How we calculate

Legal and form status

Law

BEEG (German Parental Allowance Act) as last amended on 22 Dec 2025

Guidelines

BEEG guidelines (Richtlinien), July 2026

Form

application forms (Antrag) for births from 1 May 2025

Applies to

Current BEEG for births from 1 May 2025 (§ 28 Abs. 1b BEEG)

Sources retrieved

24 October 2026

Last checked

24 October 2026

Estimate under the BEEG (as of 22 Dec 2025); BEEG guidelines (Richtlinien), July 2026; application forms (Antrag) for births from 1 May 2025.

The Elterngeld net income

We take your regular gross pay, deduct one twelfth of the employee lump sum and calculate wage tax and solidarity surcharge using the Federal Ministry of Finance’s official flowchart (Programmablaufplan) that applied on 1 January of the year before the birth. Plus church tax at 8 percent and flat rates for social security, in the transition zone (Midijob) with the statutory formula. We build the flowchart from the official pseudocode, not by hand.

Which wage tax version

For births in 2026 we use the 2025 flowchart as it stood on 1 January 2025 – that is what section 2e(1) BEEG and the guidelines say; changes during the year do not count. The federal Elterngeld calculator uses the version amended in January 2025. So our wage tax is slightly higher and Elterngeld a few euros lower, for example €4.93 less Basic Elterngeld per month at €2,500 gross in class I. We are clarifying which version the Elterngeld offices use.

From net income to Elterngeld

Replacement rate, minimum amount and cap, sibling bonus and multiple-birth supplement are in the BEEG. We round amounts to the cent. Months of life are calculated to the day under the German Civil Code.

The plan

We check the split against every rule on months, periods and taking Elterngeld at the same time. Every message says which rule applies.

Every rule with its law section

These are the rules we calculate. Values come from the current BEEG for births from 1 May 2025.

