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Earn some pocket money and learn a lot at the same time, that's the student job (Werkstudent). It will get your career started while you are still studying.

## Here are the most important things you should know about the student job:
1. You have to be a student, part- or full-time doesn’t matter. After your studies you won’t be able to work as Werkstudent anymore. Depending on your employer you could get a full-time job or continue your part-time job as a mini or midi job. Most of time your contract will come to an end simultaneously with each semester or it will be stipulated that the contract ends the moment the employee isn’t a student anymore.
2. You can work a maximum of 20 hours per week during the semester, but up to 40 hours per week during the lecture-free period. You can’t work more than 20 hours per week for more than 26 weeks each year. That is to make sure that you still have enough time for your studies.
3. You will get at least €12 per hour as that is the minimum salary (Mindestlohn). Depending on how many hours you work and your salary, the amount of tax and social security that will be deducted will vary. If you earn less than €520 per month please have a look at [this article about the mini job](https://edubao.org/blog/the-mini-job), if you earn between €520 and €2.000 per month [this article about the midi job](https://edubao.org/blog/the-midi-job) will explain everything, and if you earn more than €2.000 per month [this article about income tax and social security](https://edubao.org/blog/why-don-t-i-get-the-full-salary-what-is-bruttolohn-what-is-nettolohn) is going to answer all your questions.
4. If you get BAföG, you are allowed to earn up to €5.400 per year. If you earn more than that, it will be deducted from the amount you get as BAföG.
5. Depending on your employer, you will be able to make your own schedule. You can pretty much work whenever you want, making the student job easy to fit in any schedule.
6. Often, you will be able to get your student job credited as your compulsory internship. This is a real plus at can be really hard to find an internship that fits your schedule and your employers needs. If everything goes well with your student job, in a lot of cases, you will be able to write your Bachelor or Master thesis there.

POV: You just moved Germany and got your dream job. But come payday you only got €2.000, out of the €3.000 promised in your contract, wired to your account! What went wrong? No, your boss isn't withholding a part of your pay. Income tax and social security insurance are directly deducted from your salary. Come on, let's go discover together how it all works!

## Bruttolohn and Nettolohn, what’s the difference?
Bruttolohn (gross income) is what your employer pays you and Nettolohn (net income) is what you actually get **AFTER** all taxes depending on your income have been deducted. At a job interview, the salary talked about will always be the gross income, so beware, if e.g., €3.000 a month is being talked about, you will end up getting only around €2.000 per month.
## Tax categories - Steuerklassen
There are different tax categories depending on marital status. It will also be mentioned on your pay slip. Here’s an oversight:

![tax_categories](https://cloud.squidex.io/api/assets/edubao/e91fe2ec-ec22-460e-98af-b10789fad8d8/tax-categories.png?version=1)
## Income tax - Lohnsteuer
The income tax depends on the tax category you chose or fit in and your income. You can calculate how much will be deducted from your pay each month [here](https://www.bmf-steuerrechner.de/bl/bl2022/eingabeformbl2022.xhtml).
## Statutory health insurance - Krankenversicherung
If you have a private health insurance, you won’t pay this. Most people have the statutory health insurance as it’s way cheaper and less paperwork. You will pay 8,1% of your monthly gross income.
## Statutory pension insurance - Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung
Like with the health insurance, if you have a private pension insurance, you won’t pay this. This will take 9,3% off your gross income, but a maximum of €7.050 per month in western Germany and €6.750 per month in eastern Germany.
## Unemployment insurance – Arbeitlosenversicherung
You will get 1,3% deducted from your monthly gross income, but no more than €7.050 per month in western Germany and €6.750 per month in eastern Germany.
## Church tax – Kirchensteuer
You don’t have to pay this if you haven’t been baptized in Germany. If you have, or belong to the church, and don’t want to pay the church tax anymore, you will have to go to your local court and ask to leave the church (Kirchenaustritt). You will need your ID card or passport. Otherwise, you can have your notary do it. Depending on the region you’re located in it will cost a bit, e.g., €30 in North Rhine-Westphalia, free in Brandenburg and the price varies in the other regions. The church tax is of 8% in Bavaria and in Baden-Württemberg and 9% in the other regions.
## Long-term care insurance – Pflegeversicherung
This part of the German social security costs you 3,5% (+0,6% if you don’t have kids) of your gross monthly income.
## How to pay less taxes! Tips & tricks.
* There are different ways to pay little to no taxes on your income. The [mini job](https://edubao.org/blog/the-mini-job), [midi job](https://edubao.org/blog/the-midi-job), [student job](https://edubao.org/blog/the-student-job-werkstudent) (Werksstudent) are the best ways to earn some money during your studies, apply what you’ve already learnt at university and learn some more, all that almost without paying any taxes on your income. You can learn more about each one of them by clicking on each one of them.
* From 2023 on, you have an allowance of €1.230 per year of (advertising costs) Werbungskosten, meaning each year you can deduct €1.230 from your salary you have to pay taxes on. For example, if you get paid €1.230 (gross income) per month, you will end up only paying income tax on 11 months. The Werbungskosten are there so that you can get income taxes back on what you paid to even be able to work, e.g., travel costs to go to work, buying a new PC to work etc. In case you exceed the €1.230 annual allowance you will have to add receipts to your tax declaration (Steuerklärung), otherwise you don’t need to.
* One thing you should definitely do, is your tax declaration (Steuerklärung) at the end of the year. In case you paid to much income tax because for e.g., you where in the wrong tax category, you’ll get that back. But it also goes the other way around, meaning if you paid too little, you will have to pay up. Either way, you **MUST** do your tax declaration.

