How do I become a TikTok Shop affiliate in Germany?

TikTok sets them out in its EU Creator E-commerce Permissions Eligibility Policy (as of 3 September 2026, read on 22 October 2026). The policy covers Germany, Austria and eleven other EU countries, and the conditions apply not only when you apply but for as long as you promote products.

• Your TikTok account is registered in Germany and you also use it from Germany. That lets you promote products on TikTok Shop Germany.
• You have 500 followers in Germany. According to the policy, you only lose your permissions if your follower count in Germany falls more than 100 below that threshold, so below 400.
• You are at least 18 and prove it in the app.
• Your account does not belong to a government, a political party or a politician.
• TikTok Shop has never revoked your permissions before, including on a previous account.

1. Open your profile, tap the three lines at the top right, then TikTok Studio and the TikTok Shop entry for creators (labelled “TikTok Shop für Creator*innen” in the German app). A window shows you the eligibility criteria.
2. Verify your age. TikTok offers three ways: facial age estimation with an instant result, a selfie with ID (usually more than 24 hours) or a credit card authorisation (about 15 minutes). As a new creator, you have 60 days after onboarding to do this, otherwise you lose access to the Creator Center.
3. Set up your commission account: in the TikTok Shop Creator Center, go to “Verdienste” (earnings), tap “Kontoinformationen hinzufügen” (add account information) and upload your ID and proof of address, then your tax information. An ID card or driving licence has to be German, while a passport from any country is accepted. The document has to be valid for at least another six months. Your proof of address, such as a bank statement or utility bill from the last six months, has to show an address in Germany and must be a different document from your ID. According to TikTok, the review can take up to 24 hours.
4. Pick products in the Creator Center that fit your content. According to TikTok, you can also request product samples there and try a product before you film.
5. Add the product to your short video or LIVE and use the content disclosure setting. TikTok Shop’s creator terms require this in clause 15.1 (h). Under German law, that alone is not always enough. The section on labelling below explains why.

TikTok calls the trial the Creator Pilot Program. It applies in Germany, France, Ireland, Italy and Spain to creators with no official or marketing link to a shop on TikTok Shop. Creators who applied and were verified before 30 June 2026 are not added retroactively. During the 30 days, you can post up to 3 shopping videos a day and no more than 21 a week. Afterwards, the limit is up to 25 shopping videos and 50 shopping photos a day.

To pass, one of the first three rows is enough, and your Creator Health Rating (CHR) has to meet the threshold as well. The CHR is TikTok’s score for your account, from 0 to 1,000. New creators start with 200 points, and violations cost points. The older article on the pilot programme, dated 25 June 2026, gives the threshold as “more than 176” points. If you don’t meet the conditions, TikTok says you stay in the programme for another 30 days.

For example, you post six shopping videos of 15 seconds each in your first week. That meets the content condition, but according to TikTok you only pass if your CHR is also above the threshold at the end of the 30 days. That isn’t much headroom, as you start at 200 points.

According to TikTok, published and scheduled videos with a product link count towards the weekly limit, even if they are set to “Only me”, deleted later or removed for a violation. Adding a product link to an older video counts too. Drafts and failed uploads don’t.

The biggest difference is where your video leads. A shopping video sells inside the app: TikTok runs the marketplace and sells nothing itself, and the purchase contract is between the buyer and the shop (TikTok Shop terms of use, clause 2.2). A link in your bio takes people out of TikTok, to an online shop or to your collection page.

TikTok does not allow you to combine the two in shopping content. TikTok Shop’s content policy (clause 4.9.4, as of 21 September 2026) prohibits sending your community to external websites or other platforms. In its article on redirecting traffic, TikTok gives the example of asking viewers to buy in a shop outside TikTok through a link in your bio, and advises against putting external links in your bio. If you want to use both, you can split them by platform: TikTok Shop on TikTok, the bio link on Instagram or YouTube.

The TikTok Shop details come from the TikTok pages listed below, those on agency partners from clause 7.2 and annex 2 of the creator terms. “Not stated” means those pages say nothing about it. What a link-in-bio page offers depends on the service.

TikTok Shop’s creator terms require you to use TikTok’s features for labelling advertising (clause 15.1 h) and not to hide that you are acting for commercial purposes (clause 15.1 f). For creators resident in Germany, supplementary terms replace clause 15.1, with both obligations worded the same.

Under § 5a(4) UWG (the Act Against Unfair Competition), not making the commercial purpose of a post clear is unfair if the purpose is not already obvious from the circumstances and leaving it out could lead to a business decision, such as a purchase, that would not otherwise have been made. If you act for the benefit of another business, there is no commercial purpose as long as you neither receive nor are promised money or anything similar in return. Receiving something in return is presumed unless you can show credibly that you got nothing. With TikTok Shop, the commission the shop pays you on sales is already something in return of this kind. According to the guide by the Medienanstalten (Germany’s state media authorities, as of May 2025), a product sent to you can count too. The same can apply to product samples from the Creator Center.

According to the Medienanstalten, TikTok’s disclosure setting is enough on its own only if its label reads “Werbung” (advertising), “Anzeige” (advert) or “bezahlte Werbepartnerschaft” (paid partnership) and the other requirements are met. Abbreviations such as “ad” are not enough. If a video shows where to buy the product, the guide treats it as advertising rather than product placement. If the product plays the main role, the Medienanstalten call for a clearly legible “Werbung” or “Werbevideo” overlay for the whole video or the advertising sequence. A link to an online shop that you post out of commercial interest also has to be labelled as advertising according to the guide: affiliate links with an asterisk and a note right by the link, other promotional links with “Werbung” or “Anzeige”.

On TikTok Shop, your community buys inside the TikTok app. For Instagram, YouTube and products that aren’t on TikTok Shop, you can run a wyrld storefront alongside it. You paste the link to a product or pick it from the catalogue. wyrld recognises the brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops, Amazon included, and creates an affiliate link for every offer it finds. You don’t sign up with any network yourself.

Your community sees the offers found with prices side by side and buys directly from the shop, at no extra cost. Price matters here: according to Bitkom (2022), 65% of online shoppers in Germany say the lowest price is a decisive factor when choosing a shop. Depending on the shop, you earn per click, per sale or both. Earnings are settled at the start of the following month with a self-billing credit note, and sale commissions are paid out once the shop or affiliate programme has paid wyrld. wyrld is free for creators.

If you work with an agency, it gets its own dashboard on wyrld, maintains your storefront with you and sees the same figures. wyrld deducts the commission share you agree on from your earnings when it settles them, and your agency receives its own credit note. Through wyrld Boost, brands pay for campaigns that run across many creators at once, based on KPIs they set in advance. Taking part is up to you. The creator terms do not require exclusivity and set no follower minimum. Put the storefront link in your Instagram or YouTube bio, because TikTok advises its shop creators against external links in their TikTok bio.