Contents
- 01December gets booked in summer
- 02Budget per person: what each band buys
- 03One evening for 80 people, worked through
- 04Formats that suit a company party
- 05The December effect on price and availability
- 06Drinks: the line that turns the bill
- 07The tax side: the per-employee allowance
- 08Work your own evening out
- 09Getting everyone home safely
- 10Dietary requirements across a whole workforce
- 11Common questions about the Christmas party
- 12How Catervia makes December easier
The most important number in a Christmas party is not in the quote, it is in the calendar. Good Berlin caterers and good venues are gone for December by early autumn, and anyone starting in October is no longer choosing, only taking what is left. Everything else · budget per head, format, drinks, getting home and the tax side · can be decided calmly once the date is held. That order is the whole trick.
The short answer
Book the December venue and caterer between June and September. Budget €29 to €51 net per person for a buffet with full service, plus €16 to €28 for beer and wine. December is the tightest market of the year: entry prices are effectively unavailable, and the Thursdays and Fridays of the last two weeks before Christmas go first.
- Lean: €16 to €30 net per person · finger food, delivered and set up
- Solid: €29 to €51 · a hot-and-cold buffet with service staff, the company-party standard
- Upscale: €44 to €71 · a premium buffet with full service
- Grand: from €76 · a multi-course plated menu with premium service
- Drinks sit on top: soft drinks €5 to €9, beer and wine €16 to €28, an open bar €32 to €46
December gets booked in summer
In December the highest demand of the year meets exactly as many kitchens, service staff and vans as March had. That is the entire reason the month feels different from every other one. Two bottlenecks run at once: the venue usually goes first, and service staff are the second constraint, because the same people are needed everywhere on the same evenings.
The order in which the calendar empties is much the same everywhere. First to go are the Thursdays and Fridays of the two weeks before Christmas. Then the remaining evenings of those two weeks, then the early December weeks. What stays bookable longest is Tuesday, Wednesday and lunchtime. So if you start in September and stay flexible, far more is possible than the month’s reputation suggests.
The full lead time with every deadline, from the brief through the menu to the final headcount, is in the catering checklist and timeline. For December, move every stage in it about four weeks earlier. And once the date is fixed, send the catering request straight away: the first answer you need is not the price, it is whether anyone is still free on your evening.
Budget per person: what each band buys
The per-head figure you plan with always has two parts: food and service. The table covers the food half for the formats that actually turn up at a company party. The from column is what the price-led end of the Berlin market charges, the typical column is where most quotes land.
Food per person for a Christmas party · net, excluding service and drinks
| Format | from | typical |
|---|---|---|
| Finger food Bites on your feet, good for a reception with a programme. | from €10 | €14–25 |
| Finger food premium More pieces per person, better ingredients, carries a whole evening. | from €15 | €22–35 |
| Buffet (hot & cold) The company-party standard, because everyone is fed and every diet fits. | from €14 | €20–35 |
| Premium buffet More courses, better produce, a wider choice. | from €25 | €35–55 |
| Fine-dining menu Multi-course and plated, with a seating plan and considerably more service. | from €42 | €60–120 |
| Vegan menu Fully plant-based, as the main line or as a second main beside the buffet. | from €15 | €22–45 |
| Dessert & sweet table Costed as an addition, not as a meal. | from €6 | €8–18 |
Net per person. Service comes on top: delivery with setup €2 to €5, full service €9 to €16, premium service €16 to €26, live cooking €22 to €38. Food and service carry 7% VAT, drinks 19%.
Put the two halves together and you get the four bands you can genuinely plan with. Finger food with setup runs €16 to €30 per person and suits a reception with speeches and a programme. A buffet with full service comes to €29 to €51 and is the standard almost every company party is measured against. A premium buffet with full service sits at €44 to €71. And a plated menu with premium service starts at around €76 per person. Drinks are in none of those figures.
One evening for 80 people, worked through
Numbers only become useful once they hang on a real evening. Take 80 employees, a hot-and-cold buffet, full service, beer and wine, rented tableware and delivery to central Berlin, each at the middle of its usual range. That is €25 for the buffet, €12 for service, €22 for drinks and €5 for tableware per person, plus a €30 delivery fee: €5,150 net in total.
Christmas party for 80 people with buffet, full service and drinks · €5,150 net
- Food39%€25 per person, the middle of the €20 to €35 buffet range.
- Drinks34%€22 per person for beer and wine. The line that swings the most.
- Service & staff19%€12 per person for setup, serving and clean-up by service staff.
- Equipment & delivery8%€5 per person for rented tableware plus a €30 delivery fee to central Berlin.
Two more calculations turn that into a planning basis. First, gross: food, service, tableware and delivery carry 7%, the drinks 19%. €5,150 net becomes roughly €5,722 gross, so a good €64 net and just under €72 gross per head. Second, the drinks question: swap beer and wine for an open bar, €39 instead of €22 per person on average, and €1,360 is added, taking you to €6,510 net, a good €81 per head. One line item, a quarter more budget.
