Germany
Payroll, tax, and labor-law updates for Germany.
Sick pay in Germany: Entgeltfortzahlung im Krankheitsfall, Krankengeld, and the U1 refund
An employee in Germany who is too ill to work keeps 100% of their pay from the employer for up to six weeks per illness. That obligation is Entgeltfortzahlung im Krankheitsfall (continued pay during illness). From the…
Niko Nurmentaus
Product Lead
Midijob 2026: how Germany's Übergangsbereich reduces employee contributions
A German employee who earns between €603.01 and €2,000 a month in 2026 holds a Midijob, and that pay band is called the Übergangsbereich (transition zone). In the Übergangsbereich, the employee's social-security…
Mehmood Deshmukh
CTO & Co-Founder
How German wage tax is calculated: Lohnsteuer from gross to net
Lohnsteuer (German wage tax) is a prepayment of the employee's annual income tax (Einkommensteuer), not a flat percentage of gross pay. Each month the employer withholds an estimate of the annual income tax and remits…
Mehmood Deshmukh
CTO & Co-Founder
Germany's 2026 minimum wage: €13.90 an hour, and why payroll counts the hours
From 1 January 2026 Germany's statutory minimum wage is €13.90 gross an hour, up 8.42 percent from the €12.82 that applied through 2025. That single figure is the pay floor under more than six million workers, and…
Niko Nurmentaus
Product Lead
Terminating an Employee in Germany: The Steps and How Severance Is Calculated
The surprising thing about ending an employment relationship in Germany is that the country has some of the strongest dismissal protection in Europe and, at the same time, no automatic right to severance. Those two…
Greg Miaskiewicz
CEO & Co-Founder
