Social insurance: higher social security contributions for high earners from 2026

People with higher incomes are expected to pay more money to social security in the coming year. Specifically, it is about raising the so -called assessment limit for income, up to which social contributions are to be paid. It is adapted to wage development annually. On Friday, the Federal Ministry of Labor sent the corresponding draft regulation that set the borders for 2026 to vote on the other departments. The draft, which previously reported the “Politico” portal, is available to the German Press Agency.

What is intended for the individual insurance types?

In the general pension insurance, the contribution ceiling is to increase from the current 8,050 euros per month from 1 January to 8,450 euros. Statutory health insurance must be raised from 6,150 euros gross monthly income to 6,450 euros from the current 2026.

What the contribution ceiling is

The contribution ceiling in pension insurance is the maximum amount of gross income, until the contributions to the legal system of old -age insurance, to which employees and employers contribute, will be levied. Income above this border is not used for the calculation of pension insurance contributions. In order to determine the decisive values ​​of the computing variables of social security, you look at the development of wages and salaries.

Far -reaching political demands

The SPD health expert Christos Pantazis proposed in an interview in June that high earners deposit more into statutory health insurance. Specifically, he advocated an increase in the contribution ceiling by around 2,500 euros in order to stabilize the tense financial situation of insurance. The health policy spokesman for the Greens, Janosch Dahmen, also pleaded in addition to structural reforms for an increase “step by step to the level of statutory pension insurance”.

Finally relieve workers

“In the end, what is left on the pay slip is decisive,” said the President of the Federation of Taxpayers, Reiner Holznagel, now “Bild” and dpa. “Instead of just screwing up limits, it is finally necessary to save the social benefits.”

With a view to the increase in the contribution ceiling intended for 2026, the federal government is taking care of wage development and “has little scope for design on the matter, while Dennis Radtke (CDU), chairman of the Christian Democratic Working Service of Germany, said the” Tagesspiegel “. However, he added: “The dilemma is: In parallel to raise the assessment limit, the increase in the additional contributions is emerging in the SHI.” So many employees would be hit twice instead of finally relieving. The MEP told the newspaper: “Many are simply fed up because they can hardly get off the spot despite hard work.”

Additional contributions rose at the beginning of the year

At the beginning of this year, the additional contributions rose to 2.9 percent on average. In the autumn, an estimated group determines an orientation value for the average additional contribution in the following year. Each cash register then specifies the specific additional contribution for your insured.

The overall contribution for health insurance, which employees and employers share, also includes the general sentence of 14.6 percent of gross wages. The performance expenditure of the approximately 90 health insurance companies rose by 7.95 percent to EUR 166.1 billion in the first half of the year, as can be seen from the key figures of the GKV top association.