German Salary Calculator (Brutto Netto Rechner) – Gross to Net Pay

Free German salary calculator (Brutto Netto Rechner): enter gross annual salary, tax class, church tax and number of children to instantly calculate income tax, social insurance and net pay.

What is a Brutto Netto Rechner?

This German salary calculator works out your actual take-home pay from your gross annual salary, including income tax (Lohnsteuer) under § 32a EStG, the solidarity surcharge, optional church tax, and the four branches of German social insurance (health, long-term care, pension and unemployment insurance).

Unlike a flat-percentage estimate, it accounts for the six German tax classes (I through VI), giving married couples and single parents a more realistic figure than a generic deduction rate would.

How the calculation works

Enter your gross salary Type your gross annual salary in euros or drag the slider.
Choose your tax class Select the tax class (I–VI) shown on your wage tax record.
Set your church tax status Choose no religious affiliation, or 8%/9% depending on your state.
Enter number of children Affects the care insurance childless surcharge and, where relevant, the single-parent allowance.
Read the result Your net annual and monthly pay, along with every deduction, appear instantly.

Tips for getting more out of it

Under tax class III, the higher-earning spouse benefits from income splitting, while the spouse under tax class V pays comparatively more wage tax.
From age 23, childless insured people pay a 0.6% surcharge on long-term care insurance.
The solidarity surcharge no longer applies to most taxpayers, since the exemption threshold was raised substantially after the 2021 reform.
Church tax only applies if you are registered as a member of a tax-levying religious community.
Social insurance contribution ceilings (Beitragsbemessungsgrenzen) cap how much of your salary is subject to contributions — above these thresholds, deductions no longer scale proportionally with income.

Payroll terms explained

Tax class: One of six categories (I–VI) determining how much wage tax your employer withholds each month. Your final tax liability is only settled once you file your annual tax return.
Church tax: A tax collected on behalf of tax-levying religious communities, calculated as a percentage of income tax (8% in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, 9% in the other German states).
Childless surcharge: An extra 0.6 percentage points added to long-term care insurance for insured people aged 23 or older who have no children, used to help fund the care insurance system.
Solidarity surcharge: A 5.5% surcharge on income tax that, since the 2021 reform, only actually applies to roughly the top 10% of earners.
Income splitting (Splittingverfahren): The method used for tax class III, where a married couple's combined taxable income is halved, taxed under the standard formula, and the resulting tax is then doubled.
Basic tax-free allowance (Grundfreibetrag): The portion of income exempt from income tax (12,348 euros for singles in 2026), intended to keep a subsistence-level income tax-free.

Frequently asked questions

It depends on how income is split between spouses: when earnings differ significantly, combining classes III and V usually improves monthly net cash flow, while similar earners typically both use class IV. Either way, your final annual tax liability is settled through income splitting on your tax return, so the tax class mainly affects monthly cash flow rather than your total yearly tax bill.

The solidarity surcharge was not fully abolished — since 2021 it has simply been suspended for the large majority of taxpayers through a much higher exemption threshold. Above a certain taxable income (in 2026, roughly 20,350 euros of income tax for singles), it still applies, phased in gradually through a mitigation zone.

This calculator models the characteristic core mechanics of wage tax under § 32a EStG, but does not replace the official wage tax tables with their month-by-month deductible allowance formula. Individual allowances, bonuses, company pension contributions, or a health fund with a different additional contribution rate will all cause differences.

Side Note — why is the gap between gross and net pay so large in Germany?

Germany's combined tax-and-social-insurance burden for average earners sits toward the higher end internationally. The main reason is the four branches of social insurance — health, long-term care, pension and unemployment — which together can take nearly 20% of gross pay before income tax is even calculated.

Tax classes were originally introduced to bring the monthly withheld wage tax as close as possible to the eventual annual tax bill, so employees wouldn't have to wait for a refund at tax-filing time. For married couples, combining tax class III and V means wage tax withholding is split unevenly between partners, even though the couple is ultimately assessed jointly with income splitting at year end.

The solidarity surcharge was introduced in 1991 to help fund German reunification and, in a reduced form, is still collected today — even though the 2021 reform means the large majority of taxpayers no longer pay it. Church tax, meanwhile, is a distinctive feature of German state-church law: the state collects it on behalf of the churches through the wage tax system, a structure that is fairly unique within Europe.

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