Income tax rate Germany

What is your effective German income tax rate?

German income tax has no brackets to look up. The rate climbs continuously from the basic allowance to the top rate, so the rate you actually pay is never the rate on your last euro. This shows both, and where the allowance ends.

Your taxable income

The zu versteuerndes Einkommen from your tax assessment, not your gross salary: allowances and deductible costs have already come off it.

Taxable income for the year€ How you are assessedA jointly assessed couple pays twice the tax on half the income, which is the whole of the Splitting advantage: it moves both halves down the progression.

Your effective income tax rate

19.63 % €8,835 of income tax on the year

Basic tax-free allowance€12,348untaxed, before the tariff starts

Rate on the next euro33.39 %the marginal rate, which is not what you pay on the whole income

Solidarity surcharge€0charged on the income tax, not on the income

Income tax and surcharge€8,835together: 19.63 %

Left after both€36,165of the taxable income

The solidarity surcharge does not apply: it starts once the income tax itself passes €20,350.

The tariff, from the allowance to the top rate

Taxable income for the year

Rate on the next euroRate on the whole incomeBasic tax-free allowanceYour income

Taxable income	Income tax	Rate on the whole income	Rate on the next euro
€15,000	€435	2.9 %	18.85 %
€25,000	€2,850	11.4 %	26.46 %
€40,000	€7,209	18.02 %	31.66 %
€60,000	€14,233	23.72 %	38.58 %
€90,000	€26,664	29.63 %	42 %
€150,000	€51,864	34.58 %	42 %

The tariff for 2026, and the tariff alone: church tax is not included, and neither is anything that decides the taxable income in the first place.

What this answers

Which of the two rates you actually pay

The marginal rate is what the next euro costs, and it is the number people quote. The average rate is what the whole income costs, and it is the number that leaves the account. While the tariff is still climbing, the second is always well below the first.

Two thresholds, two behaviours

An allowance is not the same as a limit

Income below the basic allowance is untaxed and income above it is taxed only on the excess. The solidarity surcharge works the other way: once the income tax passes its threshold the surcharge applies to all of it, which is why the law phases the first stretch in.

What it does not answer

How your taxable income was arrived at

This picks up where the tax return leaves off. Work-related costs, insurance contributions, child allowances and everything else that reduces the figure have already been applied by the time the tariff sees it.