How to Write a Formal German Letter or Email (and Pass the Exam Writing Section)

A formal German email is more rule-bound than its English cousin, and that is good news for anyone sitting an exam. Where English lets you drift from "Dear Sir or Madam" to "Hi there" without much thought, German draws a hard line between formal and informal, and it expects you to hold it from the first word to the last. Learn the handful of fixed phrases that mark a letter as formal, and you have both a life skill (writing to a landlord, a Bürgeramt, a professor, an employer) and the exact thing the Goethe and telc writing sections grade you on. The overlap is not a coincidence. Those exams test formal writing because Germans actually use it.

Formal or informal: the one decision that governs everything

Before you write a single line, you decide whether the letter is formal (Sie) or informal (du). Everything else follows from that: the greeting, the closing, the pronoun for "you", and even how you capitalize.

You write formally to anyone you don't address by first name: an office, a company, a landlord, a teacher you don't know well, customer service, an authority. You write informally to friends, family, and people who have already said "du" to you. In an exam, the task tells you which one you're in. A message to Herr Ebert, your supervisor is formal. An email to your friend Anna is informal. Get this wrong and you lose marks no matter how good your grammar is, because you've misjudged the whole register.

The rest of this post is about the formal version, since that's the one people find hard and the one the exam weights most.

The anatomy of a formal German letter or email

A formal German message has a fixed skeleton. Fill in the slots and you can't go far wrong:

1. Betreff (subject line) — a short noun phrase, not a sentence. Betreff: Kündigung meines Vertrags ("cancellation of my contract"). In a physical letter this sits above the greeting; in an email it's the subject field.
2. Anrede (salutation) — the formal greeting, followed by a comma.
3. A blank line, then the body starting with a lowercase letter. This trips up every English speaker at least once. After the comma, the first word of the body is not capitalized (unless it's a noun or the formal Sie).
4. The body — your reason for writing, split into short paragraphs.
5. Grußformel (closing) — the sign-off, with no comma after it.
6. Your name.

That's it. The structure is the same whether you're writing a paper Kündigung or a two-line email to a Behörde.

Salutations: how to start a formal German email

The default formal greeting when you know the person's surname is:

• Sehr geehrte Frau Müller, (to a woman)
• Sehr geehrter Herr Schmidt, (to a man)

Note the ending changes: geehrte for Frau, geehrter for Herr. If you're writing to an office or you don't know who will read it, use:

• Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

This is the German "Dear Sir or Madam", and it's completely standard for anything addressed to an institution rather than a named person. Use it for a Bürgeramt, a bank, a company's general inbox.

There's a middle register too. Hallo Frau Müller or Guten Tag Herr Schmidt work for a semi-formal email to someone you've already been in contact with. But for a first contact, a complaint, or anything you'd want on record, stay with Sehr geehrte(r).

Closings: how to sign off

The formal closing is one phrase you should burn into memory:

• Mit freundlichen Grüßen — literally "with friendly greetings", the exact equivalent of "Yours sincerely" or "Kind regards". No comma after it. Your name goes on the next line.

Slightly warmer but still acceptable in professional contexts: Mit besten Grüßen or Freundliche Grüße. For informal letters you switch entirely: Viele Grüße, Liebe Grüße, Bis bald. Mixing these up is a classic tell. Ending a formal complaint with Liebe Grüße reads the way "xoxo" would at the bottom of a job application.

The set phrases that do the heavy lifting

German formal writing runs on Redemittel — fixed phrases you slot in. Examiners are not looking for creative prose. They're looking for the right building blocks used correctly. Memorize a small stock and you can assemble almost any formal message:

Opening (why you're writing):

• Ich schreibe Ihnen, weil… — I'm writing to you because…
• Ich wende mich an Sie, um… — I'm contacting you in order to…
• Mit großem Interesse habe ich Ihre Anzeige gelesen. — I read your advertisement with great interest. (for applications)

Making a request:

• Ich möchte Sie bitten, … — I would like to ask you to…
• Könnten Sie mir bitte mitteilen, ob… — Could you please let me know whether…
• Ich wäre Ihnen sehr dankbar, wenn… — I would be very grateful if…

Complaining or explaining a problem:

• Leider muss ich Ihnen mitteilen, dass… — Unfortunately I have to inform you that…
• Ich bin mit … nicht zufrieden. — I am not satisfied with…

Apologizing or asking understanding:

• Ich bitte um Ihr Verständnis. — I ask for your understanding.
• Bitte entschuldigen Sie… — Please excuse…

Closing the body before the sign-off:

• Ich freue mich auf Ihre Antwort. — I look forward to your reply.
• Vielen Dank im Voraus. — Thank you in advance.

