The End of Registered Letterbox Delivery? No Prima Facie Evidence of Actual Receipt

In practice, registered letterbox delivery had long been regarded as a convenient and comparatively cost-effective means of serving important correspondence—particularly notices of termination—in a legally secure manner. The Hamburg Higher Labor Court rejected this view in its judgment of July 14, 2025 (Case No. 4 SLa 26/24). The Federal Labor Court dismissed the appeal against that judgment by decision of May 7, 2026 (Case No. 2 AZR 184/25). Although the reasons for the decision have not yet been published, there are strong indications that the Federal Labor Court has endorsed the Hamburg Higher Labor Court’s approach and no longer regards registered letterbox delivery as a legally secure method of service.

In the case at hand, the Hamburg Higher Labor Court had to decide on the validity of a termination for illness-related reasons. The decisive issue was whether the employer had properly fulfilled its obligation to carry out company integration management (betriebliches Eingliederungsmanagement, bEM) before issuing the notice of termination. The employer asserted that it had sent the employee an invitation to participate in bEM by registered letterbox delivery; the employee, however, disputed receipt. To prove receipt, the employer submitted the posting receipt, a reproduction of the delivery receipt, and the tracking number to the court, arguing that prima facie evidence supported receipt of the invitation.

The Hamburg Higher Labor Court—now confirmed by the Federal Labor Court—rejected the application of prima facie evidence. Prima facie evidence requires a typical course of events. It applies in cases where a specific set of facts has been established which, according to general experience, indicates a particular cause or a particular sequence of events as decisive for the occurrence of a specific outcome.

According to the court, however, this requirement is not met in the case of registered letterbox delivery. The decisive factor is the now digitized delivery process: unlike the former so-called “peel-off label” procedure, delivery personnel today scan the registration number of the registered item, sign on the input field of the scanner, and thereby electronically confirm the scanning process. The actual delivery is therefore documented before the item is physically placed in the mailbox. In addition, the digital proof of delivery contains no specific information regarding the address or time of delivery. As a result, there is no individualized documentation of the actual deposit into the mailbox.

Although, under Deutsche Post’s requirements, delivery personnel must verify before depositing the item that the recipient’s name appears on the relevant mailbox, the court held that, due to the digitized procedure, the likelihood of proper delivery depends materially on the diligence of the individual delivery person and on the specific circumstances at the delivery location—for example, where several mailboxes are located next to one another or where distractions occur during delivery. Against this background, the required typicality of the course of events is lacking.

In the specific case, the termination therefore failed for lack of proportionality. Because the employer was unable to prove receipt of the bEM invitation, an increased burden of substantiation applied to the employer. The employer would have had to set out in detail that even the implementation of bEM could not have prevented the termination. In the case at hand, the employer failed to satisfy these requirements. The termination was therefore invalid.

Registered letterbox delivery can no longer be regarded as a legally secure method of service. In cases where personal handover is not possible, employers should in future use a reliable courier service when serving “important” declarations, such as notices of termination or bEM invitation letters, in order to avoid jeopardizing the effectiveness of a termination due to issues of service.