Minijobs in Germany: the €603 limit, what the employer pays, and the usual traps.

A minijob is a job that pays on average no more than €603 a month in 2026 (€556 in 2025, €633 from 1 January 2027). The employer pays flat-rate charges on top: at most 31.17% in a business, or 14.62% in a private household, all to one office, the Minijob-Zentrale. In a business, the worker usually pays only a 3.6% pension contribution, and they can opt out of that. In every other respect a minijobber is an employee like any other: minimum wage, paid holiday and sick pay all apply.

1. The earnings limit, 2025 to 2027

The limit (Geringfügigkeitsgrenze) is what ten hours a week pay at the minimum wage. The formula is the hourly minimum wage × 130 ÷ 3, rounded up to the next euro (§ 8(1a) SGB IV). So the limit moves every time the minimum wage does.

At the 2026 minimum wage, €603 is about 43 hours a month. At a higher hourly rate, the hours that fit under the limit go down.

The test is regular pay, judged in advance over the year. One-off payments you can foresee, such as a Christmas or holiday bonus, count from the start. An unforeseeable overrun doesn't end the minijob if it happens in no more than two calendar months within twelve, and each of those months stays at or below twice the limit (€1,206 in 2026) (§ 8(1b) SGB IV). Tax-free allowances for part-time instructors (Übungsleiter, up to €3,300 a year in 2026) and volunteers (Ehrenamt, up to €960) don't count towards the limit.

In January 2026, jobs paying between €556.01 and €603 a month became minijobs. The step to €633 in January 2027 raises the same question for jobs paying up to that amount.

2. Registering with the Minijob-Zentrale

Every minijob, and every short-term job, is reported to the Minijob-Zentrale, part of the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Knappschaft-Bahn-See (§ 28i SGB IV). It collects the flat-rate contributions, the flat-rate tax and the levies in one payment. A minijobber is not registered with their health insurer.

A business employing a minijobber needs the same basics as for any employee:

• a Betriebsnummer, and the accident insurance with the Berufsgenossenschaft before it (both in the guide to hiring your first employee);
• the registration, sent electronically from payroll software or the SV-Meldeportal, with the first payroll run and within six weeks of the start (§ 6 DEÜV);
• a monthly contribution statement, with payment due by the third-to-last bank working day of the month the work is done in (§ 23 SGB IV).

The status of a job depends on the worker's other jobs, so employees have to tell each employer what is needed for the reports (§ 28o SGB IV). In practice, the employer asks at the start, in writing, about main jobs, other minijobs, short-term jobs earlier in the year, health insurance, and whether the worker wants the pension opt-out. The answers go in the payroll records.

Private households use a simpler route, the Haushaltsscheck (section 7).

3. What the employer pays

BG: the business's Berufsgenossenschaft (accident insurance). * Only if the worker is in statutory health insurance, including family cover. For a privately insured minijobber there is no health flat rate. ** Covers income tax, solidarity surcharge and church tax (§ 40a(2) EStG). Instead of the 2%, the employer can tax the pay individually through the worker's tax data (ELStAM).

There is no care or unemployment insurance on a minijob. The only change from 2025 is U1, which fell from 1.1% to 0.8% on 1 January 2026. The maximum was therefore 31.47% in a business and 14.92% in a household in 2025.

4. The pension opt-out, and the new way back

Minijobbers are compulsorily insured in the pension insurance. The employer's flat rate is topped up to the full 18.6% by the worker: 3.6% in a business, 13.6% in a household.

The worker can opt out by applying to the employer, on paper or electronically (§ 6(1b) SGB VI). How it works:

• The employer keeps the application with the payroll records and reports the opt-out to the Minijob-Zentrale within six weeks of receiving it.
• The Minijob-Zentrale can object within a month of the report. If it doesn't, the opt-out stands, and no notice is sent.
• Reported in time, it applies from the start of the month in which the worker handed it in, never before the job began (§ 6(4) SGB VI). Reported late, it applies only from the month after that one-month objection period ends.
• It covers all the person's minijobs at once, present and future, for as long as they have one. Each employer has to be told.
• The employer keeps paying its 15% (or 5%) either way.

What the worker gives up is full pension insurance cover. Only the employer's flat rate still adds to their pension.

New since 1 July 2026: a worker who opted out can reverse it once, by applying to the employer (§ 6(6) SGB VI). The reversal applies from the month after the application, never backwards. It covers all minijobs, and it can't be withdrawn. After it, no new opt-out is possible.

5. Short-term jobs (kurzfristige Beschäftigung)

The second kind of minijob is limited by time, not pay. A short-term job is limited from the start to at most three months or 70 working days in a calendar year (§ 8(1) no. 2 SGB IV). All of the person's short-term jobs in that year count together. Since 2026, farm work has a longer limit of 15 weeks or 90 working days.

There is no earnings limit. The catch is that the job must not be berufsmäßig, meaning the person mustn't depend on it for a living. Below €603 a month that question doesn't arise. Above it, the employer has to check it, and the Minijob-Zentrale publishes a decision aid. A job that is berufsmäßig is fully insurable, however short.