Formats that suit a company party
The format decides more than the price, it decides how the evening runs. The question underneath it is simple: should people sit, or should they mix? Give speeches, or talk? Everything else follows from that.
Four formats and what they do to the evening
- Finger food receptionGuests stand, mix and change conversations by themselves. Good for teams that otherwise never meet. Watch the quantity: finger food only fills people up when enough pieces per person are costed in, otherwise the evening is hungry by 9pm.
- BuffetThe standard, and for good reasons: everyone finds something, every dietary requirement can be covered cleanly, and guests move between courses. For a mixed workforce it is the most forgiving format. More on the buffet catering page.
- Plated menuFormal, festive and the right call when speeches, awards or an anniversary carry the evening. It needs a seating plan and considerably more service staff, and it keeps people at their table, which is both the advantage and the drawback.
- Food stations and live cookingChefs working in front of guests replaces part of the programme. It costs €22 to €38 of service per person on top and needs space, power and extraction. Settle both with the venue before it goes into the concept.
Which format suits which guest count and running order is compared in detail in finger food, buffet or plated menu. And if the party is part of a wider company year, the overview of company party catering in Berlin is worth a look.
The December effect on price and availability
There is no declared Christmas surcharge that caterers write onto their price list, and any percentage somebody quotes you is a guess. What there is, is a shift within the known ranges, and that can be described: the entry price is effectively not available in December. Plan with the upper half of the usual span and nothing will surprise you.
Two further effects come with it. First, room to negotiate disappears: a kitchen that is fully booked will not rebuild a menu to fit your budget, it will decline. Second, service staff become the scarcest resource of the month, which is why full service drops out of a December quote sooner than courses do. What stays the same are the edges: a minimum order value of typically €250 net and a delivery fee of €30 to central Berlin, €65 to the outer districts, €120 to Brandenburg.
Drinks: the line that turns the bill
At a Christmas party the drinks are nearly as expensive as the food, and they are the only line taxed at 19% rather than 7%. Budgets that blow up almost always blow up here.
Drinks and equipment per person · net, on top of the food
| Item | from | typical |
|---|---|---|
| Soft drinks Water, juices, soft drinks, coffee and tea. | from €4 | €5–9 |
| Beer & wine The usual frame for a company party with an evening programme. | from €11 | €16–28 |
| Open bar Cocktails and spirits without a limit, bar staff included. | from €22 | €32–46 |
| Tableware & glasses Only needed when the venue supplies nothing. | from €2 | €3–8 |
Drinks carry 19% VAT, food and service 7%. A drinks-heavy evening therefore lands noticeably above the 7% most people have in mind once you look at gross.
An open bar costs roughly twice what beer and wine cost, and at a company party it is rarely the better decision, because it does not merely allow consumption, it rewards it. Three middle routes work reliably: a capped drinks budget that the venue counts against, with guests paying for themselves beyond an agreed sum; drinks tokens per person for the first part of the evening; or simply a good selection of beer, wine and alcohol-free options instead of a bar with everything. How much actually gets drunk per person and hour is worked through in calculating drinks per person.
The tax side: the per-employee allowance
Germany grants an allowance per attending employee for company events, and it applies to at most two events a year. Anything beyond it becomes taxable employment income; the excess can, under certain conditions, be taxed at a flat rate by the employer. We deliberately do not state the current amount of the allowance here, nor a year alongside it, because an out-of-date figure gets expensive at exactly this point. Have it confirmed by your tax adviser. This is not tax advice.
The arithmetic behind the amount is the more interesting part anyway, because it changes how you plan. Four points surprise nearly everyone budgeting a party for the first time.
How the per-head figure is arrived at
- Gross costs countNot the net sum in the quote but the amount including VAT. At a drinks-heavy evening that is a good ten per cent more than the figure in your budget.
- It is not only the foodRoom hire, music, decoration, the programme and gifts given as part of the event all belong to the costs. Count the catering alone and you count too low.
- Divided by those who attendNot by those invited. If a fifth cancel at short notice, the per-head figure rises although the invoice stays the same. Which is exactly why an honest RSVP list is worth money here.
- Plus-ones are charged to the employeeThe cost of a guest accompanying an employee is attributed to that employee. A party with partners effectively doubles the per-head figure without anybody eating more.
In practice that means budgeting in gross per attending head from the start, counting in every cost block and leaving a buffer for cancellations. And if you run two events a year anyway, plan the summer party and the Christmas party together rather than separately, because the limit covers both. How it works out in your specific case belongs in a short conversation with your tax adviser, not in a blog article.
Work your own evening out
You have all the building blocks now: format, service, drinks, equipment and delivery. The calculator below puts them together for your guest count and shows the range per person and for the whole evening, switchable between net and gross · and gross is the figure you need for the tax view.
