The minimum wage and the threshold that hangs on it

A bakery in Kassel employs a helper on a minijob basis. Because the earnings threshold rose to €603 in 2026, the owner extends the shifts to 44 hours a month at the minimum wage of €13.90. That comes to €611.60, which is €8.60 too much. Without anyone intending it, the minijob has turned into employment subject to compulsory insurance, all because a single hour was miscounted.

An entitlement of the worker, not a recommendation

The Minimum Wage Act (MiLoG) opens with a sentence that makes no exception for small firms. Every employee is entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage, and the claim lies against the employer. The size of the business, its turnover and its sector play no part in that entitlement.

The measure is the clock hour, gross. The minimum wage is therefore neither a monthly sum nor a net amount. Anyone paying a fixed monthly salary has to divide it by the hours actually worked to check that the floor is respected. Overtime that is recorded nowhere quietly pushes the effective hourly rate down.

The Act itself still shows the starting value of 12 euros per clock hour from 1 October 2022. Someone who reads only that sentence works with an outdated figure. The same subsection allows the federal government to change the amount by regulation on a proposal from the Minimum Wage Commission, and that has happened several times since.

For 2026 the governing text is the Fifth Minimum Wage Adjustment Regulation (MiLoV5). It sets two steps: from 1 January 2026 the minimum wage is 13.90 euros gross per clock hour, and from 1 January 2027 it is 14.60 euros. The second step is therefore already fixed and can be built into any plan for next year.

A footnote to section 1 MiLoG lists the regulations that have adjusted the amount one after another, the latest dated 5 November 2025. Whoever is looking for the current value therefore reads the most recent regulation, not the text of the Act. This split between statute and regulation explains why older leaflets so often quote the wrong amount.

Sector minimum wages under the Posted Workers Act or the Temporary Agency Work Act take precedence over the general minimum wage, but only if they do not fall below it. For most small firms without a sector rule, the general hourly rate remains the only floor to observe.

Who falls outside the Minimum Wage Act

Section 22 MiLoG sets out whom the Act covers, and the list of exclusions is shorter than many firms would like. The Act applies to employees. Whether someone works in a minijob, part time or as a stand-in makes no difference: the weekend helper has the full entitlement for every hour worked.

Interns count as employees for the purposes of the Act as a rule. Only four groups are excluded: internships required by school, university or training rules, orientation internships of up to three months, internships of up to three months alongside training or studies where no earlier internship was served with the same provider, and entry qualifications or pre-vocational preparation.

Calling something an internship does not make it one. The Act looks at how the relationship is actually organised: an intern is someone who, for a limited period, acquires practical knowledge of a job without this being vocational training. A person who works fully and learns nothing is an employee, whatever heading the contract carries.

Children and young people within the meaning of section 2(1) and (2) of the Youth Employment Protection Act without completed vocational training are not employees under the Minimum Wage Act. Nor does the Act govern the pay of apprentices or volunteers. Apprentices have their own rules, not covered here.

One time-limited exception concerns people who were long-term unemployed immediately before starting the job. For them the minimum wage does not apply during the first six months of employment. The exception depends on the person's status before hiring, which has to be provable, and not on the kind of work performed.

• internship required by school, university or training law
• orientation internship of up to three months before training or studies
• accompanying internship of up to three months, if it is the first with the same provider
• young people without completed vocational training
• previously long-term unemployed people during their first six months

When the minimum wage must be paid at the latest

Section 2 MiLoG governs not only whether but also when. Payment is due on the agreed date, and at the latest on the last bank working day in Frankfurt am Main of the month following the month in which the work was done. Work performed in March must therefore be paid by the end of April.

A special rule applies to working-time accounts, and it matters for minijobs with fluctuating hours. Hours beyond the contractually agreed working time may be placed on an account agreed in writing. They must then be offset within twelve calendar months of being recorded each month, either through paid time off or through payment.

The account has a monthly ceiling. The hours placed on it may not exceed 50 percent of the contractually agreed working time in any month. Under a contract for 40 hours a month, at most 20 hours may therefore go onto the account in a given month. When the employment ends, open hours must be settled in the following month.

No written agreement, no account. A business that collects extra hours only by word of mouth or on a note on the staff board falls back on the general due date. The hours must then be paid by the end of the following month, since the claim arose when the work was done.

Section 20 MiLoG links the due date to the law on administrative offences. Employers based in Germany or abroad must pay their staff working in Germany the minimum wage by that date at the latest. Paying late is therefore not only a breach of contract but an offence in its own right, even if the money eventually arrives in full.

Record, retain, keep available

The recording duty in section 17 MiLoG expressly covers employers of marginal employees under section 8(1) of Social Code Book IV, meaning both the minijob with an earnings threshold and short-term employment. It also applies in the sectors specially listed in the Act to Combat Undeclared Work, where it holds regardless of the level of pay.