If you want to understand a bit more of the German income tax and social security tax system, you’re at the right place. We’re going to explain it in the most understandable way possible, even though it’s a very tricky subject, like all bureaucracy related things. One thing you should know beforehand, you CAN work legally without paying income tax. It’s called mini job and you can earn up to €520 per month without having to pay any taxes on that, meaning that you will get the full amount of what you have worked for. There’s two other ways to pay little to no tax on your salary, but we will get into that later on.

Why don’t I get the full salary? What is Bruttolohn? What is Nettolohn?

The best way to earn a bit of pocket money in Germany for travelling, food, sports etc.: The mini job!

A mini job is a form of employment where you don’t have to pay **ANY** income tax. You can earn up to €538 per month. To pay absolutely no tax you will have to fill out a form stating that you don’t want to pay for the pension fund (see below). But it is actually an advantage for you as a foreigner to pay it, as it’s not really a lot of money and the months you will have paid for it, can be crucial for your permanent residence permit and citizenship. Your employer will pay around 20% for the statutory health insurance, pension fund and wage tax. The only negative part is that you **AREN’T** health insured, for that you would have to get a [midi job](https://edubao.org/blog/the-midi-job) or [student job](https://edubao.org/blog/the-student-job-werkstudent) (Werkstudent). As a student you are allowed to work up to 20 hours per week during the semester and 40 hours per week during the semester holidays. The minimum salary being of €12,82 per hour, you will only be able to work 43 hours per month during semester, otherwise you will surpass the monthly €538 limit and it will be a midi job ([you can read about it here](https://edubao.org/blog/the-midi-job)). Even though most people doing a mini job are students, it is not required to be a student to get a mini job, anyone can! ![no_pension_tax_form](https://cloud.squidex.io/api/assets/edubao/7e426ab9-f44d-4ad1-babd-b89a5efb84ff/rv-befreiung-2.png?version=1)

In this short article you will learn about the easiest way to earn tax free money legally!

The mini job

Jobs are like Pokemons, they evolve! The midi job is like the mini job, only better.

Let me tell you about the main advantages of the midi job:
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1.  As midi jobber you will pay less for social security but will still get full pension.
    
2.  You only pay income tax in certain cases. If the midi job is your only job and your tax category is 1, 2 or 4, you won’t pay income tax, unless you earn more than €10.908 a year. If you are in tax category 3 you won’t pay any tax, no matter how much you earn, as long as it is your only job. If it is your second job, you will automatically be in tax category 6, and if you are in tax categories 5 or 6 for another reason, you will pay income tax accordingly
    
3.  You pay a lesser percentage of health and long-term care insurance but still get full coverage.
    
4.  You also pay a lesser percentage for unemployment but, if you have had your midi job for a least 12 months straight, you will still get 60% of your average net earnings of the last 12 months (67% if you have kids) for 12 months.
    

Let’s have a look at how you can calculate on your own what you will get at the end of the month as midi jobber. Grab a cup of coffee or an ice-cold beer, and hold on tight to it, they didn’t exactly make it easy to understand. Since October 2022 we have a new factor F in Germany and we will need to calculate a few things, it’s 0,6922. X is your monthly gross income, Y is your fictitious income subject to social security contributions and Z is your contributory income of the share of the social security to be borne by you. Follow these steps: a) Y = F \* 520 (\[2000 / (2000 - 520)\] – \[520 / (2000 - 520)\] \* F) \* (X – 520) Let’s say you get paid €800 each month, your Y will be €670,22. b) Let’s figure out the total of each of your social security contributions (see table below). You use Y and the bigger percentage of each social security. c) Z = \[2000 / (200 – 520)\] \* (X – 520) ; with X being €800, your Z will be €378,38. d) Let’s figure out what you pay for social security as an employee (see table below). You use Z and the smaller percentage of each social security. e) Let’s see what your employer pays for social security (see table below). For that you use the result from b) – the result from d).

![social security tax_en](https://cloud.squidex.io/api/assets/edubao/e16bea04-0f00-40c5-be67-abcc966976d2/social-security-tax-en.png 'social security tax_en')

If you thought that we were done, you’re deeply mistaken because there are the following two reasons that might change a few numbers in that table: • If you work in Saxony, the percentage of the long-term care insurance is slightly different. The total (€22,79) doesn’t change but you will have to pay 2,2% (instead of 1,7%) of your Z. • If you don’t have kids, you will have to add 0,6% of your Y. In our example you would have to pay an additional €4,2 for the long-term care insurance, so €9,97. And €12.52 if you have no children and work in Saxony. The more children you have, the lower the percentage of your long-term care insurance.

You might think the midi job is similar to the mini job but there are some major differences. One of the differences being that the monthly earnings limit isn’t €520 but €1.600 and even €2.000 from January 2023 on. Another difference is you must pay health, pension and unemployment insurance, and in some cases income tax, but nowhere near as much as for a normal full- or parttime job.

The midi job

Money & Costs

Working as a Werkstudent while you are studying can get your career started. You can earn some money to afford a better lifestyle but the most important is that you have a look at what your work life might look like once you have finished your studies. It’s a great way to learn new things, put into practice what you have learnt in class and to see what job would suit you best. It also opens you a door into the work life, as a lot of people end up getting a full-time job where they used work as a student.