🏦 Foreign Brokers and the Bundesbank Reporting Duty

What traders in Germany have to report to the Bundesbank when trading through a foreign broker such as tastytrade: threshold, exceptions, open questions

In this Chapter

1 🏦 In Short: What You Have to Report 2 📮 Who Reports and How 3 ⚠️ What the Sources Do Not Settle 4 🛡️ Consequences and Practice

1. 🏦 In Short: What You Have to Report

If you live in Germany and trade with a broker abroad, you have to deal with the Bundesbank, even as a private individual. tastytrade is a US broker, so for you it counts as a “non-resident” under the German Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (AWV). There is no report “for trades above a certain amount”, though. What matters are individual payments between you and abroad.

Transaction	Reportable?	Certainty
A single transfer above €50,000 to your tastytrade account or back from it	Candidate for a report. Two guides name pure transfers between your own accounts as an exception; a third contradicts itself on this.	Threshold documented, exception uncertain
Transfers up to €50,000	No (threshold since 1 Jan 2025, before that €12,500)	documented
Buying and selling shares or options in the tastytrade account	One guide names form ZABILC2 (formerly Z10). When it applies if no money crosses the border is unclear.	unclear
Dividends and interest from abroad	Possibly reportable without any amount threshold (securities income)	from one guide only
Option premiums and fees	Not named as a reportable payment type in any source found	not documented
Reporting your account balance regularly	Not documented for private individuals	not documented

Important: You file the report yourself. sTraderZ.com does not report anything to the Bundesbank and cannot take the obligation off you. You find the amounts and dates of your deposits and withdrawals in the statements of your German bank account and at tastytrade.

2. 📮 Who Reports and How

Who: Anyone with a residence or habitual abode in Germany. Nationality does not matter.
What: Incoming and outgoing payments between residents and non-residents above €50,000 or the equivalent in another currency.
When: In the month the payment is received or made. The exact filing deadline is contradictory in the sources (see below).
How: As a private individual you can file occasional reports with the Bundesbank by e-mail or phone. If you have to report regularly, you apply for a reporting number and use the Allgemeines Meldeportal Statistik (AMS).
Details required: Purpose of the payment, direction (incoming or outgoing), amount in euro, month and year, and the counterparty’s country.

The Bundesbank explains this on its page Zahlungsmeldungen von Privatpersonen (in German).

ℹ️ Notice from your bank: When you transfer money abroad, your German bank often shows an AWV notice. It is a notice, not a report. The bank reports nothing for you, and the notice does not mean you have to report.

3. ⚠️ What the Sources Do Not Settle

The sources contradict each other on three points. For these, do not rely on this chapter, but on the Bundesbank’s answer:

Question	What the sources say
Per payment or added up?	One guide (2026): per single payment, three transfers of €30,000 each trigger nothing. An older guide (2021, still with the €12,500 threshold): splitting to avoid reporting is not permitted. The Bundesbank page says nothing on this. Do not deliberately split large amounts.
Deadline	Either the 5th or 7th calendar day of the following month, or the 7th working day after month end (§ 71 AWV). Both cannot be right.
Securities trades in a foreign account	Whether and when purchases and sales without money crossing the border must be reported stays open. Only one guide covers them, and it contradicts itself on interest.

Your way to certainty: Call the Bundesbank service hotline. It is set up for private individuals; the number is on the page linked above. Describe your case there (US broker, deposits, options trading, dividends) and ask for the deadline.

4. 🛡️ Consequences and Practice

Fine: Failing to report is an administrative offence, according to two guides punishable by up to €30,000 (§ 19 para. 6 AWG). The main customs office enforces it.
Voluntary disclosure: For a negligent omission that you notice yourself and avoid in future, § 22 para. 4 AWG provides, according to one guide, that prosecution is waived. That is one guide’s reading, not a promise.
Not a tax return: The report to the Bundesbank neither replaces nor is linked to your tax return. It serves the balance-of-payments statistics.

In practice for tastytrade users:

If you plan a single transfer above €50,000, ask the Bundesbank beforehand whether and how you have to report.
Keep date, amount and counterparty of every deposit and withdrawal, for example through your bank statements.
Clarify the dividend question with the Bundesbank once, before the first year with dividends ends.

Research as of 11 Nov 2026. The text of the AWV itself was not reviewed; the information rests on the Bundesbank page, the Börsen-Zeitung and three guides. This chapter is not legal advice.