The employer’s share of health and care insurance
On €3,800 gross and the average additional rate, the employer pays €333 health insurance and €68 care insurance a month.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
What your employer pays to the fund for you
Employer share a month
€397
| Health insurance | €329 |
| Care insurance | €68 |
| Your own share | €397 |
| Gross plus employer health/care | €4,197 |
2026, excluding pension and unemployment insurance, outside Saxony.
German employers pay half of their employees’ statutory health insurance contribution, and since 2019 that includes half of the fund’s additional rate (Zusatzbeitrag) (section 249(1) of Book V of the Social Code, SGB V). With the general rate of 14.6 % and the average additional rate of 2.9 %, that is 8.75 % of gross pay, up to the contribution ceiling of €5,812.50 a month. For long-term care insurance the employer pays 1.8 %, in Saxony only 1.3 %; the childless surcharge and the parents’ discounts affect the employee alone. On €3,800 gross that comes to €401 a month, and €613 at the ceiling. Because the additional rate is shared, an expensive fund costs the employer more too: between the cheapest and the most expensive fund open to the public the difference at this pay is €504 a year. The choice of fund still belongs to the employee alone.
What makes up the employer share
For employees the principle is parity: what goes to the health fund is shared between employee and employer. The general rate of 14.6 % is the same at every fund, so every employer pays 7.3 % of gross pay for it. On top comes half of the additional rate of the fund the employee has chosen. For long-term care insurance the employer shares the 3.6 % rate; anything above or below that concerns only the employee. A childless employee on €3,800 gross pays €424 a month and an employee with one child €401; the employer pays €401 in both cases.
All contributions stop at the contribution ceiling. Above it the employer share no longer rises either: at most €613 a month in 2026 and provisionally €667 in 2027, for health and care insurance together at the average additional rate.
What the employer pays at different pay levels
| Gross pay a month | Health insurance | Care insurance | together |
|---|---|---|---|
| €2,500 | €219 | €45 | €264 |
| €3,800 | €333 | €68 | €401 |
| €5,000 | €438 | €90 | €528 |
| €5,813 | €509 | €105 | €613 |
| €8,000 | €509 | €105 | €613 |
The table shows the share growing in line with pay and stopping at the ceiling: between €5,813 and €8,000 gross nothing changes. For high earners, social insurance therefore makes up a smaller part of total staff costs with every euro above the ceiling.
The employee’s fund costs the business too
Because the additional rate is shared, the employer share depends on which fund the employee picks. A firm with many staff at expensive funds pays noticeably more than one whose workforce is with cheap funds. On €3,800 gross it looks like this:
| Fund | Additional rate | Employer a month | a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| BKK firmus | 2.18 % | €387 | €4,647 |
| Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) | 2.69 % | €397 | €4,763 |
| BARMER | 3.29 % | €408 | €4,900 |
| BKK24 | 4.39 % | €429 | €5,151 |
Employers still may not tell staff which fund to join or push them towards a cheaper one; under section 175 SGB V the choice belongs to the member alone. Many HR departments do point out the additional rates in the autumn, though, as both sides gain equally from a switch. To see what a switch would save you personally, use the contribution calculator.
Special cases: Saxony, midijobs, minijobs
In Saxony the employer’s care share is 0.5 points lower, so €19 a month less on €3,800 gross, which the employee carries instead. In the transition zone up to €2,000 the employer pays more than half, because the employee’s share is reduced under section 20(2a) SGB IV (midijobs in detail). For a minijob up to €603 only the employer pays, a flat 13 % of pay, from 2027 17.5 %; the minijobber is not insured through it.
Short-time work, sickness, parental leave
Under short-time work (Kurzarbeit) part of the pay is lost but cover continues. Contributions for the lost part are worked out on a notional wage, and the employer pays them alone (section 249(2) SGB V; for care insurance section 58(1), sentence 2 SGB XI). When you are ill, the employer keeps paying your wage for the first six weeks, and with it its share. After that the fund pays sick pay and the employer share stops; no health contribution is due on the sick pay itself (section 224(1) SGB V). During parental leave membership continues (section 192(1) no. 2 SGB V); while parental allowance is paid it is free of contributions (section 224(1) SGB V), and with no wage the employer pays nothing either.
Voluntary or private cover: the subsidy
Anyone who stays in a statutory fund voluntarily because their pay is above the compulsory insurance threshold receives from the employer exactly the share it would pay under compulsory cover (section 257(1) SGB V). Usually the employer pays the whole contribution straight to the fund; otherwise it pays the subsidy with the salary. Privately insured employees get a subsidy up to the same amount, but never more than half of their premium (section 257(2)). The threshold itself is explained on the page on the compulsory insurance threshold.
Besides health and care insurance, the employer also pays half of pension and unemployment insurance, plus the levies and accident insurance alone. This page and the calculator stick to health and care insurance, because only there does the choice of fund change the amount.