Betriebsergebnis is the operating result before tax. It is what remains of turnover once the purchase cost of the goods, personnel costs and all other operating costs have been deducted. The usual path to it runs from turnover to Rohertrag, which is turnover less the cost of goods, and from there to the result after personnel, premises, equipment and administration have been taken off.
Two distinctions carry most of the confusion. 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 because the owner's own labour does not appear as a cost in the accounts at all. 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. The ABDA Apothekenwirtschaftsbericht published on 5 May 2026 put the Umsatzrendite of German pharmacies at 4,2 percent in 2025, down from 4,4 percent in 2024, and reported for the same year that 33 percent of pharmacies showed a pre-tax operating result below 100.000 euro while 7 percent made a loss.
A new service is ultimately judged on this number rather than on the fee it carries. The fee is gross revenue, and the consumables, the laboratory charge and the working time all come off it before anything reaches the result. A service can add turnover, occupy staff and still leave the Betriebsergebnis where it was, 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 and 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.