Your Christmas budget in 30 seconds
Set up the evening: format, guest count, service level, drinks and delivery location. You get a range per person and for the whole event straight away, broken down into food, service, drinks, equipment and delivery.
Your catering budget
50
The food is delivered; you handle setup and serving yourself.
Drinks
Add plates, cutlery, glasses, standing tables and more.
Price display
Per person
€18–44
Estimated total€930–2,230for 50 guests
How the budget breaks down
- Food€14–35
- Drinks€4–9
- Delivery€30
How this estimate is calculated
- Buffet (hot & cold)
- for 50 guests
- Company & office event
- Delivery only
- Soft drinks
- Central Berlin (S-Bahn ring)
All prices net. Plus 7% VAT on food and 19% on drinks.
Non-binding estimate. Real quotes vary by caterer, menu and season.
Getting everyone home safely
The part of the planning that least often appears in a budget and most often decides an evening’s reputation. Three things can be settled in advance, and all three cost very little.
Four decisions for the late evening
- Choose the venue by its connectionsIn Berlin the U-Bahn and S-Bahn run through the night from Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday, while on weeknights the night buses take over from around one in the morning. A venue at a hub is worth more than a beautiful hall with no link to it.
- Food is part of planning the drinksA bar without substantial food is the most reliable way to ruin an evening. Build in a late snack around 10 or 11pm, a soup, something hot or something baked. It costs little and changes the rest of the night.
- Alcohol-free that is not waterAlcohol-free beer, a good punch, alcohol-free cocktails, decent coffee. Anyone driving, pregnant or simply not drinking should not spend the whole party looking at the worst selection on the table.
- Settle the journey home beforehandA taxi budget, shared rides, or an end time that matches the timetable. And the question of whether people work the next day: a Thursday party is a different proposition for a team than a Friday one.
Dietary requirements across a whole workforce
At a party for the whole company every requirement arrives at once, and nobody wants to explain themselves in front of the team to register one. So only one route works: the question goes out with the RSVP, in a field nobody else sees, and never as a show of hands in a team meeting.
For the menu that means three things. Vegetarian is not a special request but a second regular main course, and colleagues who otherwise eat meat will eat it too, so cost it generously. Pork-free and alcohol-free belong on visible labels, not explained on request. And allergies need a route of their own: what a kitchen can promise, how to ask and how it arrives correctly is in allergens and dietary requirements. A buffet is the most forgiving format for a mixed workforce, because everything sits side by side and nobody is handed a special plate.
Common questions about the Christmas party
Answered in brief
Venue and caterer ideally between June and September, and about ten weeks before the date at the very latest. First to go are the Thursdays and Fridays of the two weeks before Christmas. Tuesday, Wednesday and the first December week stay bookable longest, and a January party is nearly always easier to arrange.
Net, for food and service: finger food with setup €16 to €30, a buffet with full service €29 to €51, a premium buffet with full service €44 to €71, a plated menu with premium service from around €76. Drinks come on top: soft drinks €5 to €9, beer and wine €16 to €28, an open bar €32 to €46. Work out the range for your evening in the budget calculator.
€32 to €46 net per person, roughly twice what beer and wine cost at €16 to €28. Across 80 guests, each at the middle of its range, that is €1,360 of difference, and drinks carry 19% VAT rather than 7%. A capped drinks budget or tokens for the first part of the evening is usually the better answer.
There is an allowance per attending employee for up to two company events a year. We deliberately do not state the current amount here, because it can change and a wrong figure costs real money · ask your tax adviser, who can confirm it in a minute. What matters more for your planning is the arithmetic: gross costs for the whole event including room hire, music and decoration, divided by those who attend, with plus-ones attributed to the employee. This is not tax advice.
For most company parties, the buffet. It costs less, it covers every dietary requirement, and it gets people moving instead of tying them to one neighbour at the table. A plated menu earns its place when speeches, awards or an anniversary carry the evening and a seating plan is wanted anyway.
Often, yes. The choice of caterers and venues is considerably wider, quotes sit nearer the bottom of the range, and nobody is competing with three other invitations in the same week. Announced as a new-year kick-off, the evening loses nothing in substance either.
How Catervia makes December easier
The tedious part of a Christmas party is not the decision, it is the search: writing to ten caterers to learn that eight have been booked out on your evening for months. That round is the one we take off you.
In the catering request you describe the party once: date, guest count, format, budget per head, venue and the dietary requirements from the team. We put that brief in front of Berlin caterers who fit your evening and your size, and quotes come back in a form you can lay side by side. A response within 24 hours.
If a quote sits above your budget we ask not for a discount but for a different cut: is delivery with setup enough instead of full service? Would a buffet carry the evening as well as plated service? Can the drinks selection be capped instead of economising on the food? The step-by-step version is on how it works.