• You get Elterngeld if you live in Germany, live with your child, care for it yourself and work at most 32 hours a week.§ 1 Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 1.1)
• More than 32 hours a week on average over the month of life: no Elterngeld for that month.§ 1 Abs. 6 BEEG (guidelines 1.6.1)
• No Elterngeld above €175,000 taxable income in the year before the birth (couples combined).§ 1 Abs. 8 BEEG (guidelines 1.8)
• Elterngeld replaces 67% of your Elterngeld net income before the birth.§ 2 Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 2.1)
• Below €1,000 net, the rate rises by 0.1 percentage points for every €2 below, up to 100%.§ 2 Abs. 2 Satz 1 BEEG (guidelines 2.2.1)
• Above €1,200 net, the rate falls by 0.1 percentage points for every €2 above, down to 65%.§ 2 Abs. 2 Satz 2 BEEG (guidelines 2.2.2)
• Basic Elterngeld is at most €1,800 per month.§ 2 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BEEG (guidelines 2.1.2)
• Basic Elterngeld is at least €300 per month, even without income before.§ 2 Abs. 4 BEEG (guidelines 2.4)
• With income after the birth, the difference counts: net income before (capped at €2,770) minus net income after, times the replacement rate.§ 2 Abs. 3 BEEG (guidelines 2.3.2)
• Sibling bonus: plus 10%, at least €75, with an older child under 3 or two older children under 6 (with a disability: under 14). Twins alone do not count.§ 2a Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 2a.1.1)
• The sibling bonus ends with the month of life in which the condition stops applying.§ 2a Abs. 3 BEEG (guidelines 2a.3)
• Multiple birth: €300 per month for each additional baby, half with Plus.§ 2a Abs. 4 BEEG (guidelines 2a.4)
• Assessment period (Bemessungszeitraum): the 12 calendar months before the month of birth. Months with maternity protection, Elterngeld for an older child or pregnancy-related illness are skipped.§ 2b Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 2b.1.2)
• Regular pay counts. Christmas bonus, holiday pay and other one-off payments do not.§ 2c Abs. 1 Satz 1 und 2 BEEG (guidelines 2c.1.1)
• One twelfth of the employee lump sum (Arbeitnehmer-Pauschbetrag) is deducted from gross pay, as it stood on 1 January of the year before the birth.§ 2c Abs. 1 Satz 1 und 4 BEEG (guidelines 2c.1.4.0)
• Wage tax and solidarity surcharge are calculated at flat rates using the official wage tax flowchart (Programmablaufplan) that applied on 1 January of the year before the birth, not your actual payslip.§ 2e Abs. 1 bis 3 BEEG (guidelines 2e.1.2)
• The solidarity surcharge follows from the wage tax calculated this way.§ 2e Abs. 4 BEEG (guidelines 2e.4)
• The tax class on the last payslip of the assessment period counts, unless another class applied in more months. In a tie, the last one counts.§ 2c Abs. 3 BEEG (guidelines 2c.3.2.2)
• Church tax at a flat 8% of wage tax.§ 2e Abs. 5 BEEG (guidelines 2e.5)
• Health and care insurance at a flat 9%, if you have compulsory public health insurance.§ 2f Abs. 1 Satz 2 Nr. 1 BEEG (guidelines 2f.1.2.1)
• Pension insurance at a flat 10%, if you pay into the statutory pension.§ 2f Abs. 1 Satz 2 Nr. 2 BEEG (guidelines 2f.1.2.2)
• Unemployment insurance at a flat 2%, if you are insured there.§ 2f Abs. 1 Satz 2 Nr. 3 BEEG (guidelines 2f.1.2.3)
• Social security is based on gross pay. A minijob counts as 0; in the transition zone (Midijob) the statutory formula applies, with the marginal employment limit of the year before.§ 2f Abs. 2 BEEG (guidelines 2f.2.3.2)
• Maternity protection (Mutterschutz): 6 weeks before the due date to 8 weeks after the birth, 12 weeks after a premature or multiple birth.§ 3 MuSchG
• Deducted are maternity pay from the health insurer, the employer top-up and pay for civil servants, but not the maternity pay of the Federal Office. We estimate them as net income divided by 30 per day.§§ 19, 20 MuSchG (guidelines 3.1.1.1)
• Months of life with maternity pay count as Basic months of the mother.§ 4 Abs. 4 Satz 3 BEEG (guidelines 4.4.3)
• Maternity pay and the employer top-up after the birth are deducted from Elterngeld.§ 3 Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 3.1.2)
• Together there are 12 monthly amounts of Basic Elterngeld. A Plus month counts as half.§ 4 Abs. 3 Satz 1 BEEG (guidelines 4.3.1)
• Plus 2 partner months (Partnermonate), if one of you earns less or nothing in two months of life.§ 4 Abs. 3 Satz 2 BEEG (guidelines 4.3.2.1)
• One parent alone takes at most 12 monthly amounts; single parents can also take the partner months.§ 4 Abs. 4 Satz 1 BEEG (guidelines 4.4.1)
• If you take Elterngeld, you take it for at least 2 months of life.§ 4 Abs. 4 Satz 2 BEEG (guidelines 4.4.2)
• ElterngeldPlus is at most half of Basic Elterngeld without income, for twice as long.§ 4a Abs. 2 BEEG (guidelines 4a.2.1)
• Basic Elterngeld is paid up to month of life 14.§ 4 Abs. 1 Satz 3 BEEG (guidelines 4.1.2)
• ElterngeldPlus is paid up to month of life 32, without gaps from month 15.§ 4 Abs. 1 Satz 4 BEEG (guidelines 4.1.3)
• Both taking Basic at the same time works in only 1 month of life, and only within the first 12. Exceptions: multiple birth, premature birth, disability.§ 4 Abs. 6 BEEG (guidelines 4.6)
• Premature birth at least 6 weeks before the due date: 1 to 4 extra monthly amounts, with Basic running longer.§ 4 Abs. 5 BEEG (guidelines 4.5.2)
• Partnership bonus: both work 24 to 32 hours a week at the same time.§ 4b Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 4b.1.1)
• 2 to 4 bonus months, in a row.§ 4b Abs. 2 BEEG (guidelines 4b.2)
• Both take the bonus in the same months of life; single parents alone.§ 4b Abs. 3 BEEG (guidelines 4b.3)
• Single parents can also take the partner months and the bonus on their own.§ 4c BEEG (guidelines 4c.1.1)
• Elterngeld runs per month of life from the birthday, not per calendar month.§ 4 Abs. 2 Satz 1 BEEG (guidelines 4.1.2)
• Elterngeld is paid back only for the 3 months of life before the month your application arrives.§ 7 Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 7.1.2)
• Register parental leave up to the 3rd birthday with your employer at the latest 7 weeks before it starts, in text form (e.g. email). From the birth, the due date counts.§ 16 Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 16.1.1)
• You can change the split until the payments end, backdated for at most 3 months of life.§ 7 Abs. 2 BEEG (guidelines 7.2.1)
• If you work during Elterngeld months, you prove your income after the payments end.§ 8 Abs. 1 BEEG (guidelines 8.1)
• Child benefit (Kindergeld) per child and month, only for “What is left each month?” in the app.§ 66 Abs. 1 EStG

Limits of the estimate

We calculate with the same gross pay every month. Changing income, short-time work, sick pay, several jobs, cross-border cases and special social security cases are not covered. The Elterngeldstelle calculates with your actual payslips.

Self-employed

We do not calculate self-employed or mixed income yet. That comes in version 1.1.

Comparison with the official calculator

We compare our results with the federal Elterngeld calculator. As of 24 Oct 2026: with the same wage tax inputs, 78 of 114 cases match to the cent. The rest are explained: in the transition zone (Midijob) the federal calculator uses an older marginal employment limit, and with tax class IV and a factor we are a few cents off. We recalculate all 26 official worked examples from the guidelines to the cent.

What we do not do

We do not check applications or decisions, we do not recommend a tax class and we do not calculate with laws that have not been passed. The Elterngeldstelle gives advice for free.