The regular season started on 29 August 2015 and finished on 24 April 2016, followed by the semi-finals and the championship final, the latter held on 7 May 2016, with the DRV-Pokal and the promotion-relegation play-off continuing until June 2016.

The defending champions were Heidelberger RK who defeated TV Pforzheim 53–27 in the 2015 final to take out its twelfth championship and sixth in a row.

[2] The modus and size of the league had been altered from the 2014–15 season, with the number of clubs reduced from, nominally, 24 to 16.

[3] The remaining twelve teams enter the DRV-Pokal, whereby the clubs placed third and fourth receive a bye for the first round.

The promotion play-off will be conducted in two regional groups with the northern and eastern division clubs in one and the southern and western division ones in the other:[11] The runners-up of the two regional promotion play-off were scheduled to compete with the seventh-placed Bundesliga teams for two more spots in the Bundesliga: