AVR Caritas Salary Calculator

Coverage and confirmed classification

Supported in 2026: annexes 30, 31, 32 and 33 in Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Mitte, Nord and Nordrhein-Westfalen. Annex 30 is also available for Ost. Annex 3 requires additional locality and family components; it and other Ost combinations are excluded. Use your confirmed contractual reference.

Understand basic pay, allowances and net

General tables change on 1 February 2026 and physicians’ tables on 1 March. Group-appropriate care, fixed and SuE allowances are added separately. Conditional SuE and shift entitlements require confirmation. Part-time is applied to gross salary and proportional allowances before tax.

Ordinary net, one-off net, bank payout and annual totals are separate. Mandatory professional funds support RV-linked or confirmed contributions. Occupational pensions such as KZVK and salary conversion are excluded. Ordinary net is withheld at regular monthly gross of EUR 2,000 or less.

Start with the annex and regional commission

AVR Caritas is a framework containing different occupational arrangements, not one national salary grid that can be applied to every employee. The relevant annex depends on the work and contractual reference. Regional commissions can adopt decisions with their own effective dates and implementation details. A table labelled only Caritas 2026 therefore leaves important questions unanswered. Before looking up an amount, identify the annex, the responsible regional commission, your confirmed group and step and the exact payroll month. Use the contract and the employer's implementation information together.

A job title can help you find the right documents but does not replace them. A physician, a nursing employee, a social-care employee and a member of general administrative staff may fall under different arrangements. Similarly, a workplace's postal address alone is not sufficient evidence for every contractual detail. If an employer supplies an agreement reference or a regional decision, retain the complete reference and effective date. The annex and region selectors offer only combinations verified against primary decisions; combinations outside that scope are not calculated.

Similar-looking TVöD figures are not a substitute

Some Caritas decisions refer to developments in other agreements, but a similar wage increase does not make their entire payroll systems interchangeable. Starting dates, groups, working hours, supplements and annual special payments may differ. Copying a TVöD table into an AVR-labelled calculator can therefore produce a plausible number for the wrong arrangement. A reliable comparison needs the actual adopted regional decision and applicable annex rather than an assumption that all employees receive the same increase in the same month. This matters particularly in a year with more than one table period.

For the same reason, distinguish an announced settlement from a rule already applicable to your employment. A future structural change should not be used to relabel current payroll figures. When comparing two periods, keep the original dates visible and verify that there is no gap or overlap between them. A missing table is a missing input, not permission to continue the last known rate indefinitely. The underlying calculator architecture rejects such gaps so that an annual total cannot silently combine documented pay with an unsupported future assumption.

Additional pension provision and special payments

Occupational pension arrangements can create employee deductions and employer contributions beyond ordinary statutory insurance. Their tax and contribution treatment depends on the actual provider and scheme. They should not be replaced automatically with a VBL West percentage just because another public-sector calculator uses that scheme. Ask the employer which pension institution applies, which portion is deducted from your pay and whether salary conversion or individually taxed employer contributions are involved. A net estimate that omits a relevant scheme may differ from the amount on your payslip even when basic gross is correct.

Annual special payments also require annex-specific eligibility and calculation rules. A guaranteed payment, a discretionary bonus and a supplement for particular work are different parts of remuneration. Record the reference salary, payment month, employment conditions and any reductions before adding a percentage to a yearly comparison. An amount paid in one month should not automatically become recurring salary in every month. The calculator separates ordinary net, supported one-off net and annual gross rather than multiplying one attractive payout month by twelve.

Use the published scope and compare the complete payslip

The published Caritas calculator offers only the annex and region combinations listed in its coverage note. It resolves every month against the applicable primary decision, includes group-based fixed allowances and asks for confirmation of conditional entitlements. The care allowance changes from EUR 137.96 to EUR 141.82 in February 2026 in the supported western regions. A confirmed annual special payment uses the eligible July–September average and the group's 86%, 76% or 56% rate, paid in November. Collective performance-pay budgets are not guaranteed individual bonuses. Enter only your confirmed individual amount and keep occupational-pension deductions separate when comparing this estimate with payroll.

Prepare the details from your payslip

Start with a recent ordinary payslip and your employment contract. Record the applicable agreement, confirmed group and experience step, contractual weekly hours and the month you want to compare. Then check your tax class, federal state, church-tax status and health insurer. Use the insurer's own additional contribution rate rather than assuming every fund charges the national average. Changing several settings at once makes a discrepancy harder to explain: first reproduce the basic gross salary, then add your personal deductions and finally compare additional payments.

Children affect different parts of payroll in different ways. The registered child-allowance count is not necessarily the same as the number of children relevant for long-term care insurance. Likewise, private health insurance requires actual premiums and the certified basic-coverage amount used for tax withholding. A figure copied from a household budget may include supplementary cover that does not belong in that tax field. The calculation is only as specific as the information entered, so compare each setting with the corresponding payroll record before treating a difference as an error.

Read monthly net, bank payout and annual totals separately

Regular monthly net answers what remains after the modelled deductions from recurring wages. A bonus has its own withholding calculation and may leave a different proportion of its gross amount. Annual net is a sum of the individual payroll months, including supported one-off payments; it is not the final income tax determined after a tax return. Other income, deductible expenses, a spouse's earnings and changes during the year can alter that final assessment. Keep these distinctions in mind when comparing two job offers or choosing a working-time percentage.

Bank payout can also differ from money available to spend. If an employer pays a subsidy while you transfer the full private insurance premium or professional-fund contribution yourself, part of the amount arriving in your account is already committed. Compare offers using income after those payments, and reserve the required contribution before allocating rent, savings or discretionary spending. Employer contributions are useful information about the remuneration package, but they are not an extra net salary payment unless the stated collection method actually pays them to you.