Germany VAT Calculator 2026

How to use this VAT calculator

Type an amount, choose whether it is net, gross or a VAT figure, and pick a rate. The result updates as you type, so there is no button to press. If you are not sure which rate applies, search for what you are selling in the category box and the calculator sets the rate and shows the law behind it.

Here is a simple case. You are a freelance designer in Berlin and you invoice 1,500 euros net for a logo. At 19% the VAT is 285 euros and your client pays 1,785 euros. If all you know is that the client paid 1,785 euros, switch to gross and you get the 1,500 and the 285 back.

The other tabs handle real paperwork: invoices with several lines and different rates, your business situation, the small business check and the VAT return. You can copy any figure, copy a link to your calculation, or print the result.

VAT rates in Germany in 2026: 19%, 7% and 0%

Germany has a standard rate, a reduced rate and one special zero rate. Anything the law does not name as reduced or exempt pays the standard rate.

The rate that counts is the one on the date of the supply, not the date you write the invoice. In the second half of 2020 the standard rate was 16% and the reduced rate 5%, and the calculator uses those rates if you set a supply date in that period under Advanced.

What gets the 7% rate

The reduced rate is a list, not a principle. The items people meet most often are:

• Basic food from the shop, such as bread, vegetables, meat and milk, but not drinks like juice or soft drinks
• Books, e-books, audiobooks, newspapers and magazines
• Local and long-distance rail tickets and local public transport
• Hotel and holiday-flat stays, for the room only
• Theatre, concerts, cinema, museums and similar cultural events
• Cut flowers and plants, and works of art sold by the artist

Restaurants changed on 1 January 2026. Food served in restaurants, cafés, canteens and by caterers is now taxed at 7%, this time permanently, and it makes no difference whether you eat in or take it away. Drinks stay at 19%, alcoholic or not. In 2024 and 2025 restaurant food was taxed at 19% again, after the temporary cut that ran from mid 2020 to the end of 2023.

A quick example: a lunch bill of 25 euros made up of 18 euros of food and 7 euros of drinks. The food contains 1.18 euros of VAT at 7% and the drinks contain 1.12 euros at 19%, so 2.30 euros of VAT in total. Food that you only take away or have delivered, with no restaurant service, was already at 7% before 2026, even in 2024 and 2025.

How to calculate German VAT by hand

You only need two multipliers. At 19% the factor is 1.19, at 7% it is 1.07.

• Net to gross: gross = net × 1.19 (or × 1.07)
• Gross to net: net = gross ÷ 1.19 (or ÷ 1.07)
• VAT amount: gross − net

Take 250 euros net at 19%. Multiply by 1.19 and you get 297.50 euros gross, of which 47.50 euros is VAT. Going the other way, 1,000 euros gross at 19% divided by 1.19 is 840.34 euros net, and the VAT is the rest, 159.66 euros. At 7%, 107 euros gross is exactly 100 euros net plus 7 euros of VAT.

One common slip: do not subtract 19% from the gross price. 19% of 119 euros is 22.61 euros, but the VAT inside 119 euros is 19 euros. You always divide by 1.19.

Round to the cent, with halves rounded up. On an invoice with several lines, VAT is worked out once per tax rate on the total of that rate, not line by line, which avoids lines each drifting by a cent.

When you do not charge VAT

Some sales carry no German VAT at all. Each of these has its own wording that belongs on the invoice, and the calculator shows it when you pick the situation.

• Small business (Kleinunternehmer): you charge no VAT while your turnover stays under the limits of section 19 UStG.
• Reverse charge: for services to businesses in other EU countries, and some domestic cases such as construction work between builders, you invoice net and your customer accounts for the VAT.
• Goods to a business in another EU country: an exempt intra-community supply, as long as you have the customer's valid VAT ID and proof the goods left Germany.
• Exports outside the EU: exempt, with proof of export.
• Section 4 exemptions: medical treatment (Nr. 14), schools and courses (Nr. 21), residential rent (Nr. 12), insurance (Nr. 10), banking and loans (Nr. 8), childcare (Nr. 23) and similar. You charge no VAT, and you generally cannot deduct input VAT on the costs behind these sales.

Helgoland and Büsingen are outside the German VAT area, so German VAT does not apply there. This is a note, not something you calculate.