Where this shows up in the Goethe and telc exams

This is not an abstract skill for the exam. It is a section of the exam.

In the Goethe-Zertifikat B2, the Schreiben module runs 75 minutes and has two tasks. Teil 1 is a forum post (an opinion piece, minimum 150 words). Teil 2 is a formal message — in the official sample set, you write to your supervisor Herr Ebert during an internship, minimum 100 words, covering four given content points. That is a formal letter, graded on exactly the conventions above plus how completely you hit each content point. If your salutation, register, and closing are right and you address all four points, you've banked most of the marks before grammar even enters into it.

At B1, the Goethe Schreiben module is 60 minutes across three shorter tasks: Teil 1 an informal email to a friend (~80 words, du), Teil 2 a forum/discussion post (~80 words), and Teil 3 a short formal message (~40 words, Sie) to something like an office or a course provider. Even at 40 words you're expected to open with Sehr geehrte…, use Sie, and close with Mit freundlichen Grüßen. telc's B1 and B2 writing tasks follow the same logic: a letter or email, formal or informal depending on the addressee, scored on whether you match the register and complete the task.

A worked skeleton you can reuse under exam pressure

Here's a formal complaint email built from the parts above. Swap the details and it fits almost any B1/B2 formal task:

Betreff: Beschwerde über meinen Deutschkurs

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

ich habe im September einen Deutschkurs bei Ihnen gebucht. Leider muss ich Ihnen mitteilen, dass der Unterricht mehrmals ausgefallen ist.

Ich möchte Sie bitten, mir die versäumten Stunden zu ersetzen oder einen Teil der Gebühr zurückzuerstatten. Ich wäre Ihnen sehr dankbar, wenn Sie mir bis Ende der Woche antworten könnten.

Vielen Dank im Voraus.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen Maria Santos

Notice how little of it is invented. The greeting, the Leider muss ich…, the Ich möchte Sie bitten…, the Vielen Dank im Voraus, the closing — all Redemittel. The only original content is the specific complaint. That's the trick: assemble the frame from memorized parts, and spend your thinking time on the content points, not on how to say hello.

The mistakes to stop making

• Capitalizing after the salutation comma. Sehr geehrte Frau Müller, is followed by a lowercase word.
• Writing informal du to a formal addressee. A landlord, an office, a supervisor you don't first-name: always Sie.
• Comma after the closing. German puts no comma after Mit freundlichen Grüßen.
• Literal "Dear" as Lieb- for formal contexts. Use Sehr geehrte(r).
• Word count neglect. Under the target and you're marked down for an incomplete task; wildly over and you waste time you needed for accuracy.

For a fuller list of the false-friend and register traps English speakers carry into German, see common German mistakes English speakers make. And because half of a passing formal letter is getting the verb in the right place, it's worth being solid on German word order before you sit the writing section.

Practice against the real prompts

You can rehearse this to the point where the formal frame is automatic, and the best material to rehearse against is the exam's own. The Goethe practice sets (Modellsatz / Übungssatz) give you the exact writing tasks you'll face, with the model answers and grading criteria attached, so you can check your formal letter against what markers actually reward.

Goethe-Institut: B2 Exam Training

The official free practice area for the Goethe-Zertifikat B2. It includes the full sample exam (Modellsatz), which contains the formal-message writing task (Teil 2) with model answers and the grading criteria. Practice writing your formal letters against these real prompts, not third-party approximations.

For free graded practice at other levels, Deutsche Welle's Nicos Weg and its writing exercises build the everyday-German base that formal letters sit on top of, and if you want to see the speaking half of the same exam, we walk through what actually happens in the Goethe B2 speaking exam.

Write ten formal messages using the skeleton above, each hitting its content points and holding Sie from greeting to sign-off, and the writing section stops being the part you dread. It becomes the part you can predict.