Employment Law2026-10-10

My employer doubts my sick note – can they stop my sick pay?

Your employer has stopped paying despite your sick note? I explain when that is lawful, when it is not, and how to enforce your right to continued pay during illness.

You are off sick and you handed in your medical certificate on time. Even so, at the end of the month your salary does not arrive, or only part of it does. Your employer says they simply do not believe you are ill. Are they even allowed to do that? And what can you do about it?

In short

A medical certificate submitted in the proper form carries considerable evidential weight. Your employer cannot therefore stop paying you on nothing more than a hunch. They have to put forward specific facts in order to undermine that evidential weight, and those facts must give rise to serious doubts about whether the certificate is correct. If they manage this, the burden of proof shifts. You then have to prove your incapacity for work by other means, for example through the evidence of your treating doctor. What the law does not give your employer is a free-standing, no-strings right to stop paying simply because they doubt that you are genuinely ill.

How I can help you

Assessing whether the doubts your employer has raised are enough to undermine the evidential weight of your sick note
Enforcing the continued pay that has been withheld, both out of court and, if need be, before the employment tribunal
Advising you on whether, and how far, you should release your doctor from their duty of confidentiality
Supporting you through an assessment by the Medical Service and giving you a realistic view of the prospects
Checking the time-bar clauses in your employment contract or collective agreement before your claim lapses

The evidential weight of a sick note – and its limits

In legal terms, your doctor’s certificate is more than a piece of paperwork. In a dispute it counts as strong evidence that you were in fact unfit for work through illness. In practice this means that an employment tribunal will, as a starting point, treat it as correct – and it will go on doing so for as long as the employer brings nothing concrete against it.

That evidential weight is not, however, untouchable. It can be undermined. To do that, the employer has to set out facts which, viewed sensibly, give rise to serious doubts about whether the certificate is correct. Mere suspicion, a strained relationship or a comment along the lines of “that simply can’t be right” will not do. The circumstances have to be intelligible and capable of being checked. The employer has to name them, not just allege them.

When the employer genuinely does not have to pay: section 7 EntgFG

This is where two quite different questions part ways – questions that are often run together in practice.

Under section 7 EntgFG, your employer does have an express statutory right to refuse payment – but only in the cases the statute lists exhaustively. Where the certificate is concerned, there are two. They may withhold payment for as long as you have not produced the certificate required under section 5(1) EntgFG. The same applies for as long as you are in breach of your duty to notify them under section 5(2) EntgFG where you fall ill abroad. That right falls away again where the breach of duty is not your fault.

If, on the other hand, the employer disputes the content of a properly submitted certificate, section 7 EntgFG does not bite. In that case their position is that you were never really ill at all. For that situation there is no separate statutory “stop button”. If the employer withholds payment here regardless, they are taking a risk. Their doubts may not be enough in court to undermine the evidential weight of the certificate – in which case they will have to pay up, usually with interest for late payment.

Since 2023 there is a further point for those with statutory health insurance: as a rule, you no longer have to hand the certificate to your employer yourself. Your doctor transmits the incapacity for work electronically to your health insurer, and the data is then available there for your employer to retrieve. A formal “no certificate was produced” objection under section 7 EntgFG therefore succeeds less often than it once did. As a result, the substantive dispute over whether the evidential weight has been undermined tends to matter more.

What typically undermines the evidential weight

In cases like these, employment tribunals look at the overall picture. Typical situations in which doubts can arise include the following:

The sickness absence begins immediately after an argument with the employer, a refused holiday request or a dismissal that has just been given.
The certified duration of the incapacity coincides strikingly precisely with the end of a notice period or a fixed-term contract.
The employee can be shown to have behaved, during the sickness absence, in a way that is inconsistent with the illness they have reported.
There are indications that the certificate was issued without any personal examination.

None of these points is automatically enough on its own. It always comes down to the specific circumstances of the individual case, and the employer has to prove them, not merely assume them.

