Germany: our calculator now applies the 2026 values and the official wage-tax computation

What changed

This note records two corrections to our calculator for Germany, not a change in the law.

The first, of 12 October 2026, applies the 2026 values the entry had not followed. The contribution ceiling for health insurance and long-term care insurance rises from EUR 66,150 to EUR 69,750 a year, and the ceiling for pension and unemployment insurance from EUR 96,600 to EUR 101,400. In our calculator the employee share of health insurance rises from 8.55% to 8.75% of salary: it includes half of the average supplementary contribution rate, set at 2.9% for 2026 by the Federal Ministry of Health. The employee share of long-term care insurance rises from 1.7% to 1.8%, half of the 3.6% rate that has applied since 1 January 2025.

The second, of 17 October 2026, corrects the tax computation. Until then the calculator applied the tax scale to the whole gross salary, with a flat rate per band where the law, between EUR 12,348 and EUR 69,878 of taxable income, has a rate that rises continuously. It now computes the tax as the withholding algorithm published by the Federal Ministry of Finance does for an employee in tax class I: the statutory formula applies to the gross less the EUR 1,230 employee allowance, the EUR 36 special-expenses allowance and an allowance for social contributions (Vorsorgepauschale), which takes the employee’s pension contribution and the health insurance contribution, at the reduced rate, and the long-term care contribution, within the ceilings; for the lowest salaries an alternative computation adds the unemployment contribution, capped at EUR 1,900 together with the health and care contributions. Over 8,000 salaries from EUR 500 to EUR 400,000, the tax computed by our calculator equals that of this algorithm to the euro, and the solidarity surcharge to the cent.

Several limits remain. The tax computed is the one the employer withholds; the final tax set on the annual return can differ, for instance when actual work expenses exceed the allowance. The computation is that of tax class I: joint assessment of couples, church tax and child allowances, which reduce the solidarity surcharge, are not modelled. Each health insurance fund sets its own supplementary contribution, above or below the average rate applied. For long-term care insurance, 1.8% is the share of an employee with one child, outside Saxony: it is 2.4% for a childless employee aged 23 or over, falls by 0.25 points for each child under 25 from the second to the fifth, and is 0.5 points higher in Saxony; none of these cases is modelled.

Effective date

The 2026 ceilings are set by the regulation of 24 November 2025 on the social security calculation values, in force since 1 January 2026, and the 2.9% average supplementary contribution rate was published in the Bundesanzeiger of 10 November 2025 for the year 2026. The 3.6% long-term care rate has applied since 1 January 2025. The EUR 1,230 and EUR 36 allowances and the formula of the tax scale are those of the Income Tax Act for the year 2026, and the 2026 withholding algorithm implements them. Our calculator has applied the 2026 values since 12 October 2026 and the tax computation since 17 October 2026.

Worked example

Figures produced by our net salary calculator, single, tax class I, German tax resident, average supplementary contribution rate and a 1.8% long-term care share, before the two corrections and after. Tax includes the solidarity surcharge.

Contributions rise, by 0.3% of gross up to EUR 66,150 and more above it with the higher ceilings, but tax falls much further. At EUR 30,000 of gross, taxable income is no longer EUR 30,000 but EUR 22,869, and tax moves from EUR 3,726.98 to EUR 2,294.00. Over every salary from EUR 30,000 to EUR 150,000, euro by euro, the net gain runs from EUR 386 (at EUR 69,875 of gross) to EUR 2,100 (at EUR 96,599 of gross). The solidarity surcharge applies only above EUR 20,350 of tax for a single person, which in this calculator means from about EUR 91,900 of gross.