Minijob in Germany 2026: The 603 Euro Earnings Limit, Rules and Taxes

Germany calls a low earning side job with a capped monthly wage a Minijob. It is not a separate type of employment contract under labour law, and a Minijobber has the same underlying rights as any other employee. What changes is how the job is treated for tax and social insurance, and that treatment depends on staying under an earnings ceiling or a time limit rather than on the kind of work involved.

For 2026 the figure most people mean by the Minijob limit, the Geringfügigkeitsgrenze, is 603 euro a month. That number is not chosen independently each year. It is calculated directly from the statutory minimum wage under § 8 SGB IV, and understanding the formula is the quickest way to see where 603 euro comes from and where the ceiling is likely to move next.

Information last verified on 19 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What counts as a Minijob

German law recognises two distinct forms of Minijob, tested in completely different ways. Confusing the two is the most common mistake in casual descriptions of the rules.

A geringfügig entlohnte Beschäftigung, an earnings based Minijob, is defined by pay. As long as regular monthly earnings stay at or under the Geringfügigkeitsgrenze, currently 603 euro, the job counts as a Minijob regardless of how many hours it takes or how long the arrangement runs.

A kurzfristige Beschäftigung, a short term Minijob, is defined by time instead of pay. It is work that is, by its nature or by contract, limited to a maximum of three months or 70 working days within a calendar year (15 weeks or 90 working days for agricultural work), and it carries no earnings ceiling of its own. It stops qualifying as short term, however, if it is carried out on a professional, career basis and pays above the geringfügig threshold. Anyone close to that line should confirm the specifics with the Minijob-Zentrale before assuming the time based rules apply.

Both categories sit inside the same provision, § 8 SGB IV, and an employer cannot combine the two for the same job at the same time. It is one or the other.

The 603 euro ceiling, and how it is actually calculated

The Geringfügigkeitsgrenze is fixed by a formula in § 8 SGB IV rather than decided separately each year: the statutory minimum wage multiplied by 130, divided by three, rounded up to the next full euro.

For 2026, with a minimum wage of 13.90 euro an hour, the calculation runs 13.90 times 130 divided by 3, which comes to 602.33, rounding up to 603 euro. For 2025 the minimum wage of 12.82 euro produced a ceiling of 556 euro. The formula has worked this way since October 2022, when the ceiling was dynamically linked to the minimum wage instead of being fixed by separate ordinance.

The 130 in the formula corresponds to roughly ten hours a week of minimum wage work. The same result falls out of simple division: at 603 euro and 13.90 euro an hour, the ceiling allows for about 43.4 hours of paid work a month, a little over ten hours a week, before the limit is reached.

Why a rising minimum wage can mean fewer hours, not just more pay

Because the ceiling tracks the minimum wage automatically, a Minijobber already working right up to the earnings limit cannot simply keep the same hours after a minimum wage increase. Hourly pay goes up, but monthly hours have to come down to stay under the new ceiling, or the arrangement stops being a Minijob.

The minimum wage is already scheduled to rise again on 1 January 2027, to 14.60 euro an hour, under the Fünfte Mindestlohnanpassungsverordnung adopted by the Mindestlohnkommission on 27 June 2025. Applying the same formula, 14.60 times 130 divided by 3 comes to about 632.67, which would round up to a 633 euro ceiling if the calculation method is unchanged. That number is a projection built from the confirmed formula and the confirmed 2027 minimum wage. It is not yet an officially published Geringfügigkeitsgrenze and should be re-verified once the Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales confirms the 2027 figure. See minimum wage in Germany for how the hourly figure itself is set.

Occasional and unforeseeable overruns of the ceiling

The ceiling is not absolute in every single month. Under § 8 SGB IV, a Minijob keeps its status even when earnings go over the Geringfügigkeitsgrenze in some months, provided three conditions are all met: the overrun is occasional and could not have been foreseen, it happens in no more than two calendar months within the rolling twelve month period, and the excess in each of those months does not exceed the ceiling amount itself, so up to roughly double the normal limit in that one month.

A worked example makes this concrete. Someone normally earning 500 euro a month covers for a colleague's sick leave for one month and earns 900 euro instead. Because that is a single, unplanned month within the year and the overrun stays under the 603 euro ceiling, the Minijob status is unaffected. A second unplanned high earning month in the same twelve month window still fits the rule. A third does not, and neither does an overrun that was foreseeable from the outset, such as a contractually fixed higher paying month every year.

Tax and social insurance: what the employer pays

A Minijob is not free of tax and social contributions. They are simply collected as flat rate contributions the employer pays to the Minijob-Zentrale, rather than through the ordinary payroll deduction system most employees see.

For a commercial Minijob in 2026, meaning any employer other than a private household, contributions to the Minijob-Zentrale total up to 31.17 percent of gross pay:

Statutory accident insurance is paid on top of that, separately, at a rate that depends on the type of work, and is not part of the 31.17 percent.

A Minijob in a private household runs on a lower scale: 5 percent health insurance, 5 percent pension insurance and 2 percent Pauschsteuer, plus the same U1 and U2 levies. Unlike the commercial scale, the private household figures already include accident insurance, bringing the combined maximum to about 14.62 percent, well under half of the commercial rate.

