What qualifies as a "visitor" or "guest" to my apartment?

The 6-8 weeks is generally consecutive, not per year, but German rental law doesn't have a hard number written down. Most landlords and courts consider anything over 6 weeks as establishing a "Dauerwohnrecht" which gives the guest tenant-like protections.

You should tell your landlord if the friend is staying more than 4 weeks total, even if they keep their other registration. If you don't, it could be considered a breach of your contract if your landlord finds out from the Hausverwaltung or neighbors.

If your friend reimburses you without a contract, that's legally a "Gefälligkeitszahlung" and fine for short stays, but for regular 2-week visits each month it looks like a rental relationship to the landlord. A proper Untermietvertrag makes everything clean and protects both of you.

For the contract type, you want a "Zeitmietvertrag für Untermiete" rather than a generic roommate agreement. That way you get the deposit handled properly and the exact dates are written down. It also makes it clear your friend is a subtenant with limited rights, not a permanent co-tenant who could refuse to leave.

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yeah the 6-8 weeks thing is per stay, not per year, so if your friend is here 1-2 weeks every month that's basically half the year and definitely not a visitor situation anymore. most landlords in berlin have a clause in the contract about long-term guests, and regular monthly visits will count as that pretty quickly.

for the money thing, honestly if you want to keep it above board you should talk to your landlord. berlin landlords can be weird about this but many are fine with a sublet if you frame it right. a proper untermietvertrag is the way to go, it protects both of you and makes it clear your friend isn't a permanent tenant. just check your lease first for any verbot of subletting.

the difference between "mitbewohner" and "untermieter" is mostly legal - as a roommate they'd have the same rights as you which could get messy if things go south. subtenant is cleaner, they're renting from you not the landlord. also your friend already has their anmeldung sorted so that simplifies things a lot, you don't have to deal with the bürgeramt headache

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The 6-8 week rule is about consecutive stays, not cumulative over a year. So if your friend is here for two weeks at a time with gaps in between, that's fine as long as each individual stay doesn't stretch past that window. Landlords in Berlin usually care about someone establishing residency and getting Anmeldung, which your friend already has elsewhere, so you're in a better spot.

You don't technically have to tell your landlord for short-term guests, but if your friend is here for a full week or two every month, that starts to look less like a visitor and more like a regular occupant. Some landlords in Berlin are strict about this, especially with the newer contracts that have a Zweckentfremdungsverbot clause. If you want to take money from your friend, you should absolutely get written permission first, because accepting rent without a proper sublease agreement can be grounds for a Kündigung.

A sublease (Untermietvertrag) is the cleaner option here. It makes it clear that your friend is a temporary tenant with defined rights and you're the Hauptmieter. Calling them a roommate in a contract can blur things legally and might give them more protections than either of you want. Just keep the sublease specific to the dates they're actually staying, and don't try to cover the whole month if they're only there half of it.

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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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