What makes this different from a holiday calendar
Every dated entry states who it applies to — 225 for students, 86 for teachers and 69 explicitly for exchange students. Every school type also explains how an exchange year is actually recognised there. No other source answers that question in machine-readable form.
What we know for certain — and what we do not
We could quietly round the second half up to facts. The number would be larger and the dataset less valuable: anyone unable to classify a row has to recheck everything anyway. This way, someone can see exactly which dates are safe to plan a flight around.
Download
Two files, one click, no sign-in. The CSV contains all 380 dated entries as a flat table — one row per entry, with federal state, school type, role, confidence and source. It opens correctly in Excel and Numbers, including German characters.
CSV — all dates (380 rows)JSON — complete dataset
What the fields contain
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| region_code | The federal state's ISO code, for example DE-BY |
| school_type_id | Stable identifier for the school type within the state |
| role | Who the date applies to: student, teacher or exchange_student |
| type | Type of date — abitur_oral, abitur_written, conference, final_exam, grade_submission_deadline, holiday_break, registration_deadline, report_card_issue, school_year_start |
| date | Single day; ranges use start_date and end_date instead |
| confidence | official — traceable through source_url to a named ministry or KMK source. typical — the usual pattern, not confirmed for this school year. |
| source_url | The source; always present for official entries |
| recognition_note | JSON only, for each school type: how an exchange year is recognised |
| grading_system_id | Reference to the grading system, including best grade, pass threshold and points variant |
Cite
The licence asks only for attribution. For articles, papers and footnotes:
Audecius (2026): German school-system dataset 2026/27, version 1.0.
Licence CC BY 4.0. https://clarity.audecius.com/en/open
@misc{audecius_school_system_2026,
author = {Audecius},
title = {German school-system dataset 2026/27},
version = {1.0},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://clarity.audecius.com/en/open}},
note = {CC BY 4.0}
}Questions about the dataset, corrections or a source we are missing: contact us. Corrections to individual dates are welcome — every entry that moves from typical to evidenced makes the dataset more useful for everyone.
For developers
No key, no sign-in, no quota. CORS is open so it works in the browser. Licence: CC BY 4.0 for the compilation — the dates themselves are public facts. Attribution is enough.
# All 16 federal states
curl https://clarity.audecius.com/api/open/v1/school-systems
# One federal state
curl https://clarity.audecius.com/api/open/v1/school-systems/DE-BYVersion 1.0, dated 2026-06-26. Date types in the dataset: abitur_oral, abitur_written, conference, final_exam, grade_submission_deadline, holiday_break, registration_deadline, report_card_issue, school_year_start.
Grade conversion, including the rule almost everyone gets wrong
The modified Bavarian formula was adopted by Germany’s Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs; we did not invent it. It maps a foreign grade linearly onto the German scale:
x = 1 + 3 · (Nmax − Nd) / (Nmax − Nmin)
Nmax highest attainable grade in the source system
Nmin lowest passing grade
Nd grade achieved
x German equivalent, 1.0 = highest, 4.0 = pass thresholdBoth ends can be checked by hand: inserting Nmax gives 1.0; inserting Nmin gives 4.0. A US GPA of 3.4 (best 4.0, pass threshold 2.0) gives 1.9.
Two answers because the sources serve two purposes
University admission: one decimal place, truncated rather than rounded — 2.25 becomes 2.2, not 2.3. That is what the KMK resolution specifies.
ERASMUS recognition: rounded to the nearest whole grade, with exact halves going to the better grade — 2.5 becomes 2, not 3.
A calculator that silently chooses one will be wrong for half its uses. This one returns both and says what each applies to. Where Anabin has a percentage-rank table for the country, that table takes precedence over the formula — every response says so. Source: KMK resolution on the overall grade.
curl "https://clarity.audecius.com/api/open/v1/grade-conversion?best=4&lowestPass=2&achieved=3.4"The sixteen federal states
| Federal state | Code | School types | Dates | Evidenced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baden-Württemberg | DE-BW | 4 | 42 | 21 |
| Bavaria | DE-BY | 4 | 30 | 19 |
| Berlin | DE-BE | 4 | 21 | 11 |
| Brandenburg | DE-BB | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Bremen | DE-HB | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Hamburg | DE-HH | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Hesse | DE-HE | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Lower Saxony | DE-NI | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania | DE-MV | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| North Rhine-Westphalia | DE-NW | 4 | 23 | 16 |
| Rhineland-Palatinate | DE-RP | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Saarland | DE-SL | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Saxony | DE-SN | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Saxony-Anhalt | DE-ST | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Schleswig-Holstein | DE-SH | 4 | 22 | 10 |
| Thuringia | DE-TH | 4 | 22 | 10 |