• Contributions: neither side pays social security. The employer pays U1 (0.8%), U2 (0.22%), the insolvency levy (0.15%) and the accident insurance.
• Registration: with the Minijob-Zentrale, stating how the worker is health insured: statutory, or private or otherwise. Proof goes in the records.
• Tax: through the worker's tax data, or a flat 25% plus solidarity surcharge and church tax. The flat rate applies only if the job is occasional, lasts no more than 18 consecutive working days, averages no more than €150 a day (unless the work is needed at short notice) and no more than €19 an hour (§ 40a(1), (4) EStG). This tax goes to the tax office, not the Minijob-Zentrale.

6. Above the limit: the Midijob range

Pay of €603.01 to €2,000 a month in 2026 (€556.01 to €2,000 in 2025) puts a job in the transition range (Übergangsbereich), known as a Midijob (§ 20(2) SGB IV). From 2027 it starts at €633.01.

• It is an ordinary job. It is registered with the worker's health insurer, not the Minijob-Zentrale, with full health, care, pension and unemployment cover, and wage tax is withheld in the normal way.
• The worker's contributions are reduced: close to nothing at the bottom of the range, rising to the full share at €2,000.
• The employer pays the rest: about 28% at the bottom, the same as for a minijob, falling to the normal employer share at €2,000.
• The pension is credited on the full pay, not on the reduced contribution.
• Pay from all of the person's jobs is added up for the €2,000. Apprentices are outside the reduction.

7. Private households: the Haushaltsscheck

A private household that employs a minijobber for household work (cleaning, cooking, shopping, gardening, looking after children, older or sick people, or pets) registers through the Haushaltsscheck. It is a short form for the Minijob-Zentrale (§ 8a SGB IV). Help given as a favour by relatives, friends or neighbours is not employment. The Haushaltsscheck is only for private households, never for a business.

• Registering: online, by phone or on the paper form, when the job starts. You give your details and tax number, the helper's details and pension insurance number, the pay, and a direct debit mandate. If the household has no Betriebsnummer, the Minijob-Zentrale assigns one.
• Charges: at most 14.62% (table above), including accident insurance, so the helper is covered through the Minijob-Zentrale.
• Collection: by direct debit twice a year, on 31 July for January to June and on 31 January for July to December.
• The helper's pension share is 13.6% unless they opt out, which is a box on the Haushaltsscheck.
• Tax: the household's income tax is reduced by 20% of the costs, up to €510 a year (§ 35a(1) EStG).

8. The common mistakes

• A second minijob next to a main job. Only one minijob next to a main job stays a minijob. Each further one is added to the main job and becomes insurable (except for unemployment insurance), even if all the minijobs together stay under €603. It is then reported to the health insurer.
• Several minijobs adding up. Without a main job, several minijobs are fine as long as the total stays at or below €603. Above that, all of them become insurable.
• On-call work with no hours agreed. If a contract fixes no weekly hours, 20 hours a week count as agreed (§ 12(1) TzBfG). At the 2026 minimum wage that is about €1,205 a month, twice the limit. And where monthly pay can't be forecast, a month above €603 isn't an unforeseeable overrun. The minijob ends from then on.
• A bonus nobody counted. A Christmas bonus that was promised counts towards the annual limit from the start.
• The rate goes up, the hours stay. A raise can push a fixed number of hours over the limit. The limit rises only with the minimum wage (to €633 in January 2027), not with a raise. Hours × rate is worth checking each time either changes.
• No working-time records. Businesses record each minijobber's daily start, end and hours, within seven days, and keep the records for two years (§ 17 MiLoG). Private households are exempt.
• Treating it as a job without rights. Minijobbers get at least four weeks' paid holiday a year, scaled to their working days. They get pay during illness for up to six weeks once they have worked four weeks, and pay for public holidays that fall on a working day. Labour law makes no exception for minijobs.
• Opt-out paperwork. No signed application on file, or reported after the six weeks.
• A short-term job that isn't. Not limited in advance, earlier short-term jobs that year not counted, or a worker who relies on such jobs for a living.

Most of these surface at the pension insurance's audit of the employer, which comes at least every four years (§ 28p SGB IV). If it finds that jobs added together were not minijobs, insurance normally starts only from its decision. That protection falls away if the employer failed to clarify the facts, intentionally or through gross negligence (§ 8(2) SGB IV). This is why the questions at the start (section 2) matter.

Several jobs, pay close to the limit, or a mix of short-term work and minijobs are where it gets complicated. A Steuerberater who runs your payroll checks the status of each job.

9. If you are the minijobber

• Tax. If your employer pays the 2% flat tax, the pay doesn't go into your income tax return (§ 40(3) EStG, applied by § 40a(5) EStG). If it is taxed through your tax data instead, it does.
• Health insurance. A minijob doesn't give you health insurance, and there is no sickness benefit (Krankengeld) from it. You need cover from elsewhere.
• Pension. Whether to opt out is your choice. Since July 2026 you can undo an opt-out once, and only once.
• Other jobs. Tell each employer about the others. Your status in every job depends on it, and one minijob next to a main job is the most that stays free of contributions.
• Your rights. Minimum wage, paid holiday, sick pay from your employer and paid public holidays, as for any employee.

The short version