Minijob / Midijob
Minijob & Midijob Calculator
Estimate your take-home pay for a Minijob (up to 603 €) or a Midijob (up to 2,000 €), including the pension opt-out decision, your own deductions, and an employer-cost breakdown.
This calculator is for orientation only and does not replace advice from the Minijob-Zentrale, your employer's payroll office, or a Steuerberater. Rates and thresholds reflect the 2025 and 2026 statutory figures as researched; always confirm your own numbers before relying on them.
How this calculator works
Enter your monthly gross wage and the calculator automatically detects which of the three regimes applies: Minijob (flat-rate, up to the Minijob-Grenze), Midijob (sliding reduced contributions, up to 2,000 €), or above that range entirely (normal employment - use the main salary calculator instead).
For a Minijob, it computes the flat employer Pauschalabgaben from scratch under §8 SGB IV and §40a EStG. For a Midijob, it reuses this site's own verified payroll-withholding engine with the statutory Übergangsbereich sliding contribution formula (§20 Abs. 2a SGB IV) applied across all four social-insurance branches.
Every figure - the Minijob-Grenze, the Midijob band, the Pauschale percentages, and the annual surcharges - is sourced directly from the Minijob-Zentrale and the underlying statutes, and is versioned per tax year so 2025 and 2026 never mix.
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On this page
How the Minijob and Midijob system works
Geringfügige Beschäftigung (Minijobs) and the Übergangsbereich (Midijobs, informally called the Gleitzone) are two separate systems that sit back-to-back, purely by monthly gross wage - there's no election involved, and no way to choose one over the other at a given wage. Whichever band your gross wage falls into decides everything else: whether income tax is withheld directly from your pay, and whether you personally pay anything toward health, pension, unemployment, or long-term-care insurance.
| Regime | Monthly gross | Employee income tax | Employee social insurance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minijob | Up to 603 € (556 € in 2025) | None - employer pays a flat 2% Pauschsteuer instead | None, except an optional pension share (3.6% commercial, 13.6% private-household) |
| Midijob | 603.01 € – 2,000 € | Normal withholding by your tax class | Full membership, at a sliding reduced rate that phases in across the band |
| Normal employment | Above 2,000 € | Normal withholding by your tax class | Full, uncapped contributions - no reduction at all |
It's worth being precise about the terminology: "Midijob" and "Gleitzone" both describe the same 603.01 €–2,000 € band in everyday use, though the law itself calls it the Übergangsbereich (transition area) since a 2019 reform widened what used to be a narrower Gleitzone. Both a Minijob and a Midijob count as genuine employment for most everyday-employment-law purposes - protection against dismissal, statutory holiday entitlement, and continued pay during illness all apply exactly as they would to any other job. Unemployment-benefit (Arbeitslosengeld I) eligibility is the one big exception for a Minijob specifically: since Minijobs are exempt from unemployment insurance entirely, time spent in one doesn't build ALG-I entitlement the way ordinary employment does, while a Midijob does pay unemployment-insurance contributions and does count toward it. Otherwise, what differs between a Minijob and a Midijob is purely how tax and social-insurance contributions are calculated.
The Minijob-Grenze: 603 € in 2026, and why it keeps moving
Since 1 October 2022, the Minijob-Grenze hasn't been a fixed euro figure set directly by law - it's dynamically indexed to the statutory minimum wage, using the formula in §8 Abs. 1a SGB IV: minimum wage × 130 ÷ 3, rounded up to the next full euro. The "130" stands for a reference 130 hours of work over a three-month period (roughly 10 hours a week at minimum wage), and dividing by 3 turns that into a monthly figure. When the minimum wage rose from 12.82 €/hour to 13.90 €/hour on 1 January 2026, the limit rose automatically from 556 € to 603 € (13.90 × 130 ÷ 3 = 602.33, rounded up). This also means the limit can rise again mid-year in principle, though in practice it has moved only on 1 January so far. The Midijob's own upper bound, by contrast, isn't tied to the minimum wage at all - it's a flat 2,000 € set directly by law, unchanged since it was raised from 1,600 € on 1 January 2023.
