If you live in Germany, you must have health insurance. Most people in Germany are insured by public insurance.
The health insurance contribution consists of:
Health insurance: This is the main bulk of the cost and it is the same across all public health insurers in Germany. It amounts up to 14.6% of your income.
Provider-specific additional contribution: This factor is set by the individual public health insurance provider (usually between 1.2% and 2.7% of your earnings)
Long-term care insurance: In addition to health insurance, you must pay into the long-term care insurance system. This factor is the same across all public health insurers in Germany. It amounts to 3.40% of your income. For those with 2 kids or more, amount will be decreased by 0.25% per kid, to max 1%. If you are above 23 years old and have no kids, you need to pay additional 0.6% which totals your contribution to 4%.
Before moving forward, it is important to mention that there is a floor and a ceiling set on public health contributions. Meaning: if you earn over €5,175.00 per month, your contribution will be based on that amount.
If you earn less than €1,178.33 per month, your contribution will be based on that amount.
Your contribution details will as well depend on a few other factors, explained below.
Employed with income above €2000:
As an employee, you and your employer pay each 50% of the contributions. You can calculate your contribution using our online calculator.
Employed with income between €538 and €2000:
As a so-called midi-jobber, there is an extra rule that provides financial relief. Your employer takes over a bigger part of the health insurance.
The employee contribution will be zero at the beginning of the transitional period and will then rise to the regular employee contribution on a sliding scale.
Employed with income up to €538:
As a so-called mini-jobber, the contributions depend on your specific situation. If you are part of somebody else's family insurance, receive unemployment benefits, or have another full employment contract, you don't have to worry about the contributions for being a mini-jobber.
If none of the above is true, you are probably voluntarily insured, and you can find your contributions below.
Self-employed:
As a self-employed, you have to pay the contributions yourself, with around 18% of your total income. You can easily calculate your contribution using our online calculator. The minimum contribution lies a around €220. You can find more details here since you would be part of the voluntary insurance.
Students under 30:
As a student under 30 years of age, you pay a fixed reduced price that is not dependent on your income. Only the provider-specific additional contribution differ here. You can easily calculate your contribution using our online calculator.
Voluntarily insured:
If you don't fall into any category above but still qualify for voluntary public insurance, your contributions depend on your income. The minimum contribution lies at around €220,00. You can find more details here.
It's important to note that these rates, set for the year 2024, are subject to change and may vary based on your specific situation. Additionally, if your yearly earnings are above a certain threshold (in 2023 it is €69,300 as an employee or €30,000 as self-employed), you may be eligible for private insurance instead of public.