Since 2020 electronic tills in Germany have needed a certified TSE, and since 2025 they must be reported to the tax office. Here is what that means for your business, and why LEVIAPAY leaves you nothing to actively manage.
A technische Sicherheitseinrichtung, or TSE, is a certified security module for electronic POS systems. It signs every transaction cryptographically: as soon as a sale begins, the TSE issues a sequential transaction number, a timestamp and a digital signature. When the sale is completed it signs again. The result is a closed chain across every booking. If a booking is deleted, altered or inserted after the fact, that chain no longer adds up — and that is exactly what an auditor sees first.
The TSE does not replace proper bookkeeping; it makes it provable. The signature data appears on every receipt, and the full log of all transactions sits in the till journal. For the tax office, the TSE is the technical evidence that your records are complete and unaltered. For you it should be invisible: it runs in the background, signs every booking automatically and does not slow the checkout down. If you never notice your TSE during service, that is a good sign.
Since 2020 the Kassensicherungsverordnung (KassenSichV, the German cash register security ordinance) has required a certified TSE for electronic POS systems. That covers practically every business using an electronic till: hospitality, retail, hair and beauty, gyms, service providers, events and hotels. What matters is not your industry or your size but the type of till. If you take payments electronically, you need a TSE. That applies to a classic register just as much as to a till app on an iPhone.
One exception is the offene Ladenkasse — taking cash entirely without an electronic system. It is generally not subject to the TSE requirement, but it carries its own record-keeping duties and is considered particularly error-prone during audits, because every single item of income has to be documented individually and verifiably. Whether an open cash drawer is even an option for your business is best discussed with your tax advisor. For most businesses, an electronic till with a built-in TSE is the cleaner and, day to day, considerably simpler route.
A hardware TSE sits directly in the till as a USB stick or SD card. It works, but it has noticeable drawbacks in practice: every single till needs its own module, the TSE certificate expires after a few years and has to be replaced at a cost, and a faulty or lost stick can disrupt trading. Run several tills or several sites and you are managing that many modules with different remaining lifetimes, planning each replacement in good time.
A cloud TSE moves the signing into a data centre. The till sends each transaction to the TSE, the signature comes back and is stored alongside the booking. You need no extra device, no certificate maintenance and no module per till. Several tills, several locations, several iPhones: all of it runs through the same infrastructure, and new devices are ready to use without procuring anything.
That is why LEVIAPAY uses a built-in cloud TSE. It is a fixed part of the system, not an accessory you have to remember, order or swap out.
Since 2020 Germany has had the Belegausgabepflicht, the receipt obligation: a receipt must be produced for every transaction at an electronic till and offered to the customer. Whether the customer takes it is up to them. Offering it is mandatory either way — including for a 2,50 € coffee.
The receipt does not have to be printed on paper. Digital receipts satisfy the obligation too. LEVIAPAY automatically produces a receipt for every transaction with the mandatory details, including the TSE signature data, and can deliver it digitally. That meets the requirement, saves till rolls and suits businesses where the queue cannot wait.
Since 1 January 2025 the notification duty under § 146a AO has applied: electronic POS systems must be reported to the tax office via ELSTER. The report covers, among other things, details of the till in use and its associated TSE. The duty applies to existing tills as well, not only to newly purchased systems.
How the notification works in your case and which deadlines apply depends on your situation — for instance when a till was acquired or taken out of service. Those details are best settled with your tax advisor. What matters in practice: to file, you need the data for your till and your TSE. With a system that has a built-in cloud TSE, that information sits in one place rather than being spread across individual devices and modules.
In a Kassennachschau, the tax office can appear at your premises without warning and inspect how you run your till, in the middle of service. The auditor can ask to see till data, request data exports, trace test transactions and check whether a TSE is in use and working correctly. There is no advance notice, so there is no last-minute preparation in the usual sense.
That is precisely why an unbroken signature chain matters. If every booking since the till went into service is TSE-signed and the data can be exported in an auditable format, a Kassennachschau is above all unremarkable. The auditor gets the export, the chain adds up, the visit is over. It becomes a problem when signatures are missing, periods show gaps or the export does not work. That is when an inspection can turn into a fuller audit.
The best preparation for a Kassennachschau is therefore not something you do shortly beforehand, but a system that records cleanly from day one.
Running an electronic till without a TSE breaches the KassenSichV. The tax office can treat that as a defect in your record-keeping. The possible consequences range from formal objections through fines to an estimate of your turnover, if the records are rejected as improper. Experience suggests such estimates rarely fall in the business's favour. How serious the consequences are in a given case depends on the specifics — but it is not something to rely on.
What is clear: the risk is out of all proportion to the effort. A built-in cloud TSE asks nothing of you, neither setup nor ongoing maintenance. There are few good reasons today to take payments without a TSE, and many not to.
In LEVIAPAY the cloud TSE is built in. You set up no TSE, swap no certificates and manage no modules. Every booking is signed automatically, whether you take payment on an iPhone with Tap to Pay or with an optional card terminal from the hardware shop. The system is KassenSichV-compliant without you configuring anything.
Then there is the record itself: LEVIAPAY stores every transaction in a GoBD-compliant, unalterable form. The receipt obligation is met, digitally if you prefer. For working with your accountant there is a DATEV export, and your tax advisor can access turnover and exports directly through the tax advisor portal, with no files going back and forth.
The pricing stays simple throughout: 1,29 % + 10 cents per card payment, no monthly base fee, no contract term. At LEVIAPAY, compliance is not an add-on product but part of the system.
A technische Sicherheitseinrichtung signs every till transaction cryptographically and makes later changes detectable. Since 2020 the Kassensicherungsverordnung has required a certified TSE for electronic POS systems. It is the technical proof to the tax office that your records are complete and unaltered.
No. LEVIAPAY uses a built-in cloud TSE, so the signing happens in a data centre. You need no TSE stick, no SD card and no certificate maintenance. Several tills or iPhones run through the same TSE infrastructure, and every booking is signed automatically.
Yes. Since 1 January 2025 the notification duty under § 146a AO has applied: electronic POS systems must be reported to the tax office via ELSTER, including details of the TSE. Which deadlines apply in your case is best clarified with your tax advisor.
The tax office can appear at your premises unannounced and inspect how you run your till. The auditor can ask to see data, request exports and check the TSE signatures. With every booking signed without gaps and a working export, such a visit is usually over quickly.
Yes. Since 2020 a receipt must be offered for every transaction, but it does not have to be on paper. Digital receipts satisfy the obligation too. LEVIAPAY automatically creates a receipt with TSE signature data for every transaction and can deliver it digitally.
Cloud TSE, GoBD-compliant records and digital receipts are built into LEVIAPAY. 1,29 % + 10 cents per card payment, no base fee, no contract term.
