BMW Offers Large Severance to Cut 8,000 Staff by 2027

BMW has opened a voluntary severance program in Germany intended to remove 8,000 white-collar positions by the end of 2027, with insiders telling Handelsblatt that individual exit packages can exceed 650,000 euros.

Program uptake and timeline

The manufacturer emailed offers to tens of thousands of employees and roughly 40,000 people logged into the internal HR portal to view their packages, causing the portal to fail within hours. Handelsblatt reports the system was restored the next day, but applications continued to accumulate; BMW stopped accepting new applications a few days later to process the queue. The program offers two exit dates: March 31, 2027, or October 31, 2027, with an additional payment for choosing the earlier date. The offer window closes on October 31, 2027, regardless of application numbers at that point.

Severance amounts and package terms

According to Handelsblatt, citing insiders, some individual severance deals exceed 650,000 euros. That figure is reported to top recent packages offered by Mercedes and Volkswagen; Handelsblatt says Mercedes paid around 500,000 euros to long-serving team leads last year, while Volkswagen topped near 405,000 euros two years ago without an early-bird premium. BMW has applied a so-called "Turbo Bonus" to the offers to increase uptake for earlier exit dates. BMW declined to comment on concrete figures when approached.

Employees can receive their negotiated sums in different forms:

• installments
• a single lump sum
• part payment into the company's pension pot or into a direct insurance, or a blend of these options

BMW will provide a qualified reference letter on request. Employees who turn 55 before the program ends are treated as retirees for certain extras, including employee conditions on new and used cars. Under the company car clause, departing employees may buy their last service car in the month their contract ends; senior pay grades may be eligible to acquire two such vehicles.

Financial rationale and market context

BMW expects that cutting 8,000 positions will save the company about one billion euros per year starting in 2028.

The urgency of the program follows weak recent sales in China. BMW sales in the PRC fell by almost 25 percent in the last quarter, and growth in Europe and the United States did not offset the decline in the Q3 2026 sales report, according to the company’s published figures referenced in reporting on the program.