Number format: this calculator uses German notation throughout — a comma is the decimal separator and a dot groups thousands. “1.234,56” means one thousand two hundred thirty-four euros and fifty-six cents. The figures come from German tax law, so they are shown the way German authorities write them.
How these calculators work
Why believe a number you find on the internet? This page answers that for every calculator here — the method, the sources and the limits.
The wage tax is not reimplemented
The German Federal Ministry of Finance publishes a Programmablaufplan every year: a machine-readable description of the wage tax calculation that every payroll run in Germany must follow. This calculator translates the 2026 plan directly into code instead of reimplementing the formula.
The difference is not academic. The scale of § 32a EStG has kinks, the plan rounds to whole euros at certain points, and the pension expense allowance has special cases. A reimplemented formula regularly misses by a few euros — and nobody notices, because the result looks plausible.
Verified against the official calculator
The results are held against the wage and income tax calculator of the Federal Ministry of Finance — value by value, across tax classes, federal states, numbers of children and income levels. Any deviation counts as an error in this calculator, not as room for interpretation.
An example of how literally that is meant: at 1.999,99 € gross the wage tax is 91,00 €, at 2.000,00 € it is 91,08 €, and at 2.000,01 € it is 91,00 € again. That looks like a bug but is the official result of the prescribed rounding. The calculator reproduces it instead of smoothing it away.
Every value carries its source
Contribution rates, allowances and assessment ceilings do not live in the program code but in separate data files — each value with its statutory reference, a verbatim quotation and the date it was checked. A value without evidence never reaches the calculator at all: the build fails.
Under every result the full derivation can be expanded: assessment base, rate, intermediate value, rounding and legal basis — line by line. If you do not believe a figure, you can check it against the statute.
What these calculators cannot do
Every calculator page states its own limits under “What this calculator does not cover”. That is not fine print but part of the result: read past it and you are using a figure that does not apply to your case.
Where a value cannot be substantiated it is not estimated but shown as an input field or openly omitted. The levies U1 and U2, for instance, appear in no statute but in the articles of the respective health insurer — which is why you have to enter them here. An estimated rate would look just like a substantiated one.
And the most important limit of all: this is an indicative calculation, not tax or legal advice. Only the decisions of the competent authorities are binding.
Checking is done by machine, not by feel
Before every release more than 570 automated checks run: against official reference values, against the requirement that every parameter be substantiated, against accessibility under WCAG 2.2 AA, and against the example figures in the explanatory texts. Even the numbers in the glossary are recalculated on every run and compared with the text — otherwise a figure once read off goes stale just as quietly as a guessed one.
Read on
- Gross-to-net calculator— the calculator whose derivation is shown in most detail
- Glossary— every technical term in plain terms, in detail and with a worked example
- Report an error— a wrong figure is the most valuable thing this site can be told
Terms used on this page
Each term has its own page with a plain-language explanation, the technical detail and a worked example.
- Advance lump sum (Vorabpauschale) — Annual advance taxation of accumulating funds, so that tax arises even without a distribution.
- Effective annual rate (effektiver Jahreszins) — The rate that includes every cost — the honest figure for comparing loans.
- Minimum assessment base (Mindestbemessungsgrundlage) — The minimum amount on which voluntarily insured members pay contributions — even where the profit is lower.
- Net to gross — The inverse of the net calculation — which gross salary produces a desired net figure?
- Progression clause (Progressionsvorbehalt) — Wage replacement benefits are themselves tax free, but they raise the rate applied to the rest of your income.