financial statements?
The annual financial statements (Jahresabschluss) sum up a company’s financial year in figures. They consist of the balance sheet (assets and liabilities at the reporting date) and the income statement (Gewinn- und Verlustrechnung, GuV); corporations add notes, medium-sized and large ones also a management report. A parent company above a certain size additionally prepares consolidated financial statements (Konzernabschluss), which present the whole group as if it were a single company.
Who must disclose?
Under § 325 HGB, disclosure applies above all to corporations — GmbH, UG, AG and KGaA — and to partnerships without an individual as a fully liable partner, typically the GmbH & Co. KG. Sole traders and ordinary OHGs or KGs do not have to publish their accounts unless they are very large.
Since 2022, the statements are filed with the Unternehmensregister, no later than twelve months after the end of the financial year. Late filers face administrative fine proceedings by the Federal Office of Justice.
What of it is public
How much becomes visible depends on the size class:
- Micro companies may deposit their balance sheet instead of publishing it; it is then available only on request.
- Small companies disclose the balance sheet and notes, but no income statement — revenue and profit usually stay hidden.
- Medium-sized and large companies publish the full statements including the income statement and management report, audited by a statutory auditor.
The size classes depend on balance-sheet total, revenue and headcount; they are set out in the HGB and are not the same as the EU SME definition.
Getting the annual financial statements
- Official and free — search for the company in the Unternehmensregister and open the accounting documents for the financial year you need.
- With Implisense Platform — retrieve the most recently published annual or consolidated statements in the company profile, as the official PDF from the Unternehmensregister. It costs 10 Implicents and is charged only if statements are found — on both plans, the free one included.
Frequently asked questions
Why is revenue missing from some GmbHs’ statements? Small corporations do not have to disclose an income statement. Their statements show the balance sheet, but neither revenue nor annual profit in detail.
How current are published annual financial statements? The deadline is twelve months after the end of the financial year. The latest available statements therefore often describe a year that ended one to two years ago.
What is the difference between annual and consolidated statements? Annual financial statements describe a single company. Consolidated statements combine parent and subsidiaries and eliminate transactions within the group.
How Implisense helps
The company profile in Implisense Platform shows multi-year financial figures taken from the published annual financial statements — so you see the trend without opening individual PDFs. If you need the original, retrieve the statements straight from the profile, just like the shareholder list. Prices per action are on the pricing page.
Related: The Handelsregister, simply explained and Company size & the EU SME definition.