GEZ stands for Gebühreneinzugszentrale der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

The GEZ is responsible for collecting television and radio license fees in Germany.  There are specific rules for calculating how many radios and television sets have to be paid for, depending on the type of usage and exact details can be found on the GEZ website.

Even people who do not own a radio (not even a car radio) or television set may be liable to pay if they own a mobile phone or a computer that can access the internet.  These are referred to as “Neuartige Rundfunkempfangsgeräte”.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

[audio:http://www.germanwordsexplained.com/mp3/2008-09-03_gez.mp3]
(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

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Tags: GEZ, TV License

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Abbreviations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.