Germany income tax rates

What this value means

CRITICAL STRUCTURAL CAVEAT: German income tax is NOT a bracket table. Section 32a(1) EStG defines a continuous polynomial FORMULA, and the 'rate' shown for zones 2 and 3 is the marginal rate at the LOWER edge of the zone only - it rises smoothly across the zone. The verbatim statutory formulas for 2026, on taxable income x (zu versteuerndes Einkommen, rounded down to whole euros): Zone 1, x up to 12,348 EUR: tax = 0 (Grundfreibetrag, the constitutionally required subsistence minimum, up from 12,096 EUR in 2025). Zone 2, x = 12,349 to 17,799: tax = (914.51 * y + 1,400) * y, where y = (x - 12,348)/10,000 - marginal rate rises from 14% (Eingangssteuersatz) to about 24%. Zone 3, x = 17,800 to 69,878: tax = (173.10 * z + 2,397) * z + 1,034.87, where z = (x - 17,799)/10,000 - marginal rate rises from about 24% to 42%. Zone 4, x = 69,879 to 277,825: tax = 0.42 * x - 11,135.63 - flat 42% marginal (Spitzensteuersatz), the first genuinely linear zone. Zone 5, x from 277,826: tax = 0.45 * x - 19,470.38 - flat 45% marginal, the Reichensteuer, whose threshold is NOT inflation-indexed and has been frozen in nominal terms for years. All five thresholds and all six formula constants were checked digit-by-digit against the consolidated statute and are internally consistent (the zone boundaries are continuous in both level and derivative). SPLITTING: married couples filing jointly under Section 32a(5) EStG apply the Splittingverfahren - the tariff is computed on half the joint income and doubled, which effectively doubles every threshold above (Grundfreibetrag 24,696 EUR, 42% zone from 139,758 EUR, 45% from 555,652 EUR). SURCHARGES ON TOP OF THESE RATES, not included in the rates above: (a) Solidaritaetszuschlag at 5.5% of the assessed income tax under SolzG 1995 - since 2021 it is levied only above a Freigrenze, which for 2026 is 20,350 EUR of assessed income tax for single filers and 40,700 EUR for joint filers (roughly 68,000 EUR / 136,000 EUR of taxable income), with a Milderungszone phasing it in so that the surcharge cannot exceed 11.9% of the excess over the Freigrenze; only roughly the top decile of taxpayers still pay it, but it applies in full to corporations and to Abgeltungsteuer. (b) Kirchensteuer (church tax) at 8% of income tax in Bayern and Baden-Wuerttemberg and 9% in all other Laender, levied only on registered members of a tax-collecting religious community. SEPARATE SCHEDULE: investment income is generally NOT taxed under this tariff but under the flat Abgeltungsteuer of 25% plus Soli plus church tax (Section 32d EStG), with a Sparer-Pauschbetrag of 1,000 EUR (2,000 EUR joint). Income tax is a Gemeinschaftsteuer shared between Bund, Laender and Gemeinden; there are NO sub-national income tax rates in Germany - the tariff is uniform across all 16 Laender. Access: the official BMF Lohnsteuer-Handbuch at esth.bundesfinanzministerium.de is protected by a Radware bot-detection challenge and returned only a security-verification shell; the thresholds and formulas above were taken verbatim from the official BMJ consolidated-law portal gesetze-im-internet.de, which explicitly labels the version 'ab dem Veranlagungszeitraum 2026'.

Get it programmatically

curl https://euroref.dev/v1/de/income-tax
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://euroref.dev/v1/de/income-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/de/income-tax

Other Germany series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · ECB main refinancing rate · late-payment interest rate