A kurzfristige (short term) Minijob is treated differently again. Because it carries no health or pension insurance obligation by its nature, the employer pays only the smaller levies plus accident insurance, not the 13 percent and 15 percent health and pension shares that apply to an earnings based Minijob.

Pension insurance and the right to apply for exemption

Health insurance and unemployment insurance simply do not apply to a Minijob for the worker. Pension insurance is different: a Minijobber is, by default, compulsorily covered by the statutory pension scheme, rentenversicherungspflichtig, unless they take an active step to opt out.

The employer's flat rate contribution, 15 percent commercial or 5 percent private household, does not by itself match the contribution rate that applies to standard employment. To bring the job's pension coverage up to that level, the worker normally pays a personal top up as well (Eigenanteil): 3.6 percent of earnings for a commercial Minijob, 13.6 percent for a private household Minijob. On a 603 euro monthly wage, the 3.6 percent share comes to about 21.71 euro, leaving roughly 581 euro of that month's pay in hand.

A Minijobber can apply in writing or electronically to their employer for exemption (Befreiung) from paying that personal share. The employer then has six weeks to report the exemption to the Minijob-Zentrale, using contribution group 5 for pension insurance, and it takes effect from the start of the calendar month in which the application was made, though never before the job itself began. Once exempted, the worker pays nothing further into the pension scheme from that job, while the employer's flat rate contribution continues regardless and the worker's own future pension entitlement from that job accrues at a correspondingly lower rate.

Since 1 July 2026, a Minijobber who previously chose exemption can revoke that choice once, restoring full personal pension contributions and the higher rate of accrual going forward. The revocation takes effect the month after the request is made and cannot itself be undone, so exemption can be given up once but not repeatedly, and never retroactively in either direction.

Whether exemption is the better choice depends on individual circumstances: existing years of contribution, other pension coverage, and how long the Minijob is expected to last. It is a genuine decision rather than paperwork, and the Minijob-Zentrale's own exemption form and guidance are the right starting point before deciding.

Holiday and sick pay: the same rights as any other employee

A common misunderstanding is that Minijobbers trade away ordinary labour rights for the simplified tax treatment. They do not. For the purposes of the Bundesurlaubsgesetz and the Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz, a Minijobber is an employee like any other.

The statutory minimum holiday entitlement under § 3 BUrlG is 24 working days a year, based on a six day working week, which works out to 20 days for someone on a standard five day week. For a Minijobber working fewer days a week than that, the entitlement is calculated pro rata to the days actually worked, not reduced simply because the job is a Minijob. See vacation entitlement in Germany for the general rules that apply here too.

Continued pay during illness works the same way. Under § 3 EFZG, an employee continuously employed for at least four weeks is entitled to have their employer keep paying wages for up to six weeks of incapacity caused by illness, and a Minijobber qualifies on exactly the same terms as a full time colleague. The employer recovers most of that cost through the U1 levy already described above. Our sick leave in Germany page covers the wider rule.

One nuance is worth separating out clearly. The employer's flat rate health insurance contribution is a solidarity payment into the general health system. It does not give a Minijobber their own statutory health insurance cover or a right to sick pay (Krankengeld) from a health fund. Continued wage payment from the employer (Entgeltfortzahlung) and statutory sick pay from a health insurer are two different things, and a Minijob only carries the first.

Multiple Minijobs, and combining one with a main job

Someone with a main job fully subject to social insurance can still take on one Minijob alongside it, and that single Minijob keeps its contribution free treatment for health, long term care and unemployment insurance, and, on application, pension insurance, exactly as if it were the person's only job.

A second Minijob taken on top of the main job and the first one loses that treatment. Its earnings are added to the main job's earnings for health, long term care and pension insurance purposes, and social contributions become payable on the combined total in the usual way, even if the two Minijobs together would still be under 603 euro. Unemployment insurance is the exception and is not combined this way.

Someone with no main job at all can hold more than one Minijob at the same time, and earnings from all of them are simply added together against the same 603 euro monthly ceiling. Go over it in combination and the arrangement stops being a Minijob and becomes ordinary, fully insured employment instead.

Sliding into the Midijob range

Earnings that regularly exceed 603 euro a month but stay at or under 2,000 euro a month fall into the Übergangsbereich under § 20 SGB IV, generally known as the Midijob range.

Inside that range, the worker is fully covered by health, pension, long term care and unemployment insurance, unlike the narrower Minijob treatment. The employee's own contribution, however, is calculated on a sliding scale that starts low near 603 euro and rises gradually to the standard full contribution rate by the time earnings reach 2,000 euro, rather than jumping straight to the full deduction the moment the Minijob ceiling is crossed.

For anyone whose pay is drifting up toward the 603 euro line, whether from a raise, extra hours, or the minimum wage rising as described above, the Midijob range is the landing zone rather than a cliff edge, and it is worth planning for as a distinct step rather than treating 603 euro as a hard stop. For the broader context of how German employment law is structured, see German law explained.