What your employer pays on top of your Minijob wage
For a Minijob, your employer pays a set of flat-rate contributions calculated as a percentage of your wage, entirely on top of it - none of this comes out of your pay. The exact rates depend on whether the employer is a normal business or a private household using the simplified Haushaltsscheck procedure (for cleaning, childcare, and similar domestic help):
| Contribution | Commercial employer | Private household |
|---|---|---|
| Health insurance Pauschale | 13% (only if you're a GKV member) | 5% (only if you're a GKV member) |
| Pension insurance Pauschale | 15% | 5% |
| Pauschsteuer (tax + Soli + church tax) | 2% | 2% |
| U1 (sick-pay reimbursement) | 0.8% (1.1% in 2025) | 0.8% (1.1% in 2025) |
| U2 (maternity-pay reimbursement) | 0.22% | 0.22% |
| Insolvenzgeldumlage | 0.15% | Not charged |
Add up the Pauschalabgaben, Pauschsteuer and U1/U2 and a commercial employer's load in 2026 comes to about 31.17% on top of the wage (down slightly from 31.47% in 2025, thanks to the U1 cut) - not counting their own accident-insurance premium, which is real but set by their specific Berufsgenossenschaft rather than one universal percentage, so this calculator doesn't add a figure for it. That total also assumes the employer is U1-liable (regularly 30 or fewer employees) and owes the Insolvenzgeldumlage (not a public-sector employer exempt from both) - true for almost every real Minijob employer, but not universally. A private-household employer's total is calculated differently: 5% KV + 5% RV + 2% tax + 0.8% U1 + 0.22% U2 + a fixed 1.6% accident-insurance contribution (paid instead of the Insolvenzgeldumlage, not on top of it) comes to about 14.62% in 2026, still handled through the Minijob-Zentrale's simplified Haushaltsscheck procedure rather than a normal payroll run. None of this changes what lands in your account - it's entirely the employer's cost, invisible on your own payslip.
Should you opt out of pension insurance?
Since 1 January 2013, Minijob employees have been subject to compulsory pension insurance by default - a change from the earlier system where it was optional by default. If you do nothing, you pay the employee's share yourself: the gap between the full 18.6% contribution rate and your employer's own Pauschale, which is 15% for a commercial employer (leaving you 3.6 percentage points) or only 5% for a private household (leaving you a higher 13.6 percentage points, since the household Pauschale is smaller). On a 603 € wage that's about 21.71 € a month out of your own pocket for a commercial employer, or about 82.01 € for a private household. You can instead request Befreiung von der Rentenversicherungspflicht (exemption), a written request to your employer - once granted, you pay nothing and your employer's own Pauschale is unaffected, but you only earn a small, partial pension credit from this job (a Zuschlag an Entgeltpunkten under §76b SGB VI, based on the employer's contribution alone, plus limited progress toward the Wartezeit) rather than the full credit staying insured would give you.
There's a nuance worth knowing if your wage is genuinely small: below 175 € a month, the combined contribution is still calculated as if you earned 175 € (the Mindestbemessungsgrundlage, fixed since 1 January 2013 and never adjusted since), so your own share can be proportionally much larger than the flat rate above - on a 100 € wage with a commercial employer, for example, the employee share works out closer to 17.55 € than a naive 3.60 €. This floor only applies if you don't also have a separate pension-insured main job, and your combined Minijob earnings across every Minijob you hold stay below 175 € - the Minijob-Zentrale's own official calculator states this condition directly; with a pension-insured main job, your real (lower) wage is used instead, without the top-up. Above 175 € of real wage, or without the floor applying, this collapses back to the simple 3.6%/13.6% figures everyone quotes.
There's no single right answer here - it genuinely depends on your situation. Staying insured means real progress toward the 5-year Wartezeit (minimum vesting period) for a state pension, protection under the disability-pension scheme, and eligibility for a Riester subsidy; opting out means a small amount of extra cash every month. One freshly confirmed change worth knowing about: from 1 July 2026, the opt-out stops being a one-way, irrevocable decision for the life of that job - employees will be able to revoke it once, taking effect from the month after a written or electronic request (not retroactively), and the choice must then be applied consistently across every Minijob someone holds at the same time.
The Midijob sliding scale, explained simply
Once your wage crosses into the 603.01 €–2,000 € band, you're a genuine, fully insured employee for every purpose - income tax is withheld normally by your tax class, exactly as the main salary calculator models it, and you're a full member of all four branches of social insurance (pension, unemployment, health, long-term care). What's different is only how much of your wage counts toward your own contributions. This calculator's Midijob branch assumes an ordinary social-insurance-liable employee - Auszubildende (apprentices), Werkstudenten, and FSJ/BFD volunteers follow their own separate insurance rules that aren't modelled here.
