You take a part-time job, the pay looks modest, and then the payslip arrives showing almost no deductions at all, where a colleague on slightly more loses a third of theirs to tax and contributions. You did not find a loophole. You found the minijob, the bottom rung of a three-tier system where the German state has drawn precise income lines, and which side of a line you sit on changes everything about how your work is taxed and insured.
The minijob, midijob, and full-employment tiers are worth understanding whether you are a student earning on the side, a parent easing back into work, or anyone weighing a part-time offer. The thresholds are specific, and crossing one by a single euro can shift your whole deduction picture. Here is where the lines are.
The three tiers
German employment is layered by monthly income, and each layer is taxed and insured differently.
| Tier | Income (2025) | Employee deductions |
|---|---|---|
| Minijob | up to €556/month | Largely none, tax-free, employer flat rate |
| Midijob | transition zone above €556 | Reduced, scaling up gradually |
| Full employment | above the transition zone | Full tax + four social contributions |
The same hour of work is treated very differently depending on which tier your monthly total lands in. This is why the payslip of a minijobber looks almost deduction-free while a full employee loses a large slice, the tier, not an error, explains it.
The minijob (up to €556)
The minijob is the bottom tier, capped at €556 per month (the 2025 figure, which tracks the minimum wage and rises when it does).
Its defining features for the employee:
- No income tax falls on you for a standard minijob, the employer pays a flat-rate contribution instead.
- Minimal social contributions: you can usually opt out of the small pension contribution (though staying in builds a little pension entitlement, and is often the wiser default).
- Simplicity: it is the easiest employment form, popular for students (within their work limits), parents, retirees, and second jobs.
You can average the €556 across the year, so seasonal peaks are allowed within an annual cap, but consistently earning above it pushes you out of minijob status. The tax-free treatment is the whole appeal: a minijob's gross is very close to its net.
The midijob (the transition zone)
Just above the minijob limit sits the midijob, a transition zone (Übergangsbereich) running up to a higher monthly ceiling.
The point of this zone is to avoid a cliff edge. Without it, earning one euro over €556 would suddenly load the full social contributions onto a low income, a strong disincentive to earn slightly more. Instead, in the midijob zone:
- Social contributions for the employee are reduced at the bottom of the zone
- They scale up gradually as income rises toward the upper limit
- So your net-to-gross ratio is more favourable than in full employment, smoothing the step up
This makes the midijob a genuinely good tier for part-time workers earning moderately above the minijob line, you keep more of each euro than the full-employment maths would suggest, until you pass the upper boundary into full contributions.
Full employment
Above the transition zone is full employment, where the complete deduction picture applies: income tax (Lohnsteuer) by tax class, plus the full employee share of all four social contributions (health, pension, unemployment, long-term care).
This is the standard tier for most regular jobs, and the one the general payslip explanation assumes. It is the most "expensive" in deductions, but it also buys the fullest set of protections: full pension accrual, unemployment-benefit eligibility, full health coverage in your own right, and sick-pay entitlements.
So the tiers trade off simplicity and net-retention against protection: the minijob keeps almost all your pay but builds little; full employment takes more but builds the complete safety net.
Multiple jobs and the thresholds across them
The thresholds are not per-job in the way people assume, and this catches second-jobbers.
- One minijob alongside a main job: generally fine and still largely tax-advantaged on the minijob side.
- A second minijob on top of the first: added to your main income and taxed accordingly, often via tax class 6 (the high-withholding class for additional jobs).
- Several minijobs together exceeding €556: treated as regular employment, the limit counts across your minijobs combined, not per job.
So you cannot stack three minijobs to stay tax-free, the totals are aggregated. If you hold more than one job, work out your combined monthly income and which tier that total lands in, because that, not each individual contract, determines your treatment. For students especially, this interacts with the 120-day and 20-hour rules, so the employment tier and the student limits both apply at once.
What to do this week
- Identify which tier your job (or combined jobs) falls in by monthly income: minijob (up to €556), midijob (the zone above), or full employment.
- If you hold more than one job, add the incomes together, since the minijob limit counts across jobs and a second job is usually taxed at class 6.
- Decide on the minijob pension opt-out deliberately, opting in builds a little entitlement even though opting out raises your net slightly.
