Chemical industry tariff: Westfalen (Westphalia)
Wage table, working hours and special payments for the Westfalen (Westphalia) chemical-industry bargaining region.
Table of Contents
Westfalen is one of two self-standing bargaining regions inside North Rhine-Westphalia - the other is Nordrhein. Both negotiate separate wage agreements with genuinely different figures, even where a specific position like E6 happens to coincide.
The figures here come from the WSI Tarifarchiv (April 2025). One of roughly 170 individual table cells stood out during verification of that source: it's disclosed in its own section below rather than carried over unremarked.
Pay groups E1 through E13 in Westfalen
E1, the lowest group with no tenure steps, sits at 3,137 EUR a month in Westfalen - slightly above Nordrhein's 3,117 EUR. E6, the entry group after completed vocational training, starts at an identical 3,651 EUR and rises across four steps to 4,235 EUR - exactly matching Nordrhein. The top group E13 (commercial variant) sits at 7,363 EUR in Westfalen, almost 60 EUR above Nordrhein's 7,304 EUR.
A technical E13 variant isn't independently confirmed for Westfalen yet - the calculator shows only the commercial figure, not a guessed technical one, rather than filling a gap with a guess.
| Pay group | Occupational variant | ab 18. Lebensjahr | Anfangsstufe | nach 2 Jahren | nach 3 Jahren | nach 4 Jahren | nach 6 Jahren |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | einheitlich | 3,137.00 € | – | – | – | – | – |
| E2 | einheitlich | 3,302.00 € | – | – | – | – | – |
| E3 | einheitlich | 3,397.00 € | – | – | – | – | – |
| E4 | einheitlich | 3,498.00 € | – | – | – | – | – |
| E5 | einheitlich | – | 3,576.00 € | – | 3,665.00 € | – | 3,755.00 € |
| E6 | einheitlich | – | 3,651.00 € | 3,870.00 € | – | 4,053.00 € | 4,235.00 € |
| E7 | einheitlich | – | 3,757.00 € | 3,982.00 € | – | 4,208.00 € | 4,433.00 € |
| E8 | einheitlich | – | 3,850.00 € | 4,081.00 € | – | 4,351.00 € | 4,620.00 € |
| E9 | kaufmaennisch | – | 3,949.00 € | 4,322.00 € | – | 4,749.00 € | 5,336.00 € |
| E10 | kaufmaennisch | – | 4,442.00 € | 4,851.00 € | – | 5,319.00 € | 5,845.00 € |
| E11 | kaufmaennisch | – | 4,951.00 € | 5,396.00 € | – | 5,777.00 € | – |
| E12 | kaufmaennisch | – | 5,351.00 € | 5,831.00 € | – | 6,311.00 € | 6,860.00 € |
| E13 | kaufmaennisch | – | 7,363.00 € | – | – | – | – |
What the pay groups describe
As in every chemical-industry region, each pay group ties to a real job description: E1 for tasks needing only a brief introduction, E6 for entry after at least three years of vocational training, E13 for independent commercial or technical work with extensive experience. These descriptions are nationally uniform in substance, even though the euro figures are negotiated per region.
Working hours
As in Nordrhein, the contractual week in Westfalen is 37.5 hours, with a divisor of 163.1. 32 weekly hours is about 85.3% of full-time - a full E8 starting wage of 3,850 EUR becomes roughly 3,285 EUR of part-time base pay.
The 2026-2028 settlement
Westfalen follows the same nationally-negotiated steps as every other region: unchanged through end 2026, then 2.1% on 1 January 2027 and a further 2.4% on 1 January 2028, with an optional company-confirmed three-month early adoption. Unlike Nordrhein, no directly published table exists for Westfalen for these two future steps - the calculator shows them as derived, not as a confirmed table value.
The derivation applies the announced percentage to the current figure and rounds to the nearest euro. For Nordrhein, that method could be checked directly at six points and occasionally differed from the actually published figure by a euro - a sign the Westfalen 2027/2028 figures should be read as an approximation too, not a to-the-cent guarantee.
A disclosed data inconsistency: E11 after six years
A systematic check of all 13 regions for a consistently rising step sequence flagged position E11, "after 6 years", for Westfalen: the source figure is lower than the preceding step ("after 4 years") - a step backward that doesn't occur anywhere else, in any region. Without a second, corroborating source, this one figure was deliberately left out of the table rather than published as a likely-wrong number. The table shows "not available" for this one combination instead of an amount.
Special payments
No independently confirmed source exists for Westfalen's own holiday pay or annual bonus - the calculator therefore shows Nordrhein's directly confirmed figures (40 EUR per vacation day times 30 days, 100% annual bonus) as the nationwide default pattern, clearly an assumption rather than a value independently checked for Westfalen itself.
The Zukunftsbetrag (23% of a month's pay), by contrast, is a nationwide entitlement regardless of bargaining region and is available accordingly.
Westfalen compared with Nordrhein
The comparison shows: the higher the pay group, the larger the gap between these two neighboring regions grows. At E1 the difference is 20 EUR, at E6 it's zero, and at E13 commercial it's already 59 EUR in Westfalen's favor. A blanket "Westfalen pays more" or "less" than Nordrhein doesn't hold up - it depends on the specific group.
The annual view
Twelve monthly salaries at E6 entry level (3,651 EUR) total an annual gross of 43,812 EUR in Westfalen, same as in Nordrhein. At E13 commercial (7,363 EUR) that's 88,356 EUR a year - 708 EUR more than Nordrhein's 87,648 EUR, despite the identical E6 figure.
Frequently asked questions
Why is there no figure for E11 "after 6 years"?
The source shows a value for this one position that's lower than the preceding step - a step backward that doesn't occur for any other group, and couldn't be reliably corrected without a second source. The calculator deliberately shows "not available" instead of a likely-wrong number.
Is Westfalen the same as North Rhine-Westphalia as a whole?
No. North Rhine-Westphalia as a state contains two separate chemical-industry bargaining regions - Nordrhein and Westfalen - each with its own wage agreement.
Who this page is for
This table applies to employees whose employer belongs to the Chemische Industrie Westfalen bargaining region. Check that against your own classification notice, not your address within North Rhine-Westphalia. The interactive calculator lets you add weekly hours, a personal allowance and an optional net-pay estimate.
Sources
- https://www.bavc.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/2492-pi-25-03-26 (BAVC press release - 2.1%/2.4% increases, Jan 2027/2028, agreement duration, 300 EUR/year demographic-fund contribution)
- https://igbce.de/igbce/chemie26-faq-zum-abschluss-269474 (IGBCE FAQ - Zukunftsbetrag 23% national framework confirmation, early-adoption option)
- WSI Tarifarchiv, Chemische Industrie workbook: https://www.wsi.de/data/p_ta_tarife_chemische_industrie_2026.xlsx (sheet "WF | E", April-2025 wage step)