When it comes to a dispute: burden of proof, confidentiality, Medical Service assessment

If the employer does manage to undermine the certificate, you have to respond. It is then for you to prove your incapacity for work by other means. In practice this usually means releasing your treating doctor from their duty of medical confidentiality. Only then can the doctor give evidence as a witness in the proceedings about the specific findings and diagnosis. This is not something you should do unexamined and across the board, but in a targeted way, limited to what is necessary. A full, blanket release discloses more than the particular dispute requires.

Alongside this, your employer may ask your health insurer to obtain an expert opinion from the Medical Service (section 275(1a) SGB V). The statute names, as typical grounds for such doubts, among other things an incapacity for work that is strikingly frequent or strikingly short. It also includes sickness absence that frequently begins on a working day at the start or end of the week. Just as striking is a doctor who stands out through the sheer frequency of their certificates. The health insurer must then arrange the assessment without delay. It may, however, dispense with it where the medical requirements are already clearly apparent from the documents in front of it. The outcome of such an assessment does not directly bind the employment tribunal. In practice, though, it is treated as a weighty indication.

A typical case from my practice

An employee turns down her employer’s request that she take holiday, because she has a pressing private appointment. The employer reacts badly. Two days later she calls in sick. Her certificate runs exactly up to the end of the holiday originally planned. The employer stops paying and points to the “too convenient” timing. In a case like this, everything turns on whether the employer can bring forward further solid circumstances beyond the timing itself. On the principles set out above, the timing alone is, as a rule, not enough. Combined with other striking features, however, it may well be sufficient.

Common mistakes

Staying silent instead of responding: Simply accepting the withheld payment lets deadlines slip by – and they often cannot be put right afterwards.
Supplying documents late or not at all: If a further certificate or some other proof is requested, you should respond promptly. Otherwise the formal objection under section 7 EntgFG revives.
A blanket release from confidentiality: A release signed without thought, drawn too widely, gives the employer more insight than the dispute requires.
Overlooking time-bar clauses: Many employment contracts and collective agreements contain short time-bar clauses that bite well before the statutory limitation period. Wait too long and you lose the claim – however strong your position is on the merits.
Going into the Medical Service appointment unprepared: If you do not understand the purpose of the assessment, you hand over unnecessary ammunition. The same is true if it is unclear what actually matters there.

Your next step

If, on top of the pay, you are also facing dismissal in this situation – or a dismissal has already been given – you should not treat the two things in isolation. I will check for you whether the doubts about your sick note really hold up. I will enforce the continued pay that has been withheld. And I will look at how far you genuinely need to reckon with a possible dismissal during illness. Get in touch for an initial consultation before any deadlines pass.

Frequently asked questions

Can my employer send me to the Medical Service?

The employer cannot order this themselves. They can, however, ask your health insurer to obtain an assessment by the Medical Service under section 275(1a) SGB V. It is then for the health insurer to decide whether and how that assessment is carried out.

Do I have to release my doctor from the duty of confidentiality?

There is no statutory obligation to do so. But if you refuse to release your doctor entirely, you will often be left without the single most important piece of evidence for your incapacity for work in a dispute. That is especially so once the employer has undermined the evidential weight of the certificate. What usually makes sense is a targeted release, limited to the particular point in dispute.

What happens if the Medical Service reaches a different conclusion from my GP?

The Medical Service’s opinion is a weighty indication, but in a dispute over continued pay it does not automatically bind the employment tribunal. It goes into the overall assessment as one piece of evidence alongside others.

Can my employer also dismiss me because of the doubts about my sick note?

In legal terms that is a separate step, with its own requirements, which stands alongside the question of continued pay. If this suspicion applies in your case, you should have it looked at separately and promptly.

How long can I wait before I have to bring a claim for the withheld payment?

That depends on your employment contract or collective agreement. If it contains a time-bar clause, you often have to assert your claim in writing within just a few months. Otherwise it lapses, regardless of the statutory limitation period. Check this early on.

This article provides general information and is no substitute for legal advice in an individual case. Last updated: 2026-10-10.

Christian Czirnich, Rechtsanwalt (attorney at law), Kirchseeon near Munich

Tell me why your employer stopped paying – I will look into it.

I read every message myself and usually reply on the next working day. What you write to me is covered by legal professional privilege from the first word, even if no engagement comes about. The initial assessment is free of charge.