Elterngeld Calculator 2026: Parental Allowance

How Elterngeld is calculated

Elterngeld (parental allowance) replaces part of your income for up to 14 months after a child is born, so a parent can reduce or pause paid work to care for a newborn without losing all household income. It was introduced in 2007, replacing the old flat-rate Erziehungsgeld, specifically to link the benefit to your own prior earnings rather than paying everyone the same amount regardless of income. The legal basis is the Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz (BEEG), and the calculation runs through the same three steps for every applicant: work out your Elterngeld-relevant net income from before the birth, apply a replacement rate that runs from 65 % to 100 % depending on how much that income was, and add any Geschwisterbonus or Mehrlingszuschlag your household qualifies for. The result is subject to a floor of 300 € a month and a ceiling of 1,800 € a month for a single child.

Two things decide your Elterngeld-net income before the birth even happens. First, the Bemessungszeitraum (assessment period): for most employees this is the 12 calendar months before the month the child is born, though for the birth mother it usually shifts to the 12 months before Mutterschutz (maternity leave protection) began, since those Mutterschutz months are excluded from the average. Second, only regular monthly wages count; one-off payments like Weihnachtsgeld (Christmas bonus) or Urlaubsgeld (holiday pay) are excluded by law, so a bonus-heavy salary does not inflate your Elterngeld the way it inflates your real income. From that average gross wage, a flat monthly Arbeitnehmer-Pauschbetrag of 102.50 € (one-twelfth of the 1,230 € annual employee allowance) is deducted first; Elterngeld then runs two of its own deduction chains on that reduced figure rather than using your real payslip: a notional Lohnsteuer, Solidaritätszuschlag and, at a flat 8 % regardless of which state you actually live in, Kirchensteuer, calculated using the Programmablaufplan valid on 1 January of the year before the birth, and a flat 21 % social-security deduction split into 9 % for health and long-term care insurance, 10 % for pension insurance and 2 % for unemployment insurance, each only applied if you are actually subject to that branch of compulsory insurance.

Take a full-time employee on 3,000 € gross a month, tax class 1, no children yet, statutorily insured and not a church-tax payer, expecting a child in 2026. The flat 102.50 € Arbeitnehmer-Pauschbetrag comes off first, leaving 2,897.50 €. Tax and Soli are worked out on that reduced figure using the official withholding formula that applied on 1 January 2025, the year before the birth, coming to 287.33 €, and social security is deducted at BEEG's own flat 21 % of the same reduced figure, 608.48 €, rather than whatever this person's real payslip shows. That leaves an Elterngeld-net income of 2,001.69 €. Because that is above the 1,200 € threshold, the replacement rate sits at the 65 % floor rather than the standard 67 %, so Basiselterngeld comes out at 1,301.10 € a month, well under the 1,800 € ceiling. ElterngeldPlus would pay exactly half that, 650.55 €, for twice as many months.

Basiselterngeld, ElterngeldPlus and the Partnerschaftsbonus

Every household chooses between three ways to draw the same underlying entitlement, and can mix them freely across the child's early years.

ElterngeldPlus is not simply Basiselterngeld's smaller sibling; it exists specifically for parents who plan to work part-time while on leave, since Basiselterngeld is cut roughly in half anyway once you earn income alongside it but is still only paid for the original number of months, while Plus spreads that same reduced amount over twice as many months instead. Every Basis month can be converted into two Plus months at any point up to the child's 14th month (extendable to the 28th, or even further with both parents' written agreement) - a decision worth making before the first payment starts, since it is far harder to unwind once Elterngeld is already being paid out.

Geschwisterbonus and multiple births

If your household already includes one other child under 3, two other children both under 6, or one other child with a disability under 14, your Elterngeld goes up by 10 %, with a guaranteed minimum top-up of 75 € a month for Basiselterngeld (37.50 € for ElterngeldPlus) even if 10 % of your own amount would be smaller. There is no separate application for it; ticking the relevant box on the ordinary Elterngeld form is enough. Twins, triplets or other multiples from the same birth bring a separate Mehrlingszuschlag (multiple-birth supplement) of 300 € a month for Basiselterngeld (150 € for Plus) for every additional child beyond the first - added independently of the Geschwisterbonus, not on top of it or folded into its 10 % calculation, since the law explicitly says the Mehrlingszuschlag still applies in full even when a Geschwisterbonus is also being paid. A family with twins and an older toddler under 3 could therefore be drawing both bonuses on the same claim, each calculated from the base Basiselterngeld amount separately.

What counts as income: the Bemessungszeitraum

The 12-month reference period usually runs from the month the child is born backwards, but several things can shift or narrow it. For the birth mother, any calendar month spent on Mutterschutz (the six-weeks-before/eight-weeks-after maternity leave protection) is excluded and replaced with an earlier month, since that time is itself covered by Mutterschaftsgeld rather than ordinary wages, and using it as a reference month would artificially lower the average. Parental leave you already took for an older child, or a genuine period of serious illness that reduced your income within the reference window, can also shift or exclude specific months - but ordinary unemployment or simply having no income for a stretch is not on its own a reason to skip a month; those months still count, potentially averaging in as 0 €. The exact rules are applied case by case by the Elterngeldstelle (the local family benefits office), so if any of this could apply to you, it is worth asking them directly which twelve months they will actually use before relying on your own estimate. Only regular monthly wages are averaged; one-off payments such as a 13th-month salary, a signing bonus, or accumulated overtime paid out as a lump sum are excluded by law and do not raise your Elterngeld, however large they were. Self-employed applicants use a different base entirely: their Gewinneinkünfte (business profit) from the last fully completed tax year before the birth, not an average of the last 12 months. This calculator does not model that path at all - a self-employed applicant's own profit figure should not be entered into the gross-income field above, since it uses a different reference period and different statutory rules; use the Elterngeldstelle's own Elterngeldrechner or a Steuerberater instead.

Elternzeit vs Elterngeld: not the same thing

These two terms get mixed up constantly, but they answer different questions. Elternzeit is the legal right, under the same BEEG, to take unpaid leave from your employer, unilaterally and without needing their agreement, for up to three years per child, with your job protected the whole time. Elterngeld is the money paid during some of that time, for up to 14 months, to replace part of the income you are giving up by taking that leave. You can take Elternzeit without claiming Elterngeld at all, for example for the third year once the money has run out, and in principle you could decline Elternzeit and still, in some circumstances, remain eligible for Elterngeld while still formally employed, though almost everyone who claims Elterngeld is also on Elternzeit at the same time, since it is what actually frees up the hours to care for a newborn. Applying for one does not automatically apply for the other: Elternzeit is requested from your employer in writing, generally at least seven weeks before it starts, while Elterngeld is a completely separate application to the Elterngeldstelle.