Paycheck
What does a mayor actually earn?
Mayors are indispensable in cities and municipalities. In Germany they work in more than 11,000 communities. But what do these politicians earn?
Off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, in the North Frisian Wadden Sea, lies one of the smallest communities in Germany. There are only twelve people living on the island of Val Gardena – and yet they have a mayor.
When elections were held earlier, the residents of Val Gardena made their cross in the living room of former mayor Volker Mommsen. He worked on a voluntary basis and therefore received no salary, but a flat rate for expenses – like the majority of German mayors.
Many mayors work on a voluntary basis
According to the North Rhine-Westphalia State Center for Civic Education, there are 11,475 mayors in Germany, of which 3,440 are full-time and 8,035 are voluntary.
The mayors, who work full-time, receive a salary that depends on the size of the municipality, municipality or city. As a rule of thumb: the more residents a city has, the higher the basic salary.
Top earners are the first mayors and mayors in Germany’s major cities. For example, Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) earns around 14,400 euros a month, i.e. almost 173,000 euros a year. But that’s just a basic salary. With allowances, Tschentscher earns around 200,000 euros.
What mayors deserve
The basic salary of a mayor depends on the population. The more people live in a city, the higher the so-called salary group into which a mayor’s office is classified. Peter Tschentscher, for example, is paid according to salary group B11.
The salaries of the salary groups differ from state to state. In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, they are staggered as follows:
| up to 10,000 inhabitants | B2 | 8,179.70 euros gross |
| from 10,001 inhabitants | B3 | 8,657.80 euros gross |
| from 20,001 inhabitants | B4 | 9,158.52 euros gross |
| from 30,001 inhabitants | B5 | 9,732.99 euros gross |
| from 40,001 to 60,000 inhabitants | B6 | 10,275.49 euros gross |
| from 60,001 to 100,000 inhabitants | B7 | 10,803.17 euros gross |
| from 100,001 to 150,000 inhabitants | B8 | 11,353.20 euros gross |
| from 150,001 to 250,000 inhabitants | B9 | 12,036.09 euros gross |
| from 250,001 to 500,000 inhabitants | B10 | 14,156.81 euros gross |
| from 500,001 inhabitants | B11 | 14,703.36 euros gross |
The salaries of mayors in North Rhine-Westphalia are regulated in the state salary regulations B, which can be viewed.
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Source: Stern
