Minimum Wage in Germany 2026: The 13.90 Euro Mindestlohn Explained

Germany's general statutory minimum wage, the Mindestlohn, is 13.90 euro per hour from 1 January 2026. It rose from 12.82 euro in 2025, and a further increase to 14.60 euro an hour is already scheduled for 1 January 2027.

The rate applies across almost every employment relationship in Germany, with a short, defined list of statutory exceptions covered further down this page. It also drives other thresholds elsewhere in German law, most directly the Minijob earnings ceiling, so a change to the hourly figure has knock on effects well beyond the payslip itself.

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

The legal basis: § 1 MiLoG

The Mindestlohngesetz (MiLoG), Germany's Minimum Wage Act, sets out the entitlement in § 1 MiLoG. Every employee working in Germany has a statutory claim against their employer to pay of at least the minimum wage in force at the time (§ 1 Abs. 1 MiLoG).

The hourly figure itself is not fixed permanently in the statute. Instead, § 1 Abs. 2 MiLoG lets the federal government set and adjust the rate by ordinance, based on a recommendation from the Mindestlohnkommission described below.

A narrow exception in § 1 Abs. 3 MiLoG gives way to sector specific minimum wages set under posted worker and temporary agency legislation, where those rates equal or exceed the general floor. That mechanism is covered later on this page under sector minimum wages.

The rate by year, and what changes on 1 January 2027

The 2026 rate took effect through the Fünfte Mindestlohnanpassungsverordnung, following a decision the Mindestlohnkommission adopted on 27 June 2025. That single decision set both the 2026 and the 2027 figures in one two step adjustment, rather than deciding one year at a time.

The 14.60 euro rate for 2027 is scheduled and already fixed in the adjustment ordinance, not a forecast or a proposal awaiting a further vote. It is still worth re-checking against the official BMAS or gesetze-im-internet.de source closer to the date, since this page cannot track any later development in real time.

How the Mindestlohnkommission sets the rate

The Mindestlohnkommission is a standing body the federal government establishes under § 4 MiLoG, reconstituted every five years. It has one independent chair, six voting members split evenly between employer and trade union representatives, and two non voting academic advisors.

Under § 9 MiLoG, the commission decides on adjustments to the minimum wage every two years and must give written reasons for its decision. It weighs worker protection, fair competition conditions and the risk to employment, and looks at how collectively bargained wages have moved since the last adjustment.

Starting with its 2025 decision, the commission also began weighing a reference value of 60 percent of the median wage of full time employees, a benchmark drawn from the EU Minimum Wage Directive rather than one required directly by German statute. Germany implemented that directive without passing a new law, through a notice the BMAS published in the Bundesgesetzblatt on 23 October 2024 confirming existing German law already met its requirements.

The directive itself was then partly struck down. In Case C-19/23, decided on 11 November 2025, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the EU annulled Article 5(2), the provision listing the criteria member states were to use in assessing whether a minimum wage is adequate, while leaving Article 5(4), which refers to a reference value such as 60 percent of the median wage, and the collective bargaining provisions intact.

The practical effect in Germany is not yet settled, and it is worth being careful here rather than reassuring. The Mindestlohnkommission's own rules of procedure refer to the annulled Article 5(2) criteria as well as to the surviving Article 5(4) reference value, so it is not accurate to say German practice was simply unconnected to the part that fell. What can be said is that the reference value the commission leaned on in its June 2025 decision survived the ruling, and that the German statutory framework in the MiLoG was not itself annulled or amended by it. Treat this as a live question rather than a closed one.

Worked example: turning the hourly rate into a monthly wage

The minimum wage is set per hour, so an employee on a standard weekly schedule needs to convert it to see the effect on a payslip. A 40 hour week is a common full time pattern in Germany, though it varies by employer and by collective agreement.

At 40 hours a week, using the standard German payroll conversion of 4.348 weeks a month, an employee earning exactly the 2026 minimum wage would earn approximately 2,417 euro a month gross, before tax and social insurance deductions. That figure comes from 13.90 euro multiplied by 40 hours multiplied by 4.348 weeks. Working beyond the agreed weekly hours can trigger separate overtime pay questions; see overtime in Germany for how those rules work independently of the minimum wage floor.

At a part time schedule of around 10 hours a week, the same hourly rate produces roughly 603 euro a month, and that is not a coincidence. That figure is also the 2026 Minijob earnings ceiling, because the ceiling is calculated directly from the minimum wage under § 8 SGB IV: the hourly rate multiplied by 130, divided by three, rounded up. See Minijob in Germany for how that formula works and what changes once monthly earnings cross the line.

Who is excluded from the minimum wage

A short, defined list of situations falls outside minimum wage coverage under § 22 MiLoG. Getting this list right matters, since it is the section most often misunderstood in casual descriptions of the rules.

Minors without a completed vocational qualification. Someone covered by the Jugendarbeitsschutzgesetz, meaning under 18, who has not completed a recognised vocational qualification (Berufsausbildung), falls outside the minimum wage entirely for that job (§ 22 Abs. 2 MiLoG). Completing an apprenticeship removes the exclusion even if the person is still under 18.

Trainees during a formal apprenticeship. Pay during a Berufsausbildung is governed by the Berufsbildungsgesetz's own training remuneration rules, not the Mindestlohn (§ 22 Abs. 3 MiLoG).

