How long am I allowed to sublet for?

A lot of good points already, but one thing nobody mentioned is that your landlord's permission can be conditional. They might say yes to subletting but require you to name the specific person in advance and get them approved. If you're gone for years and your subtenant moves out, you'd need to go through that whole process again with a new person, which the landlord could refuse.

Also keep in mind that your own rent can only go up a certain amount during a sublet, usually by the operating costs increase. But if you're subletting furnished and charging more than your own warm rent, the difference is taxable income in Germany. Finanzamt doesn't always check, but if you're registered here and filing taxes, that extra money needs to appear somewhere.

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The legal limit in Berlin is essentially tied to whether the apartment stays your primary residence. If you're gone for more than 12 months straight, the landlord can argue you've moved out and terminate the lease, even if they agreed to the sublet initially. The subtenant also builds up protections under German law after about 12 months, which means they'd need a three month notice period and the landlord can't just evict them without cause.

One thing people don't always consider is your own liability. If your subtenant stops paying rent or damages the place, you're still on the hook with the landlord, not them. So for a 4 year PhD, I'd do a shorter sublet agreement with a fixed end date and revisit it when you're back, rather than leaving it open ended. The Zweckentfremdungsverbot is real in places like Prenzlauer Berg or Kreuzberg, but it's more about turning the whole flat into a short term rental rather than a long term sublet for a specific person.

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i've had friends run into issues with the "zweckentfremdungsverbot" here in berlin - if you're subletting the whole place for years and not living there yourself, the bezirksamt might come after you for using the apartment as a commercial rental. it's mostly enforced in popular districts like mitte or friedrichshain, but they can fine you up to 50k if they decide it's not a real sublet anymore.

the safest move is to keep your own bedroom locked and only sublet the other rooms, or come back for a month every year to break the continuous absence. makes it harder for anyone to argue you've given up the place

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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