Unterhalt in Germany: The Legal Rules Behind Child Support

Unterhalt is the German legal term for maintenance, the ongoing duty to support a family member financially. For child support specifically, called Kindesunterhalt, most searches go straight to a number and land on the Düsseldorfer Tabelle. That table is only the last step in a longer chain of rules: who owes Unterhalt in the first place, how much of the paying parent's own income the law protects before anyone else is paid, and what happens once support is agreed but not actually paid.

This page works through that legal chain rather than the table itself. For the full 2026 figures, the 15 income groups, the four age bands, and worked Kindergeld and Mangelfall examples, see the Düsseldorfer Tabelle and child support calculation guide.

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

Who owes Unterhalt: the Verwandtenunterhalt principle

§ 1601 BGB states the rule in a single sentence: relatives in a direct line owe each other maintenance. Verwandte in gerader Linie means parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, and so on up and down a family tree, but it does not reach siblings or in laws, who sit outside the direct line entirely.

For a minor child, the obligation in practice almost always falls on the two parents, because a grandparent's duty only becomes relevant where both parents are genuinely unable to pay, which is comparatively rare. § 1606 BGB fixes the order among relatives where more than one might owe support, and this same section, not a separate rule, also contains the care principle explained next.

When care itself is the payment

The single most misunderstood rule in this area is § 1606 Abs. 3 Satz 2 BGB. It provides that a parent who cares for a minor child ordinarily fulfils their own contribution to that child's Unterhalt through the care and upbringing they provide, not through money.

In practice this means a two parent household is not usually analysed as each parent owing a share of cash support to the child. Only once the parents separate, and one parent stops living with and caring for the child day to day, does a cash obligation crystallise against that parent specifically. The parent the child lives with keeps meeting their own share through housing, food and daily care, which is why typically only one parent pays a Düsseldorfer Tabelle amount rather than both.

The obligor's protected minimum: Selbstbehalt and Leistungsfähigkeit

§ 1603 Abs. 1 BGB states the general rule of Leistungsfähigkeit, capacity to pay: nobody is obliged to pay maintenance if doing so would leave them unable to meet their own appropriate needs. The table below sets out the protected minimum that follows from that rule and from the regional Unterhaltsleitlinien courts apply alongside it.

A privileged adult child, for the lower Selbstbehalt tier, is one under 21, unmarried, still living in a parent's household and in general schooling. An adult child outside that description is measured against the higher EUR 1,750 floor instead.

For minor and certain adult children, § 1603 Abs. 2 BGB goes further and imposes a gesteigerte Unterhaltspflicht, a heightened duty to pay. A parent covered by it cannot simply point to being unemployed or underemployed. Courts expect that parent to actually look for work, accept a reasonable job outside their preferred field, and in some cases take on additional hours, before their actual income is accepted as the final word on what they can pay.

Worked example. A father works part time and earns a bereinigtes Nettoeinkommen of EUR 1,300 a month, and owes support to a 9 year old child who lives with the mother. Because the gesteigerte Unterhaltspflicht applies to a minor child, a court will generally ask whether he could reasonably increase his hours or income before treating EUR 1,300 as his final capacity. If a full time position paying EUR 1,900 net is genuinely available to him given his qualifications, location and health, the court can impute that higher figure, a fiktives Einkommen, rather than basing support on the lower actual earnings.

Priority when money is short: § 1609 BGB

Where an obligor cannot pay everyone who has a claim on them in full, § 1609 BGB sets a strict ranking rather than splitting money evenly across every claimant. Minor children, and certain adult children still living at home and in general education, rank first. A parent caring for a child, and a spouse in a long marriage, rank second. Other spouses and ex spouses rank third. Adult children outside the first rank come fourth, followed by grandchildren, then parents, then more distant relatives in the ascending line.

This ranking decides who is paid before any shortfall is even calculated, and it also decides which claims are squeezed first if the obligor's Leistungsfähigkeit changes, for example after a job loss.

How maintenance is actually paid: § 1612 BGB

§ 1612 Abs. 1 BGB sets the default form of Unterhalt as a monthly cash payment, a Geldrente, payable in advance under § 1612 Abs. 3 BGB. An obligor can only insist on providing support in some other form, for example housing rather than cash, where special reasons justify it.

An adult child sits in a somewhat different position. § 1612 Abs. 2 BGB lets parents jointly decide the form and timing of support to an unmarried adult child, provided the child's interests are properly considered, but a parent who does not have custody of a still minor child can generally only fix arrangements of this kind for periods the child actually spends in that parent's own household.

The Mindestunterhalt, and why the euro figure moves every January

§ 1612a BGB fixes the Mindestunterhalt, the statutory floor for a minor child's support, as a percentage of the tax free Existenzminimum that scales with the child's age band. The Bundesministerium der Justiz sets the actual euro amount by ordinance, the Mindestunterhaltsverordnung, and that ordinance is amended only every two years, currently by the seventh amending ordinance of 15 November 2024.

What looks like an annual change is really a single two year ordinance that sets two different figures, one for each year of its cycle. That is why the amount on the Düsseldorfer Tabelle still steps up most Januaries even though the rulemaking behind it happens far less often. Half of the monthly Kindergeld, EUR 259 at the 2026 rate, is then deducted from the resulting need under § 1612b BGB for a minor child living with the other parent, and the full EUR 259 for an adult child. The full 15 income group table with all four age bands is on the Düsseldorfer Tabelle page.

Maintenance for the past: § 1613 BGB

A parent cannot simply appear years later and demand back payments for a period nobody raised at the time. § 1613 Abs. 1 BGB allows a claim for the past only from the point the paying parent was formally asked to pay, was placed in default, or was asked to disclose their income for the purpose of asserting the claim.

There are narrower exceptions. § 1613 Abs. 2 BGB allows a claim for an extraordinary one off need, and for periods when the entitled person was prevented, for legal or factual reasons within the obligor's own sphere, from asserting the claim sooner. Because of this rule, a parent who believes the other owes support should send a written demand promptly rather than wait, since waiting can permanently close off months that have already passed.

When a parent will not pay: Beistandschaft and enforcement

Where a paying parent will not cooperate, a parent with custody, or the child directly once of age, can ask the Jugendamt to act as Beistand, assistant, for establishing paternity and for asserting and enforcing maintenance claims, under § 1712 BGB. The Jugendamt does not replace a lawyer for every purpose, but it performs this specific job for a parent who could not otherwise easily afford one, without a separate charge.

A maintenance obligation can also become an enforceable title without going to court at all, through a Jugendamtsurkunde recorded under § 59 SGB VIII, in which the paying parent formally acknowledges the obligation before a Jugendamt official. Once recorded, that document is directly enforceable in the same way as a court judgment, meaning a Gerichtsvollzieher can act on it if payments stop, without a separate lawsuit to establish the debt first.

Where the actual figures are

This page sets out who owes Unterhalt, what protects the paying parent's own income, and how an unpaid claim is enforced. It deliberately does not reproduce the Düsseldorfer Tabelle itself. For the full 2026 table across all 15 income groups and four age bands, the Kindergeld deduction worked through with real numbers, and a worked Mangelfall example, see the Düsseldorfer Tabelle: how German child support is calculated.

For maintenance owed to a spouse rather than a child, see spousal maintenance. For the divorce process itself, see divorce in Germany. For who holds parental responsibility in the first place, see custody. For the wider picture of German family law, see the Germany law hub.

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