In one sentence
Betriebsergebnis is the operating result before tax, what remains of turnover after goods, personnel and all other operating costs. It is neither turnover nor the owner's income, because tax and private drawings still come out of it.
Betriebsergebnis is the operating result before tax, which is what remains of turnover once the purchase cost of the goods, personnel costs and all other operating costs have been deducted. The calculation starts at turnover, then subtracts the cost of goods to give Rohertrag, and then subtracts personnel, premises, equipment and administration.
Two distinctions account for most of the confusion about this figure:
- Betriebsergebnis is not turnover, because in a pharmacy the larger part of turnover is the acquisition cost of the medicines being dispensed, so a high turnover figure says very little about what the business earns.
- It is also not the owner's income, because income tax has not been deducted and the owner's own labour never appears as a cost in the accounts. That is why a kalkulatorischer Unternehmerlohn is added when one pharmacy is compared with another or with an employed alternative.
The distribution across the sector is wide, and the ABDA Apothekenwirtschaftsbericht published on 5 May 2026 reported the following for 2025:
- The Umsatzrendite of German pharmacies was 4,2 percent, down from 4,4 percent in 2024.
- 33 percent of pharmacies showed a pre-tax operating result below 100.000 euro.
- 7 percent of pharmacies made a loss in the same year.
A new service is judged on this number rather than on the fee the pharmacy charges. The fee is gross revenue, so the consumables, the laboratory charge and the working time all come off it before it changes the result. A service can add turnover and occupy staff without changing the Betriebsergebnis at all, which is a legitimate outcome only if something else was gained, such as customers who would otherwise have gone elsewhere. Whether that is what happened is only visible if the revenue and the costs were booked separately in the Betriebswirtschaftliche Auswertung from the start.
How the result is then taxed, and which items are recognised in which year, depends on the legal form and the individual circumstances of the pharmacy, so that question belongs with the Steuerberater before the first invoice.
This glossary entry is general information about German pharmacy law and practice. It is not legal advice. For binding guidance on your own pharmacy, contact your Landesapothekerkammer.
