Germany Salary Calculator (Brutto-Netto-Rechner)

In Germany, the salary written in an employment contract (Brutto) is never what lands in a bank account. Every payslip subtracts four mandatory social insurance contributions plus withheld income tax, and the gap between gross and net grows with income because tax brackets are progressive. This calculator estimates that gap using rates confirmed against Deutsche Rentenversicherung, the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG), and the Federal Ministry of Justice's law portal as of August 2026.

How the four insurance branches are deducted

The four insurance branches work differently. Pension insurance (Rentenversicherung) takes 9.3% of gross pay up to a ceiling of €101,400 a year (€8,450 a month). It has been a single nationwide ceiling since 2025, when the historical East/West split was finally eliminated after a seven-step phase-in. Health insurance (Krankenversicherung) takes half of 14.6% plus half of your fund's additional rate (Zusatzbeitrag), which averages 2.9% in 2026 but varies by fund from about 2.2% to 4.4%, so enter your own rate if you know it. Long-term care insurance (Pflegeversicherung) is 1.8% for parents, plus a 0.6-point surcharge if you have no children, minus 0.25 points per child from the second through the fifth (capped at a 1.0-point discount). Unemployment insurance (Arbeitslosenversicherung) takes 1.3%, sharing pension insurance's ceiling.

How wage tax is calculated

Income tax is the hardest part to reproduce exactly. Germany's Federal Ministry of Finance publishes a full withholding algorithm (the Programmablaufplan) every year, but it is hundreds of lines of pseudocode that branches by tax class, and this calculator was built from the pieces that could be verified against a primary source instead: the § 32a EStG progressive tariff formula (five brackets, applied to the taxable base), the 2026 basic allowance (Grundfreibetrag) of €12,348, and the Vorsorgepauschale, a deduction defined in § 39b EStG that removes already-paid social insurance contributions from the tax base before the tariff applies. All three of its parts use your own employee share, not the combined employer-plus-employee rate: the pension portion is 50% of the contribution rate (9.3%, matching what you actually pay), the health portion uses half of a reduced rate (the ermäßigter Beitragssatz of 14.0%, not the 14.6% used for your actual premium) plus half your surcharge rate, and the long-term care portion matches your actual employee contribution including the childless surcharge or multi-child discount. What is approximated here is not these formulas, which come straight from the statute, but the many smaller rounding rules and edge cases in the full BMF withholding program that this calculator doesn't attempt to replicate.

Tax classes and the solidarity surcharge

Only two tax classes are supported. Class I and IV use an identical withholding formula (a single basic allowance, no splitting), so they're combined into one option. Class III applies Germany's splitting procedure: your taxable income is halved, the tariff is applied to that half, and the result is doubled, which effectively doubles the basic allowance to €24,696 and assumes your spouse (in class V) has no income of their own, so no spouse income field is needed. Classes II (single parents, an extra €4,260 relief), V, and VI use materially different formulas (V and VI multiply income by 1.25 and apply a different scaling before the tariff) that this calculator could not verify from a free primary source, so they are out of scope.

On top of income tax, the solidarity surcharge (Solidaritätszuschlag) adds 5.5%, but only above an exemption threshold of €20,350 a year in income tax for class I/IV (€40,700 for class III). Under 2026 rules, about 90% of taxpayers pay none at all. Just past the threshold, a mitigation zone caps the surcharge at 11.9% of the amount by which your tax exceeds the threshold, so it phases in gradually rather than jumping. Church tax (Kirchensteuer), where selected, is a flat 8% (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg) or 9% (the other 14 states) of income tax. Both are calculated directly on the income tax figure here, though the official procedure actually reduces that base slightly for parents using a separate child-allowance adjustment (§ 51a EStG) that this calculator does not model, so families may see a marginally lower real church tax and surcharge than shown.

Limits of this calculator

A few more limitations are worth noting. This calculator only covers employees with statutory health insurance (gesetzlich versichert). Private insurance (PKV) uses a different Vorsorgepauschale procedure that changed for 2026 and could not be fully verified here. Saxony's special long-term care insurance split (employees pay 2.3%, employers 1.3%, in exchange for the state keeping a public holiday other states abolished) is not modeled; the standard 1.8%/1.8% split is used everywhere. The result is a monthly withholding estimate, not a guarantee, so always compare with an official payslip or the BMF's own online calculator for exact figures.

Arriving from abroad: tax class and church tax

For someone arriving from abroad the tax class is assigned rather than chosen. Registering an address at the local Bürgeramt produces a tax identification number, a single employee lands in class I by default, and a married couple starts in IV/IV unless they actively ask for the III/V combination. That choice is worth understanding before signing anything, because III/V concentrates the household allowance on one partner and leaves the other over-withheld all year, while IV/IV splits it evenly. Neither combination changes what the household owes for the year. It changes only who pays it month by month and how much comes back at the end.

Church tax catches most newcomers off guard, because it is collected through payroll rather than given voluntarily. The declaration of religious affiliation made during registration is what switches it on, and once on it is 8% of income tax in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg and 9% in the other fourteen states. Two consequences follow. It is levied on the income tax figure rather than on gross salary, so it tracks the tax bill and not the paycheque, and it stops only through a formal declaration of leaving the church at the responsible registry office.

This calculator deducts the flat €1,230 employee allowance (Arbeitnehmer-Pauschbetrag) automatically, the same figure the official withholding procedure uses. Anyone whose real work expenses run higher — commuting, work equipment, training, a second household kept for work — only recovers the difference by filing an annual tax return, which is exactly why many employees see a refund the following year even though everything was withheld correctly each month. When this estimate and a real payslip disagree for other reasons, the difference is usually an item the payroll office knows about and this calculator does not: a company pension deduction taken from gross pay, a health fund whose Zusatzbeitrag differs from the 2.9% default, or an allowance already recorded on your tax file.