Hardship

As a producer of batteries or electrical and electronic equipment or authorised representative or agent that is registered or with an obligation to register, it may be possible for you to be exempt from individual fees incurred in connection to a registration subject to a so called hardship application partially or completely.

► Important: Exemption from the obligation to register according to BattG and ElektroG or the obligation to submit proof of insolvency safe guarantee to finance the disposal of privately usable electrical and electronic equipment is not possible pursuant to a hardship application.

The statutory limitation period within which a large or small hardship application can be submitted is three months from announcement of a fee notification (§ 2 paragraph 3 ElektroGBattGGebV). If you submit the application

• parallel to a registration application or an application for guarantee or prima facie evidence examination, then in general no fee notification will be issued until the hardship application has been decided upon.
• after the fee notification has been issued you must pay the fee at first. After the application has been decided upon positively, the amounts that are affected by the exemption will, of course, be reimbursed. 

Until the 31st December 2021 the fee regulation for ElektroG and BattG (ElektroGBattGGebV) offered the option to be exempt from the charges for checking proof of guarantee or prima facie evidence according to ElektroG due to a so-called small hardship application. Small hardship applications that were submitted by the latest 31st December 2021 will still be processed as soon as the decision can be made and can be accessed in the ear-portal. But new applications cannot be submitted since 1st of January 2022.