A letter from the Jobcenter, an appointment on Tuesday at nine – and then your child is ill, the bus doesn’t come, or the envelope sits unopened for weeks. Since 1 July 2026, when Bürgergeld became the Neue Grundsicherung, missing an appointment has harsher consequences than before. Know the steps and you can avoid them.
The rule comes in three stages. Miss the first appointment and nothing is cut, but the Jobcenter must hear your side and record it. Miss a second one in a row without a good reason and your Regelbedarf is cut by 30 per cent for one month – on the 2026 standard rate of €563 that is €168.90, leaving €394.10. Housing costs are not touched. For comparison, until the end of June a missed appointment cost 10 per cent for one month.
The third appointment is the dangerous one
Miss a third in a row and, after a hearing, the Jobcenter declares you unreachable. The following month your Regelbedarf stops; rent and recognised extra needs continue at first, with the rent paid directly to the landlord. If nothing would be paid out, the office grants €1 so that health and care insurance cover continues.
What matters most is the month after that. If you do not report in person to the Jobcenter during this “plus one” month, your entire entitlement lapses – housing costs and insurance contributions included – generally until the end of the approval period. In person means visiting during opening hours. According to gegen-hartz.de, a phone call, an email or an upload to the online portal does not count. The “plus one” is not a fourth appointment but an extra calendar month.
What you can do now
A “good reason” breaks the chain: a job interview, a verifiable public-transport failure, illness with a medical note. Cancel before the appointment and document the reason in writing. The Wuppertal Jobcenter’s internal guidance also lists safeguards: people with poor German or limited writing skills are entitled to an in-person rather than written hearing, and households with children under 15 are generally presumed to meet the exceptional-hardship test, so non-reachability should not be declared.
If you missed appointments earlier, note that the counter was reset on 30 June. Earlier misses do not count as the first stage under the new rules, though reductions already imposed stand. You can lodge an objection (Widerspruch) within one month; it does not automatically suspend the cut.
Our assessment: the new ladder penalises mainly those who do not read their post or get in touch. For newcomers with a language barrier, the risk lies less in ill will than in overlooked letters. If you are unsure what a letter means, show it the same day to a migration advice service or at the Jobcenter reception. On housing costs within the same system, see our piece Jobcenter rent gap: who paid extra in 2025. This is not legal advice.
Sources: Bundesregierung, Jobcenter Wuppertal, gegen-hartz.de, gegen-hartz.de (transition)
