Contributions: rate, additional contribution, ceilings and who pays what

A business hires a 30-year-old bookkeeper at €4,800 gross and budgets long-term care insurance at the rate printed in the statute: 3.4 per cent. Since 2025 an ordinance has set 3.6 per cent, and because the bookkeeper has no children, 0.6 points are added that she bears alone. The number in the section is not the number on the payslip.

Two rates in the statute, the third in the fund's articles

The contribution to statutory health insurance has two parts, and only the first is uniform across Germany. Section 241 of Social Code Book V sets the general contribution rate at 14.6 per cent of contributory income. That figure is written into the statute itself and is the same at every health insurance fund.

The statute also knows a second, lower rate. Section 243 grants it to members who have no entitlement to sickness benefit (Krankengeld) and fixes it at 14.0 per cent. The six tenths of a point between the two rates are therefore the price of cover against lost earnings during a longer illness.

Who pays the reduced rate is therefore not negotiated; it follows from the legal position. An ordinary employee is entitled to sickness benefit and pays the general rate. The typical reduced-rate payers are self-employed people who have opted out of sickness benefit; the second module deals with that choice.

The third component is this additional contribution under section 242. Where allocations from the central health fund fall short, the fund must provide for it in its articles. It levies it as a separate percentage, which the statute calls the fund-specific additional contribution rate. No statutory figure exists for it.

For the business this means that only someone who knows an employee's fund knows that employee's total rate. Two colleagues on the same salary can pay different contributions because they are insured with different funds. Payroll has to carry the rate of each individual fund and adjust it whenever the fund amends its articles.

Where are the rates published? The statute requires the funds to report their additional contribution rates to the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds. The association keeps a continuously updated overview of which fund charges which additional contribution and publishes it online. That is the place to compare.

The additional contribution can also rise during the year. If it emerges in the course of the budget year that a fund's resources will not suffice, the rate has to be raised by amending the articles. For payroll that means a change in the middle of the year, not only at the turn of the year.

Half each: the split between business and employee

Section 249 SGB V decides who pays. For employees subject to compulsory insurance the rule could hardly be simpler: employer and employee each bear half of the contributions assessed on earnings. The business deducts the employee's share from the wage and pays both halves over together.

The half-and-half rule covers the additional contribution too, since it is also assessed on earnings. In several places the statute expressly treats the general rate and the fund-specific additional rate as a pair applied together to earnings. An expensive additional contribution therefore weighs on both sides equally.

The section itself names two exceptions. For marginal employment it refers to a separate provision not covered here. And where contributions are due on short-time work allowance or qualification allowance, the employer bears them alone; the employee pays nothing on that part.

In long-term care insurance, section 58 of Social Code Book XI starts from the same split: employees and employers each bear half of the contributions on earnings. Two departures make the calculation lopsided, however, and both fall on the employee. Anyone who overlooks them gets the net wage wrong.

The first departure concerns the surcharge for the childless. Section 58(1) states expressly that employees bear it. So the employer pays only half of the basic rate, while a childless employee pays their own half plus the whole surcharge on top.

The second depends on the place of work. Where it lies in a state that has not reduced its number of statewide public holidays since the end of 1993 by one falling on a working day, employees bear one percentage point of the contribution alone. The background: states were to abolish a holiday to offset the employers' burden.

The statute does not name the state concerned; it describes it through its holiday rules. For a business with sites in several states, that means checking the split for each place of work. The total contribution stays the same; only its distribution between the two sides changes.

One special case belongs here as well. Employees who are voluntarily insured in the statutory scheme only because their income exceeds the compulsory insurance threshold pay their contribution themselves. Under section 257 SGB V, though, the employer owes them a subsidy equal to what it would bear if they were compulsorily insured.

Long-term care insurance: 3.6 per cent from an ordinance

Anyone reading section 55(1) SGB XI finds 3.4 per cent there as the nationwide contribution rate. That figure is not, however, the rate on a 2026 payroll. The same subsection empowers the federal government to adjust the rate by ordinance with the consent of the Bundesrat, and the government has used that power.

The 2025 ordinance adjusting the long-term care contribution rate fixes the rate under section 55(1), first sentence, at 3.6 per cent from 1 January 2025. It has been in force since then, and no later adjustment ordinance has been published. For 2026 the rate is therefore 3.6 per cent.

The German pension insurance confirms this in its overview of social insurance values as at 1 July 2026: long-term care insurance 3.6 per cent, 4.2 per cent for the childless. Anyone relying on the statute alone undercharges by two tenths of a point, and does so for every employee.

