Consequences of registering a PhD at german university?

Question

What does a registration of a PhD at the office of the dean mean? I am interested in both the legal and practical aspects. Of course, there are doctorial guidelines for each university that determine this, but they include little information about what it means in practice.

I know that it is a necessary step to later hand in a dissertation. Also, part of it is that the supervisor agrees to the supervision in some 'contract' that becomes valid once the dean signs it. Moreover, only if you are accepted you are able to matriculate at the university.

What more consequences are there? What obligations come with it? What 'rights' do I get? If I decide to stop this dissertation, is this counted as failed attempt or could I register for another PhD afterwards?

I would expect that there is a good part that is the same for all universities, while details are different. Is this correct? How large is the variance? (Take for example the topic of stopping the dissertation: What is the rough distribution of universities where one could register a new one or not?)

In case it makes any difference, I would be interested in the field of natural sciences.

Answer 1

Registering the PhD is mostly a formal act. You get some benefits (such as being a student and thus eligible for student discounts) and obligations (such as having to provide reports) but those are straightforward and should be made obvious by the institution.
The effects can vary quite a bit in one institution (e.g. depending on the domain or funding) so the variations across universities are not all that meaningful. But in the larger scheme of doing a PhD the impact is minimal.

The real restrictions are outside of the formal registration:

• At least in natural sciences you will likely be employed by the university. Critically, this is part of your work CV and you are expected to disclose this when applying somewhere else.
• There are a lot of soft and social effects at play and applying for another PhD is likely to be disadvantaged. Being younger and not having left a similar program will be a competitive advantage in most PhD applications.*

No matter whether or when you register a PhD, as soon as you actually start with your PhD it’s practically all in.

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* Explicitly not in all cases, though.

Answer 2

From my own experience: If you are not employed by the university while doing the PhD, it is advisable to register (and matriculate), just because you can take part in things that go on at the uni, get updates, get access to free ressources like professional development courses etc.

Officially being a student has some perks like cheap public transport ticket and in some cases will give you reduced entries in museums as such, an in a more academic context will allow you to register more cheaply for conferences and give you access to grants for PhD students.

The obligations are negligeable and (for me) do not go beyond paying the small matriculation fee each semester. The only requests I get are from my supervisor, who wants me to keep progress in my PhD - but this has nothing to do with officially registering.

As to potentially negative consequences: I am unsure if people would perceive it negatively would you reapply for another PhD at another uni when having been registered somewhere else before without finishing. In general, my experience in Germany is that your competencies matter more than your matriculation record. And after all, you don't have to put this in your CV and can omit it when reapplying, as the only persons who will need to see the documentation about previous enrollment are the people who work at the matriculation offices.