Double tax?

yeah the tourist thing is a common misconception, i get why u think that. but honestly if u anmeldung your apartment, which u basically have to do within 14 days, the Finanzamt will know u're here. and once u're registered, they treat u as tax resident from day one if your "Lebensmittelpunkt" is here, which it will be with your girlfriend.

one thing nobody mentioned yet: check if your home country has a DBA (Doppelbesteuerungsabkommen) with Germany. if it does, u might still owe taxes at home, but Germany gives u a credit for what u paid here, or vice versa. but u can't just claim tourist status to skip both. that's how u end up with a fine and back taxes later.

for the remote work part, if ur employer doesn't have a German branch, u'll likely have to register as a freelancer (Freiberufler) or use an Employer of Record. it's annoying but it's the legal way. a Steuerberater can sort this out for maybe 100-150 euros for a first consult, which is way cheaper than the mess of doing it wrong. also, u might be able to claim a "Steuerfreibetrag" on ur foreign income if u file the right form, but that's case by case.

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The "tourist" angle is a trap, honestly. German tax residency kicks in after 183 days in the country, but the Finanzamt can also claim you're tax resident from day one if your center of life is here, which it will be once you're living with your girlfriend and renting a place. Working remotely for a foreign employer while sitting in Berlin usually means Germany taxes that income, regardless of where the company is based, because the work is physically performed here.

The double taxation thing is mostly solved by the tax treaty between Germany and your home country, but you can't just pick one side. You'll likely need to register your address (Anmeldung) within two weeks of moving, and that automatically puts you in the German system for tax purposes. Before you move, check if your home country has a treaty that lets you file a certificate of residency there, but even then, Germany will want its share once you're here long-term.

A practical move is to talk to a Steuerberater before you arrive, even a quick consultation, because they can tell you exactly what forms to file in your specific case. Also, if your employer doesn't have a German entity, you might end up needing to register as a freelancer or via a payroll service like an Employer of Record, otherwise you risk fines for undeclared work. Don't assume you can stay under the radar as a tourist; that's the fastest way to get a nasty surprise later.

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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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