DIN 5008 Cover Letter Format: The German Business-Letter Standard

DIN 5008 is the German standard for business correspondence. It isn’t mandatory for applications — but in conservative industries (public sector, banking, industrial Mittelstand) a standard-conforming letter reads as a sign of care, and deviations are noticed precisely by the readers who care.

The key measurements

• Margins: left 2.5 cm, right at least 2 cm (2.5 recommended), top 4.5 cm for the letterhead, bottom at least 2.5 cm.
• Font: a readable standard face at 11–12 pt.
• One page. A cover letter that spills onto page two is too long, norm or no norm.

The structure, top to bottom

1. Sender — name, address, phone, email.
2. Address block — company, a named contact person, address.
3. Date — right-aligned and current: the day the application actually goes out (a stale date betrays recycling).
4. Subject line — bold, without the word “Betreff”: Bewerbung als Senior Controller, Referenz 2026-114.
5. Salutation — “Sehr geehrte Frau …” / “Sehr geehrter Herr …”. Finding the actual person is part of the exercise; “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren” is the last resort.
6. Body — three to five paragraphs: an opening tied to the role, your value proposition with evidence, practicalities (start date, salary expectation if asked).
7. Closing + signature — “Mit freundlichen Grüßen”, signature beneath (digitally: scanned or a clean script).
8. Enclosures note — optional: “Anlagen: Lebenslauf, Zeugnisse”.

The most common violations

A missing or stale date, no named contact person, subject lines prefixed “Betreff:”, and justified text with bad hyphenation — left-aligned ragged text is the safe choice.

How Zusaga helps

Zusaga ships a DIN 5008 cover-letter template: margins, address block, date and subject sit where the norm puts them, and the text comes from the generator — matched to the job and your resume, never inventing facts — and stays editable paragraph by paragraph:

Before you send, the readiness check reviews both documents against the role: