Lohnpfändung in Germany: How Much of Your Wage Is Actually Protected

A Lohnpfändung means part of your wage is legally redirected to a creditor before it ever reaches your bank account. Losing income to a creditor is stressful enough without also having to work out how much of it the law actually lets them take. The figure that matters most is the protected minimum: a floor under German law that a creditor, whatever the debt, cannot reach.

This page works through how § 850c ZPO structures that protection, which income counts toward it, what is entirely off limits regardless of amount, how the special P-Konto protects a bank balance, the order in which several creditors get paid, and the harsher rules that apply specifically to a maintenance claim, which is the exception that catches people out most often.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

The basic structure: a protected minimum, then a sliding scale

§ 850c ZPO is the statute that protects part of an employee's wage from a Pfändung. It works as an unpfändbarer Grundbetrag, a base amount nobody can touch regardless of the debt, plus a sliding portion of anything earned above that base, which becomes progressively more attachable the higher the income goes, until a ceiling above which the full remainder is attachable.

The actual euro figures are not fixed permanently in the statute text. They are set by a separate annual notice, the Pfändungsfreigrenzenbekanntmachung, issued under the authority § 850c itself grants, and republished with new numbers roughly every two years historically, now on an annual July cycle. The structure in the statute stays stable. The numbers inside it move.

The current figures, effective 1 July 2026

The Pfändungsfreigrenzenbekanntmachung 2026 (Ausfertigung 19.03.2026, published as BGBl. 2026 I Nr. 80 of 26.03.2026) sets these amounts, effective from 1 July 2026:

Above the base amount and below the ceiling the statute takes a fixed share: § 850c Abs. 3 ZPO leaves three tenths of the excess protected, so seven tenths are attachable where there are no dependants, with a further two tenths protected for a first dependant and one more tenth for each of the second to fifth. The table attached to the Bekanntmachung is that fraction pre-computed in 10 EUR income bands, not a separate scale. Above 4.866,30 EUR a month, the entire amount above that ceiling is attachable regardless of dependants.

Worked example

An employee with no dependants earning 2.200 EUR net a month has a Pfändung against them for an ordinary, non maintenance debt. The first 1.587,40 EUR is fully protected. The remaining 612,60 EUR falls into the graduated band, where three tenths stay protected and seven tenths are attachable, giving 428,82 EUR. That is exactly the figure the official table shows for the 2.200,00 to 2.209,99 EUR band in the Bekanntmachung. The creditor does not receive the full 612,60 EUR difference. Note that § 850c Abs. 5 ZPO rounds earnings down to a multiple of ten before the fraction is applied, which is why the table works in 10 EUR bands. An employee supporting one child has the base amount raised by 597,42 EUR, so a materially larger share of the same 2.200 EUR salary stays protected before any sliding scale applies at all.

The tooling trap: do not trust the statute page's own cached figure

The live page at gesetze-im-internet.de/zpo/__850c.html, the official host for German federal statutes, displays 1.178,59 EUR as the base amount. That is not a stale cache and not an error. It is the figure as enacted, and § 850c Abs. 4 ZPO deliberately leaves it there: the annual adjustment is published as a separate Bekanntmachung in the Bundesgesetzblatt instead of amending the section. The same statute page carries a footnote listing every Bekanntmachung, including the 2026 one. Reading only the section text will leave you roughly 400 EUR superseded, and the underlying page apparently has not been refreshed to point at the current figures. The authoritative, current document is the standalone Pfändungsfreigrenzenbekanntmachung 2026, published separately in the Bundesgesetzblatt, not the general statute text page.

The practical lesson is not specific to this one instance. Because these thresholds reset on a schedule, roughly every July, any source, including an official looking one, can be quietly out of date between updates. If a figure you are reading does not carry a clear effective date and reference to the specific year's Bekanntmachung, treat it as unverified and check the current Bundesgesetzblatt notice before relying on it for an actual Pfändung.

What counts as Arbeitseinkommen in the first place

§ 850c protects Arbeitseinkommen, which covers ordinary wages and salary, but the calculation of what actually counts is its own question, governed by § 850e ZPO. Certain components, such as specific overtime supplements and particular expense reimbursements, are treated differently in the calculation than base salary, and § 850e also addresses how income from more than one source, or income that fluctuates month to month, gets treated for the purposes of applying the protected minimum consistently.