Rather than paying your normal contribution rate on your full real wage, the law (§20 Abs. 2a SGB IV) substitutes a smaller "reduced" assessment base for your own share, calculated with a formula that blends your real wage with a year-specific transition factor (currently around 0.66). In plain terms: the closer your wage sits to the bottom of the band, the smaller the slice of it that counts toward your own deductions, and that slice grows steadily as your wage rises, reaching 100% of your real wage right at 2,000 €. The employer's side moves the opposite way: at 603.01 €, the employer actually covers a much larger share of the combined contribution than usual, around 28% of the wage according to Deutsche Rentenversicherung, and that share gradually falls back to the normal employer rate (roughly 20%) as your wage approaches 2,000 € - the employer isn't paying a flat, unreduced rate throughout the band, their share is simply highest exactly where yours is lowest.
The threshold effect: why crossing it can raise your net pay by more than the extra euro
Here's a genuinely counter-intuitive result this calculator can surface: earning just one euro more than the Minijob-Grenze can raise your net pay by far more than that one euro, not less as you might expect once new insurance contributions kick in. The mechanism: in a Minijob, you personally pay nothing toward health, unemployment, or long-term-care insurance (your employer's flat Pauschale covers health, and Minijobs are structurally exempt from unemployment insurance entirely under §27 Abs. 2 SGB III), while your own pension contribution stays at whatever flat Minijob rate applied to you (0% if opted out, 3.6% for a commercial employer, 13.6% for a private household). Crossing into Midijob territory starts your own health/unemployment/care contributions from zero, but at the same time your pension contribution moves onto the Gleitzone's sliding scale, which itself starts from close to zero right at this threshold rather than continuing at your old flat rate. For every Minijob type, that pension-side saving is large enough to outweigh the newly-started health/unemployment/care contributions, so net pay rises - by more the higher your Minijob-side pension share had been, since more of it disappears at the boundary.
In our own testing of the 2026 Minijob-Grenze (603 € against 604 €) for a single person in tax class I with no children, statutorily health-insured: for a commercial employer staying pension-insured, net pay rose from 581.29 € to 603.69 €, about 22 € more than the extra euro alone. For someone who had opted out of Minijob pension insurance, net pay barely moved beyond that extra euro, from the full 603 € to 603.69 €, since there was no Minijob-side pension deduction to fall away in the first place. For a private-household Minijob, the rise was the largest of the three: net pay went from 520.99 € to 603.69 €, about 83 € more, because a private-household employee's unusually high 13.6% Minijob pension share falls sharply once the Gleitzone's sliding scale applies instead. In every case the gap narrows again as wage rises further into the Midijob band and the pension share climbs back toward the normal rate. If your own wage sits close to the Minijob-Grenze, it's worth running both a wage just below and just above it through this calculator with your own real numbers, rather than assuming the size of the effect.
Going over the limit occasionally
Real Minijobs don't always produce perfectly identical pay every month - a colleague calls in sick, or a busy season brings extra shifts. The law allows for this: under §8 Abs. 1a Satz 3-4 SGB IV, an unforeseeable, occasional excess over the Minijob-Grenze doesn't end Minijob status, provided it happens no more than twice within any rolling 12-month period, and each such month is capped at double the normal monthly limit (1,206 € in 2026). Both conditions matter - a third occurrence within the same 12 months, or an excess you could reasonably have predicted in advance (a fixed extra shift scheduled every December, say, rather than genuinely unplanned overtime), reclassifies the job as a Midijob or normal employment from that point forward, not just for the one high month. This calculator always treats whatever wage you enter as a stable, ongoing monthly amount - it doesn't model the occasional-excess exception itself.
Before you start (or change) a Minijob
- 1Know which regime your wage falls into, and re-check it whenever your hours or hourly rate change - crossing 603 € (2026) changes the entire basis for your deductions, not just the amount.
- 2Decide on the pension insurance opt-out deliberately rather than by default - a few years of even reduced pension credit compounds over a working life, but so does extra cash if you genuinely need it now.
- 3If you hold more than one Minijob, add up all of them - the combined gross wage across every Minijob you hold is what's tested against the Minijob-Grenze, not each one separately. A Minijob alongside one existing main job is treated differently again: the first one next to a main job stays a genuine Minijob, but a second one gets combined with your main job's earnings instead and loses Minijob status.
- 4Keep every payslip even though no tax is withheld directly - they're still useful evidence later for Elterngeld, unemployment benefit, or residence-permit applications.
- 5If you're a non-EU student, check your own visa work-hour limits separately from the Minijob-Grenze - they're two entirely unrelated caps, and staying under one says nothing about the other.
- 6Tell every employer immediately if your overall income situation changes - a second Minijob starting, or gaining a main job - since the earnings-limit test looks at your combined income, not what any one employer pays you.
