Salaries and pay: from gross to net

Salaries in Germany are quoted gross per year and paid monthly. Here is what comes off between gross and net, and how to check a fair range.

This is general information, not tax advice. Your own deductions depend on your tax class, your health insurer, your state, whether you have children and whether you belong to a church. The figures below are for 2026; most of them change every January.

Gross, annual, paid monthly

Adverts and offers talk about the Bruttojahresgehalt — the gross annual salary, before deductions — paid in monthly instalments. What reaches your bank account is your net pay (netto). The gap is usually bigger than newcomers expect, because tax and social insurance both come out first. Your employer calculates and pays all of it on your behalf.

What comes off: tax

Lohnsteuer is income tax, withheld monthly. The more you earn, the higher the share. In 2026 the first €12,348 of taxable income a year is tax-free.^[1]

Solidaritätszuschlag — the solidarity surcharge, usually called "Soli" — is 5.5% of your income tax. Since 2021 it only applies above a threshold, which removed around 90% of the people who used to pay it. Most employees no longer pay it; it now affects higher earners.^[2]

Kirchensteuer — church tax — applies only if you are registered as a member of a church that levies it, such as the Catholic or Protestant churches. It is 8% of your income tax in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, and 9% in the other states.^[3]

What comes off: social insurance

Four social insurances come out of gross pay. Each is roughly split: your employer pays about half on top of your salary, you pay about half out of it.

A few things vary:

• Health. Each public health insurer (Krankenkasse) sets its own additional contribution, the Zusatzbeitrag. The 2026 average is 2.9%; yours depends on the insurer you choose.^[5]
• Long-term care. If you are 23 or over and have no children, you pay a 0.6% childless surcharge on your own, with no employer half. Parents of two or more children under 25 pay less. In Saxony the split is different: employees pay 2.3% and employers 1.3%.^[6]
• Ceilings. Contributions stop at a cap. In 2026, health and long-term care are charged on gross pay up to €69,750 a year,^[5] and pension and unemployment up to €101,400.^[7]

Tax classes: Steuerklassen I to VI

Your Steuerklasse (tax class) follows mainly from your marital status and decides how much Lohnsteuer is withheld each month.^[8] The tax you actually owe for the year is settled later, through the tax return.

• I — single, divorced or widowed.
• II — single parents living without another adult, with a child who counts for tax.
• III and V — a pair for married couples and civil partners. One partner takes III (lower withholding), the other V (higher withholding).
• IV — both partners in the same class. There is also IV with a factor, calculated by the tax office, which spreads the withholding more evenly between the two.
• VI — for a second job alongside your main one.^[8]

Are III and V being abolished? Folding them into the factor method has been planned for some years,^[9] but no law has done it yet: in September 2026 both are still available.^[8]

Your payslip

Each month you receive a Gehaltsabrechnung (payslip), in German, listing gross pay, each tax, each contribution and the net amount. Check the first one carefully: tax class, church tax, health insurer and the childless surcharge are the lines most worth confirming. The payslip guide goes through every line of it.

Extras: 13th-month pay and holiday pay

Some employers pay a 13. Monatsgehalt — an extra month's salary, often near the end of the year — or Urlaubsgeld, holiday pay. Whether you get either depends on your contract or a collective agreement; they are not automatic. Ask whether an offer's annual figure already includes them. The job contract guide covers the contract itself.

The minimum wage

The statutory minimum wage, the Mindestlohn, is €13.90 gross an hour in 2026, rising to €14.60 on 1 January 2027. It covers most employees; exceptions include under-18s without vocational training and some study-related internships.^[10]

The one place salary matters for a visa

The exception to pay being a private matter is the EU Blue Card: in 2026 the job must pay at least €50,700 gross a year, or €45,934.20 for shortage occupations and for people who graduated within the last three years.^[11] The visas guide explains the rest.

Researching a fair range

The Federal Employment Agency's Entgeltatlas is free and shows the median gross monthly pay of full-time employees by occupation. You can narrow it by region, gender, age group and industry.^[12]

Two cautions: it shows monthly figures, while offers are annual; and a median is the middle of a range, not what any particular job pays. How to turn the range into an answer is in salary negotiation.

The tax return: often money back

The annual tax return is the Steuererklärung. For many employees it is optional. It is compulsory for some — for example, couples using III/V or IV with a factor, anyone with a class VI job, or anyone with more than €410 of other income not taxed at source. Compulsory returns are generally due by 31 July of the following year; voluntary ones can be filed up to four years later.^[13]

Many employees who file get money back, because monthly withholding cannot know everything. You may have worked only part of the year, or had work-related costs — Werbungskosten, such as commuting, job applications or work equipment — above the €1,230 allowance every employee gets automatically.^[14]

ELSTER is the tax administration's own online portal. It is free, has an English interface option, and can pre-fill your return with the wage data your employer has reported.^[15] Registering involves activation details that may come partly by post, so do it well before you need it.^[16]

Where to check

• Federal Ministry of Finance: tax changes in 2026 (German)
• Federal Ministry of Health: health insurance and long-term care contributions (German)
• GKV-Spitzenverband: 2026 rates and ceilings (PDF, German)
• Tax offices of North Rhine-Westphalia: tax classes and who must file (German)
• Federal Ministry of Labour: the minimum wage (German)
• Federal Employment Agency: EU Blue Card
• Entgeltatlas, the Federal Employment Agency's free pay tool
• ELSTER, the official, free tax portal

To check an offer against the EU Blue Card salary line, use the Blue Card salary check.

This guide is about Germany. Austria and Switzerland work differently — sometimes very differently. See working in Austria and working in Switzerland.

Figures on this page were checked on 23 September 2026 against the sources below. Tax and contribution rates change every January.