The Kleinunternehmerregelung explained

Since 1 January 2025 you can invoice without VAT if your net turnover was no more than 25,000 euros in the previous year and stays at no more than 100,000 euros in the current year. Both figures are net, without VAT, counted by what you received. Sales of business assets and some exempt transactions listed in section 19 (2) UStG do not count towards the limit.

The 100,000 euro limit is a hard cap. If you reach 24,000 euros last year and then pass 100,000 euros this year, VAT applies from the invoice that takes you over the line, and that invoice is already taxable. Invoices you issued earlier in the year stay without VAT. If your turnover last year was above 25,000 euros, normal VAT applies for the whole of this year.

In the year you start the business there is no previous year. The Finanzamt München states that the 25,000 euro limit then applies to the turnover of that year, and that the sale which takes you past 25,000 euros is already taxable.

You can also give up the rule and charge VAT, which is useful if your customers are businesses and you have large costs with VAT you want back. That choice binds you for five years. As a Kleinunternehmer you cannot deduct input VAT, and your invoice must say so with a line such as: Gemäß § 19 UStG wird keine Umsatzsteuer berechnet. You still show your tax number, your VAT ID or your Kleinunternehmer ID, but no VAT rate and no VAT amount.

VAT on invoices: what a German invoice must show

Section 14 UStG lists what a proper invoice contains. The usual points are:

• Full name and address of you and your customer
• Your tax number or VAT ID
• The invoice date and a unique, running invoice number
• What was supplied and in what quantity
• The date of the supply or the period it covers
• The net amount, split by tax rate or by exemption
• The tax rate and the VAT amount, or a note explaining why there is none

Invoices up to 250 euros gross need fewer details. When VAT is not charged, the invoice has to say why. These are the usual lines, in German as the tax office expects them:

Special cases: restaurants, hotels, farmers and second-hand goods

Restaurant packages. A buffet or a menu with drinks included at one price mixes food at 7% and drinks at 19%. The tax office does not object if you set the drinks at 30% of the package price. On a 100 euro package that is 30 euros of drinks with 4.79 euros of VAT and 70 euros of food with 4.58 euros of VAT, so 9.37 euros in total. The calculator lets you change the 30% if your real split differs.

Hotel packages. The room is taxed at 7%. Extras that are not part of the stay, such as parking, wifi, spa and breakfast drinks, are taxed at 19%. For a package price the tax office does not object if you set aside a share of the price for those extras: 20% in 2024 and 2025, and 15% from 1 January 2026. In 2026 that is, on a 200 euro package, 170 euros for the room with 11.12 euros of VAT and 30 euros of extras with 4.79 euros of VAT.

Flat-rate farmers (section 24). Instead of charging and deducting VAT in the normal way, farmers who qualify add a flat rate: 7.8% on general farm products, 5.5% on forestry products (section 24 (1) Nr. 1) and 19% on drinks and sawmill products (Nr. 2). The invoice has to show the average rate that applies. The scheme is only open if turnover in the previous year was no more than 600,000 euros.

Second-hand goods (section 25a). When you resell used goods, art or antiques that you bought without VAT being shown, VAT is charged on the margin only. If you bought for 1,000 euros and sell for 1,500 euros, the margin is 500 euros and the VAT inside it is 79.83 euros (500 × 19 ÷ 119). The invoice does not show VAT and says Gebrauchtgegenstände/Sonderregelung.

Getting VAT back: input tax and the VAT return

Input tax (Vorsteuer) is the VAT other businesses charge you. If you are not a Kleinunternehmer and your sales are taxable, you subtract it from the VAT you collected. The difference is what you pay to the tax office, called the Zahllast. If input tax is higher, you get a refund.

Say you collected 1,900 euros of VAT on your sales this quarter and paid 600 euros of VAT on business purchases. You owe 1,300 euros.

You report this in the advance VAT return (Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldung), filed electronically through ELSTER. It is due on the 10th day after the period ends, with an option to extend by a month. The period is a quarter, or a month if your VAT for the previous year was more than 9,000 euros. A business that has just started is normally a monthly filer in the year it starts and the next, but for 2021 to 2026 an exception applies: the period then follows the VAT you expect for the current year or your annualised VAT, so ask your tax office which period applies to you. After the year ends there is also an annual return.