Frequently asked questions
How much can I earn in a Minijob in 2026?
Up to 603 € gross per month (556 € in 2025). The limit isn't a fixed figure set directly by law - it's tied to the statutory minimum wage by a formula (minimum wage × 130 ÷ 3, rounded up), so it moves automatically whenever the minimum wage rises.
What's the actual difference between a Minijob and a Midijob?
A Minijob (up to 603 €) is a flat-rate system: your employer pays fixed percentages plus a 2% Pauschsteuer, and you owe nothing except an optional pension share (3.6% for a commercial employer, 13.6% for a private household). A Midijob (603.01 €–2,000 €) is full normal employment with real income tax withholding and full social-insurance membership, just at a sliding, reduced contribution rate that phases in gradually across the band.
Do I pay income tax on a Minijob?
Usually not directly, but it depends on what your employer chose. Most employers use the 2% Pauschsteuer route under §40a EStG, which bundles income tax, Solidaritätszuschlag, and church tax into one flat rate paid on top of your wage - your payslip shows no tax deduction, and it doesn't need to appear on your annual tax return either. This calculator assumes that standard route. Two things can differ in practice: the employer can choose individual taxation by your real Steuerklasse instead of the flat rate, and even under the 2% Pauschsteuer, the employer is legally allowed to pass that 2% on to you contractually rather than absorbing it themselves - ask your employer which applies if you're unsure.
Should I opt out of pension insurance in my Minijob?
There's no universally right answer - it trades a small amount of extra net pay now (3.6% of your wage for a commercial employer, or 13.6% for a private household, proportionally more below 175 €/month unless you also have a separate pension-insured main job) against full pension credit and eligibility for the disability-pension scheme and Riester subsidies later. Opting out doesn't mean zero pension benefit though - your employer's flat contribution alone still earns you a small, partial credit under §76b SGB VI, just far less than staying insured would. Staying insured is often worth it if you can afford the deduction, since the credit compounds over a working life; if every euro matters right now, opting out is a legitimate choice too.
Does holiday pay or a bonus count toward the Minijob-Grenze?
Yes - any regularly recurring extra payment you can reasonably expect over the year, such as a 13th-month payment or holiday bonus, is averaged into your monthly gross for the earnings-limit test, even if it's paid only once. A genuinely one-off, unplanned bonus does not count toward it.
Can I have two Minijobs at once?
Yes, but every Minijob you hold is added together for the earnings-limit test - you can't have two separate 603 € Minijobs and stay under the limit; combined, they must total 603 € or less. A Minijob alongside one existing main job is different again: the first Minijob next to a main job stays a genuine Minijob, but a second one gets combined with your main job's earnings instead and loses Minijob status.
What happens if I go over the limit for one month?
An unforeseeable, occasional excess is allowed up to twice within any rolling 12 months, capped at double the monthly limit each time (1,206 € in 2026). Anything beyond that, or an excess you could have predicted in advance, reclassifies the job as a Midijob or normal employment from that point on.
Do Minijob employees get holiday pay and sick pay?
Yes - Minijob employees have exactly the same statutory rights as any other employee: paid annual leave pro-rated to hours worked, continued pay during illness for up to six weeks, and statutory maternity protection. The employer's U1/U2 surcharges specifically fund reimbursement for these costs.
Is a Minijob worth it for students compared to more hours?
A Minijob keeps things administratively simple and, for non-EU students, tends to sit comfortably within visa work-hour limits, but it isn't automatically the best financial outcome - a Midijob just above the threshold can still leave you with similar or more net pay overall, since the sliding scale keeps the extra deduction small near the bottom of the band. Run both scenarios through this calculator before assuming more hours always means proportionally less take-home pay per hour.
When did the Minijob-Grenze last change?
It rose from 538 € to 556 € on 1 January 2025, then to 603 € on 1 January 2026, tracking the minimum-wage increase to 13.90 €/hour. The Midijob's upper bound has stayed at 2,000 € since it was last raised on 1 January 2023.
Figures, thresholds, and contribution rates are sourced from the Minijob-Zentrale (minijob-zentrale.de), §8 SGB IV, §20 Abs. 2a SGB IV, §172 Abs. 3-3a SGB VI, §249b SGB V, §27 Abs. 2 SGB III, and §40a EStG, researched as of September 2026. This page is for orientation only - always confirm your own figures with the Minijob-Zentrale or your employer's payroll office.
Written and maintained by Basaveswara Rao. Last reviewed on September 19, 2026.