BAG: Protection Renews With Each Leave Block

Germany’s Federal Labor Court rejected an employer’s appeal: if you split your Elternzeit (parental leave) into several blocks, you’re protected from dismissal for eight weeks before each block starts - not just the first one. The BAG’s written reasoning is not yet available.

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Dismissal Protection Applies Before Every Single Leave Block

Germany’s Federal Labor Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG) rejected the employer’s appeal. This confirms the lower court’s ruling: special dismissal protection before parental leave (Elternzeit) doesn’t just apply once - it applies again before each individual block, if the leave was split into several blocks from the start. In Germany, Elternzeit is unpaid, job-protected leave that either parent can take to care for a young child; employees are legally allowed to split it into up to three separate blocks instead of taking it all at once. For employees, this means a dismissal issued within the last eight weeks before any of these planned blocks is invalid, not just before the very first one. The decision was issued on 17.06.2026 (BAG, case 2 AZR 213/25); the lower court was the Landesarbeitsgericht Hamm (case 11 SLa 394/25). The BAG’s written reasoning is not yet available.

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Leave Split Into Four Separate Blocks

The BAG’s written reasoning is not yet available. The lower court found out the following facts: A technician split his Elternzeit into four separate blocks and informed his employer of all of them in a single written request in advance. Shortly before his second block was due to start, while he was still in his probationary period, he received a dismissal notice. He argued that the statutory eight-week protection period (a window before parental leave begins during which dismissal is barred) also applied before this second block. The employer, however, took the position that this special protection only applied once, before the very first block.