What comes out before the scale is applied at all

Separate from the graduated protected minimum, § 850a ZPO removes certain payments from the calculation before the § 850c scale is applied. The protection does not depend on how much someone otherwise earns, but several of the categories are capped rather than absolute: overtime pay is protected only by half, Christmas pay only up to half the rounded monthly exemption, and hardship, dirt and danger supplements only so far as they do not exceed the customary level. These include, among others, certain hardship, dirt, and danger money style supplements tied to the actual working conditions, and specific one off or purpose tied social benefit payments. These sit alongside, not instead of, the general protected minimum under § 850c: they are simply removed from the calculation entirely before the § 850c sliding scale is even applied to what remains.

Protecting a bank balance: the P-Konto

A Pfändung against wages happens before the money reaches your account, through your employer. A Pfändung against a bank account works differently: the bank itself can be ordered to freeze and pay out the balance to the creditor. Without protection, an entire account balance can be frozen the moment a Pfändungs- und Überweisungsbeschluss reaches the bank, regardless of what that money actually was.

§ 850k ZPO is the fix: the Pfändungsschutzkonto, commonly called a P-Konto. Any ordinary current account can be converted into a P-Konto, and every bank is legally required to offer this conversion on request. Once converted, a base protected amount, aligned with the general protected minimum logic, is automatically shielded from any Pfändung on that account each month, and § 899 Abs. 2 ZPO carries an unused part of a month's protected amount forward into the following months, with § 902 ZPO adding further protected amounts for dependants and certain benefits and § 906 ZPO letting the Vollstreckungsgericht set a different figure. § 850l ZPO is a different provision again, governing the attachment of a joint account.

The protection is not automatic on an ordinary account. You have to actively request the conversion to a P-Konto from your bank, and it generally takes effect from the point of conversion forward, not retroactively. Anyone who expects a Pfändung, or who already has one against their wages and is worried about a bank account being targeted next, should convert to a P-Konto before a bank freeze happens, not after.

When several creditors are chasing the same wage

Where more than one creditor holds an enforceable title against the same debtor, § 804 ZPO establishes that priority generally follows the order in which each Pfändung was actually carried out, not the order the debts were incurred or which creditor is owed more. An earlier, validly executed Pfändung generally takes priority over a later one against the same income, subject to the specific and harsher rules for maintenance claims described below. Those rules do not displace the order of priority: they give a maintenance creditor access to income an ordinary creditor cannot reach at all.

The exception that surprises people most: maintenance claims under § 850d ZPO

Everything above describes an ordinary debt, a credit card balance, an unpaid invoice, a personal loan. A claim for unpaid maintenance, Unterhalt, whether owed to a child or a former spouse, runs under a materially different and harsher regime: § 850d ZPO.

Under § 850d, a court can reduce the debtor's own protected minimum below the standard § 850c figures where necessary to satisfy a legitimate maintenance claim, so long as the debtor is left with what the court considers the minimum necessary for their own subsistence, a figure the court sets on the facts rather than simply reading off the standard table. In practice this means a maintenance creditor can often reach further into a debtor's income than an ordinary commercial creditor ever could, and a debtor who assumes the standard 1.587,40 EUR figure protects them against every kind of claim, including a maintenance claim, is working from the wrong number.

This distinction catches people out specifically because the standard Pfändungstabelle is so widely publicised as the protected minimum, full stop, when it is actually the protected minimum for an ordinary debt. A maintenance claim is the deliberate exception, and it is worth checking which regime actually applies before assuming any figure on this page protects you against a former spouse or a child support claim specifically.

What to do if a Pfändung reaches you

If your employer notifies you that a Pfändungs- und Überweisungsbeschluss has arrived, or your bank tells you an account is frozen, the practical first steps are to confirm which regime applies, ordinary § 850c protection or the harsher § 850d maintenance rules, confirm your dependants are correctly recorded since that changes your protected amount directly, and convert an unprotected account to a P-Konto immediately if that has not already been done. Where debts across multiple creditors have become unmanageable, see personal insolvency for the structured route to eventual discharge. Where the Pfändung follows an unanswered court order, see the Mahnbescheid and Vollstreckungsbescheid process for how that title was likely obtained. General background on German civil law is at German law explained.

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