Germany unveiled a draft bill to expand the BEPS MLI to additional tax treaties.
The German Ministry of Finance has released a draft bill titled Act Amending the Act on the Multilateral Convention of 24 November 2016 to Implement Tax Treaty-Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS MLI) on 9 October 2025, intending to expand the list of tax treaties covered by the BEPS MLI.
The BEPS MLI, adopted in 2016 under the OECD/G20 BEPS Project, was designed to address harmful tax practices and aggressive tax planning through coordinated treaty-based measures. Germany implements the BEPS MLI in two phases: first by adopting an enabling act and then through a subsequent application act.
The current legislation, enacted on 22 November 2020, applied the MLI to 14 tax treaties. The new draft bill would extend this coverage to 62 additional tax treaties that have not yet met the BEPS minimum standard. The selection criteria and reservations made in the 2020 act will generally continue to apply to these newly added treaties.
The expansion will not automatically bring the MLI provisions into effect for the additional treaties. Each treaty must first be designated by both Germany and its treaty partner as a covered agreement under the MLI framework. Subsequently, the BEPS MLI Application Act (Federal Law Gazette 2024 I No. 205) will require amendment to reflect the resulting modifications. Finally, Germany must submit a formal notification to the OECD confirming that all domestic procedures necessary for the MLI to take effect have been completed.
Germany’s approach aims to extend the multilateral implementation of BEPS measures across its treaty network while retaining the ability to negotiate bilateral updates to ensure compliance with the BEPS minimum standards.
