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Can you sit on a board there?
Pick a market. You get the residency test, the nationality test, the work-authorisation position, the appointment steps in order, and the frictions that actually delay appointments — each cited to the instrument that creates it.
Choose a market
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Open to foreign directorsDE
No nationality or residency test applies to a supervisory board member. The barriers are structural — co-determination, the mandate cap and German-language board process — not legal.
- Residency test
- None.
- Nationality test
- None.
- Work authorisation
- A supervisory board member attending meetings does not require a residence permit. A management-board (Vorstand) appointment for a non-EU national does, and is a substantially heavier process.
- Board language
- Co-determined supervisory boards work in German, because the employee representatives do.
- Tenure limit once appointed
- No statutory cap. The Code recommends that the supervisory board decide, and disclose, how many of its shareholder representatives it considers independent, and treats more than twelve years' service as an indicator to be addressed.
- Time commitment
- Typically 4–6 supervisory board meetings a year, with audit committees meeting more often and a heavier reading load than a unitary-board seat implies.
- What a seat pays
- €70,000 – €150,000 a year for an ordinary supervisory board member of a DAX or MDAX company, with the chair typically at two to three times that.
- Tax on your fees
- Supervisory board fees are subject to German withholding for non-resident members, and are treated as consideration for a supply for German VAT purposes in defined circumstances — take advice before invoicing.
The appointment steps, in order
- 1Election by the general meeting, or court appointment where a seat must be filled between meetings under AktG § 104
- 2Confirm you are within the ten-mandate cap in AktG § 100(2), counting chairmanships double
- 3Commercial register notification of the supervisory board's composition
- 4For a bank or insurer, BaFin assesses fitness and propriety and must be notified before the appointment takes effect
What actually gets in the way
- Supervisory board meetings and minutes are usually in German, and co-determined boards almost always are, because the employee side works in German
- The ten-mandate cap under § 100(2) counts chairmanships twice and constrains a director building a large portfolio
- Supervisory board members carry personal liability under AktG § 116 with a standard the courts have applied strictly
The instruments behind these answers
- Aktiengesetz (Stock Corporation Act) § 111 — The supervisory board monitors the management board, and certain classes of transaction may be made subject to its consent. It is a supervisory instrument, not an advisory one. (Federal Republic of Germany)
- Aktiengesetz § 100(2) and § 100(5) — A person may hold no more than ten supervisory board mandates in listed companies. The audit committee of a public-interest entity must include at least one member with expertise in accounting and at least one with expertise in auditing. (Federal Republic of Germany)
- Mitbestimmungsgesetz 1976 and Drittelbeteiligungsgesetz 2004 — Employee representatives occupy half the supervisory board in companies with more than 2,000 employees, and one-third in companies with more than 500. The chair, elected by the shareholder side, holds a casting vote in the parity model. (Federal Republic of Germany)
- Aktiengesetz § 96(2)–(3) — The supervisory board of a listed and parity co-determined company must be composed of at least 30% women and at least 30% men. Management boards of such companies with more than three members must include at least one woman and one man. (Federal Republic of Germany)
- Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex — Comply-or-explain recommendations on independence, competence profiles, qualification matrices and supervisory-board effectiveness, declared annually under AktG § 161. (Government Commission on the German Corporate Governance Code)
Reviewed against primary sources in August 2026. This is governance decision-support, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and transitional provisions frequently apply — verify against the primary instrument before you rely on it.
Eligibility is only the first question
Being allowed to sit on a board there is not the same as being read for one.
The mobility index answers the second question: whether your record is legible to a board in that market, whether you hold what it is currently short of, and whether you can do the job in the language its board works in.