Four categories of internship. § 22 Abs. 1 MiLoG excludes a Pflichtpraktikum required by school, training or higher education regulations, with no length limit of its own; an orientation internship for choosing a vocational path or a degree, limited to three months; an internship taken alongside an existing vocational or university course, also limited to three months, but only where the same intern has not already completed such an internship with the same employer; and participation in an Einstiegsqualifizierung under § 54a SGB III or in vocational preparation under §§ 68 to 70 BBiG. An internship that runs longer than its three month limit, or repeats with the same employer, falls back under ordinary minimum wage coverage for the excess period.

Previously long term unemployed workers, for six months. Someone who was long term unemployed immediately before starting a new job falls outside the minimum wage for the first six months of that employment (§ 22 Abs. 4 MiLoG). The exclusion is limited strictly to that opening window and does not restart if the same employer moves the person into a different role afterward.

Volunteers. Genuine volunteer work (ehrenamtliche Tätigkeit) sits outside the scope of the MiLoG altogether, since it is not paid employment in the sense the Act covers (§ 22 Abs. 3 MiLoG).

The wage cannot be signed away

§ 3 MiLoG makes the minimum wage claim non negotiable. Any agreement that pays under the minimum wage, or that limits or excludes an employee's right to claim it, is void to that extent, regardless of what the employment contract says.

An employee can only give up an already accrued minimum wage claim through a court settlement (gerichtlicher Vergleich). Any other form of waiver, including a signature on a standard release, does not remove the underlying claim.

§ 3 MiLoG also blocks contractual forfeiture clauses (Ausschlussfristen) from applying to the minimum wage portion of pay. A typical clause requiring wage claims to be raised within a set number of months can still apply to pay above the minimum wage, but it cannot extinguish the minimum wage floor itself.

Employer duties: paying on time and keeping records

§ 20 MiLoG requires every employer, based in Germany or abroad, to pay employees working in Germany at least the minimum wage, no later than the payment date fixed under § 2 Abs. 1 MiLoG. That duty applies regardless of where the employer is headquartered.

§ 17 MiLoG adds a working time record keeping duty for certain jobs and sectors: employment subject to social insurance recording under § 8 Abs. 1 SGB IV, temporary agency work, and any of the sectors listed in § 2a SchwarzArbG, which include construction, hospitality and lodging, passenger transport, freight forwarding and logistics, building cleaning, trade fair setup, the meat industry, security services, and hairdressing and cosmetics. Minijobs under § 8a SGB IV are explicitly excluded from this particular duty.

Within those sectors, the employer must record the start, end and duration of each day's working time no later than seven calendar days after the work was done, and keep those records for at least two years. The records must be kept in German at a domestic location and produced at the workplace itself on request from an inspecting authority.

Sector minimum wages sit above the general floor

The Mindestlohn is a floor, not a typical wage. Several sectors have their own binding minimum wage, set higher than the general figure under the Arbeitnehmer Entsendegesetz (AEntG), through collective agreements the federal government has declared universally binding across the sector.

Sectors with their own binding minimum include building cleaning (Gebäudereinigung), roofing (Dachdeckerhandwerk), construction, electrical trades, scaffolding and care work. Most of them are graded, so a single sector carries several wage groups: in building cleaning, for example, interior cleaning sits at the bottom of the scale and glass and facade work at the top, with a gap of several euro an hour between them. Care sector wages are set separately again, under the Pflegearbeitsbedingungenverordnung, and are also graded by qualification.

Specific sector figures are deliberately not reproduced here. These rates are declared in staggered multi-year steps, so a single collective agreement can contain a 2026 rate, a 2027 rate and a 2028 rate at once, and much of the material circulating online quotes the wrong step of that schedule as though it were current. The authoritative and continuously updated list is the Zoll overview of Branchen-Mindestlöhne. Check the rate for the specific wage group and the specific date there rather than relying on a figure quoted elsewhere, including here.

These sector rates run on their own schedule, independent of the Mindestlohnkommission's two year cycle, so a sector figure quoted from an earlier year should always be checked against the current AEntG ordinance or the BMAS overview rather than assumed to move automatically with the general rate.

Enforcement: the Zoll's Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit

The Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit (FKS), a unit of German customs (Zoll), checks compliance with the minimum wage alongside its wider work against undeclared work and illegal employment. Inspectors can interview employees about their pay and hours and examine an employer's payroll, time and financial records on site.

An employee, or anyone else, can report suspected underpayment to the Hauptzollamt (main customs office) responsible for the employer's location, including anonymously. The FKS investigates and sanctions the employer; it does not pursue an individual employee's unpaid wages on their behalf, so a worker still needs a claim through the labour courts (Arbeitsgericht) to recover money actually owed.

Fines for violations are set out in § 21 MiLoG. Non payment or late payment of the minimum wage carries a fine of up to 500,000 euro. Failing to keep or produce the § 17 working time records correctly carries a fine of up to 50,000 euro, and other violations, such as obstructing an inspection or supplying incomplete information, carry a fine of up to 30,000 euro. A company found in serious or repeated breach can also lose eligibility for public contracts.

For the wider framework these rules sit inside, see German law explained.

Frequently asked questions