Minijob and Midijob 2026: thresholds, contributions and the transitional band

Where is the Minijob threshold in 2026?

At €603.00 a month, which is €7,236.00 a year. Up to that amount a job counts as marginal, and the employee pays nothing for health, long-term care or unemployment insurance.

The threshold has been tied to the minimum wage since 2022 and is no longer set separately. § 8(1a) SGB IV calculates it as the minimum wage times 130, divided by 3, rounded up to whole euro. From €13.90 an hour that gives €603.00 for 2026.

What does an employee pay in a Minijob?

Nothing for health, long-term care or unemployment insurance. The tax is usually carried by the employer too, who pays the flat tax under § 40a(2) EStG that settles wage tax, solidarity surcharge and church tax together. A tax class then plays no part.

Pension insurance is the exception. A Minijob is subject to it, and the employee’s own share is 3.6% of earnings, because the employer’s flat levy is below the full contribution rate. Anyone who would rather not pay it applies to the employer in writing for exemption; under § 6(1b) SGB VI it then holds for the duration of that job.

The employer pays flat levies alongside it: 15.0% towards pension insurance, 13.0% towards health insurance, and the flat tax of 2.0%. None of these reduces net pay, but all of them raise what the post costs.

How much is left inside the transitional band?

Between €603.01 and €2,000.00 a month the transitional band applies, known colloquially as a Midijob. Employees pay contributions there, but not on the full wage.

§ 20(2a) SGB IV sets a reduced contributory wage that starts at roughly a quarter of the real one at the bottom of the band and meets it at the upper edge. The factor F the curve follows from is 0.6619 for 2026. The employer keeps paying on the full wage throughout, and therefore carries well over half of the total at the bottom of the band.

Two places repay a second look. Between the first row and the second the gross rises by €150.00 while the net rises by only €39.04, because contributions begin at all only above the Minijob threshold. At the upper edge the same effect appears again more weakly: the reduced contributory base ends, and wage tax by tax class is added.

The first row shows no contributions because this calculator does not model the pension share inside a Minijob. It arises only without an exemption, and is then 3.6% of earnings.

What happens when the threshold is crossed?

Above €603.00 a month the job becomes insurable in all four branches, and tax follows the tax class rather than the flat rate. That applies from the first euro over the line, not only to the amount above it.

An occasional and unforeseeable overshoot is exempt from this. Under § 8(1b) SGB IV the threshold may be exceeded in at most 2 calendar months of any twelve, up to €1,206.00 in the month concerned. Planned extra hours do not qualify.

Does a Minijob alongside a main job count towards it?

Exactly one stays free. Under § 8(2) SGB IV a single Minijob is not added to an insurable main job; a second one is, for health, long-term care and pension insurance. It loses its exemption from contributions in the process.

What this calculator models

It computes wages inside the transitional band in full, including the reduced contributory base. For a Minijob it shows no contributions and says so in the result; the employer’s flat levies and the pension share without an exemption stay outside it.

The calculation above assumes tax class I in North Rhine-Westphalia with no church-tax liability, statutory health cover at the year’s average supplementary rate, no children and a birth year of 1990. These are the assumptions the calculator itself starts with.

Sources

Every rule on this page comes from one of the documents below. Each link goes to the publishing text rather than to a summary of it, and all of them were read on August 16, 2026.