What has to be recorded is the start, end and length of each day's working time. A monthly or weekly total is not enough. The entry must be made by the end of the seventh calendar day after the day the work was done. For work on a Monday, the deadline expires on the following Monday.

The records must be kept for at least two years, counted from the moment the entry was due. Subsection 2 adds a duty to keep the documents needed for inspection available in Germany and in German, for the duration of the employment, but for no longer than two years in total.

One exception matters for households. The recording duty does not apply to marginal employment in private households under section 8a of Social Code Book IV. A cleaner in a family home therefore does not trigger it, while the same work in a doctor's surgery does. The minimum wage itself applies equally in both cases.

Taking the records seriously brings a management tool as a side benefit. Daily times show early whether a minijob is about to exceed the permissible hours in a given month. That was exactly what the bakery in the opening lacked: a list that would have sounded the alarm after the third week.

What a breach can cost

Section 21 MiLoG grades its fines by the type of breach, and the grading reveals what the legislator considers most serious. Failing to pay the minimum wage, or paying it late, carries the highest tier. Intent is not required: acting negligently against the duties is already an administrative offence.

Non-payment or late payment can be punished with a fine of up to 500,000 euros. The same ceiling applies to businesses that have work or services carried out on a significant scale by a subcontractor they know, or negligently fail to know, does not pay the minimum wage.

For recording breaches under section 17(1) the ceiling is 50,000 euros. This covers a record that is not made, not correct, not complete or not made in time, or that is not kept for at least two years. The remaining breaches, such as refusing to tolerate an inspection, carry fines of up to 30,000 euros.

These are maximum amounts, not standard rates. They do show the proportions, though: a missing timesheet weighs more than a refused piece of information, and failure to pay weighs ten times more than the missing timesheet. For a small business with helpers, record-keeping is therefore the cheapest insurance it can take out.

The marginal-employment threshold follows the minimum wage

Since October 2022 the earnings limit for a minijob has no longer been a fixed amount but a derived one. Section 8(1a) of Social Code Book IV defines it as the monthly pay earned for ten hours a week at the minimum wage. When the minimum wage rises, the threshold rises with it, without the legislator having to act again.

The calculation rule is written into the statute. The minimum wage is multiplied by 130, divided by three and rounded up to a full euro. The idea behind the numbers is simple: a quarter has thirteen weeks, so ten hours a week make 130 hours per quarter, and one third of that falls on each month.

For 2026 this gives: 13.90 euros times 130 is 1,807 euros, divided by three is 602.33 euros, rounded up 603 euros. The German Pension Insurance states exactly these 603 euros for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2026. Calculation and publication agree, which is how it should be.

For 2027 the same method applies with 14.60 euros: times 130 gives 1,898 euros, divided by three 632.67 euros, rounded up 633 euros. The pension insurance already lists this value from 1 January 2027. Anyone planning minijobs for next year can therefore use the new threshold today.

The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs publishes the threshold in the Federal Gazette each time. The publication does not create the amount, it confirms it. If your own calculation differs, the mistake is almost always in the rounding: the result is always rounded up, even if it lies only one cent above a full euro.

The threshold yields a number of hours that matters more for scheduling than the amount itself. At the 2026 minimum wage, 43 hours a month are possible, because 43 times 13.90 euros is 597.70 euros. The 44th hour leads to 611.60 euros and therefore above the threshold. Paying more than the minimum wage leaves correspondingly fewer hours.

Regularly, not in every single month

Section 8(1) no. 1 of Social Code Book IV requires that pay does not regularly exceed the threshold. The word regularly points to what shapes the job over time. A single month does not decide on its own, as the next subsection shows, and a quiet month does not rescue a schedule that sits above the threshold for good.

Subsection 1b tolerates spikes, but only unforeseeable ones. Exceeding the threshold does no harm if it happens in no more than two calendar months within the rolling year and the excess in each case does not exceed the amount of the threshold. In such a month, pay in 2026 may therefore reach up to 1,206 euros.

The condition of unforeseeability needs to be taken seriously. Covering for an illness nobody could plan for fits. The Christmas season, which comes every year, hardly does. Using this rule to handle a plannable increase in hours risks having the job assessed as subject to compulsory insurance from the outset.

Once the conditions of subsection 1 cease to be met, the employment is no longer marginal. That is how section 8(2), second sentence, puts it. The word once looks forward: the assessment changes from the moment the conditions are missing. Whoever notices the change therefore re-registers straight away and does not wait until the end of the year.

The link has a consequence many businesses only notice at the turn of the year. When the minimum wage rises, the threshold rises too, but the permissible hours at the minimum wage stay roughly the same, as both derive from the same ten weekly hours. Paying exactly the minimum wage gains no extra hour.

Conversely, an employer paying above the minimum wage who does not raise the hourly rate at the turn of the year gains hours through the higher threshold. One who raises the hourly rate faster than the minimum wage loses hours. Both can be worked out before 1 January and belong in the conversation with the helper.