The power is limited. Subsection 1a allows an adjustment only to secure the scheme's ability to pay in the medium term, when its reserves threaten to fall below one month's expenditure. All adjustments by ordinance taken together may not exceed 0.5 contribution points above the rate last fixed by statute.

In practice this gives a working rule: never read the long-term care rate from the section alone, always check whether an adjustment ordinance applies. The ordinance does not change the wording of the statute; it overrides it. That is why the old figure still stands in the text.

The childless surcharge and deductions from the second child

The basic rate of 3.6 per cent is only the starting point. Section 55(3) SGB XI shifts it in both directions according to family situation. It goes up for members without children and down for parents with several children under 25.

The surcharge for the childless is 0.6 contribution points. It applies after the end of the month in which the member turns 23. These are points, not a percentage of the rate: 3.6 becomes 4.2 per cent, not 3.6 times 1.006.

Parents within the meaning of the Social Code are exempt from the surcharge, whatever the age of their children. Someone whose only child grew up long ago therefore pays no surcharge. Also exempt are people born before 1940, those doing military or community service, and recipients of basic income support.

The deductions follow a different logic. For parents, the rate falls by 0.25 contribution points for each child from the second to the fifth. The first child therefore brings no deduction; it only removes the surcharge. From the sixth child onwards the rate does not fall further.

Only children under 25 count. The deduction for a child runs until the end of the month in which it turns 25 and then lapses. Parents of three children therefore pay more step by step over the years, although nothing about their family has changed.

For the business to calculate correctly, parenthood must be proven to it, or to the care fund for members who pay directly. Proof supplied within six months of the birth takes effect from the month of birth. Supplied later, it only takes effect from the month after the proof is given.

For the business this is no formality. Without proof it charges the surcharge, even if the employee is the father of three. Proof supplied late does not correct the past. It therefore pays to ask new staff explicitly about children when they are hired.

The contribution ceiling: the calculation runs per calendar day

Contributions are not levied on every euro of income. Above a certain limit income is contribution-free; that limit is the contribution assessment ceiling. Someone earning more pays the same maximum contribution as someone exactly at the ceiling. The percentage rate only bites up to that point.

The statute thinks of the ceiling in calendar days. Section 223 SGB V admits contributory income up to one three-hundred-and-sixtieth of the annual ceiling per calendar day. For the calculation a week counts as seven days, a month as thirty and a year as three hundred and sixty, however many days the month actually has.

For long-term care insurance, section 55(2) SGB XI states the ceiling expressly: one three-hundred-and-sixtieth per calendar day of the annual earnings threshold in section 6(7) SGB V. The 2026 ordinance on social insurance reference values sets that threshold at €69,750 a year, or €5,812.50 a month.

In health insurance the statutory text as currently published tells a different story. The current version of section 223 already governs 2027: from then the ceiling sits €3,600 above the annual earnings threshold in section 6(7). With that, health insurance detaches its ceiling from long-term care insurance from 2027.

This module therefore does not give its own figure for the 2026 monthly ceiling in health insurance: the published statutory text does not state it. The employee's health insurance fund gives the binding value. The method is the same in both branches; only the starting amount may differ.

In practice the ceiling acts as a lid on the assessment base. A salary of €7,000 a month is counted at only €5,812.50 in long-term care insurance in 2026. Each euro above that adds nothing to the contribution, neither for the employee nor for the employer.

The compulsory insurance threshold decides who may choose

The contribution ceiling must not be confused with the annual earnings threshold, often called the compulsory insurance threshold. It does not cap the contribution; it decides whether statutory insurance is compulsory at all. Employees whose regular annual earnings exceed it are exempt from compulsory insurance under section 6(1) SGB V.

For 2026 the reference values ordinance sets the general threshold under section 6(6) at €77,400, or €6,450 a month. The special, lower threshold in subsection 7 applies only to employees who were already exempt because of their income on 31 December 2002 and held private health insurance.

Exempt does not automatically mean privately insured. The employee may stay in the statutory fund on a voluntary basis or move to private health insurance. Either way, the employer pays a contribution subsidy under section 257 SGB V; for the private route the statute attaches its own conditions.

The timing follows a fixed rule. If the threshold is exceeded, compulsory insurance only ends at the close of the calendar year. And even then only if earnings also exceed the threshold that applies from the following year. A pay rise in spring therefore changes nothing until New Year's Eve.

Returning to statutory insurance becomes harder with age. Someone who becomes subject to compulsory insurance after turning 55 stays exempt under section 6(3a) if they had no statutory cover during the five years before. Moving to private insurance is therefore a long-term decision.