Method 2026/2027: Additional Rate, Contribution, Deadlines

The calculator has two data sources. Each fund’s additional rate (Zusatzbeitrag) comes from the list the GKV-Spitzenverband, the umbrella body of the statutory funds, must publish day by day under section 242(5) of Book V of the Social Code (SGB V). Every other value (contribution rates, ceilings, care insurance surcharges) sits in one parameter file read against the statute, ordinance and official notice on 15 October 2026. Calculators and pages read only from these two files.

The fund list, every day

A script reads the 92 entries every morning (name, rate, states where the fund is open) and compares them with the day before. A new rate, a fund opening to another state or a fund disappearing in a merger is logged with its date and the site is rebuilt. If more than 15 percent of funds vanish at once, or fewer than 80 are read, the download stops and yesterday’s list stays: a reading error must never produce an empty ranking. List as of 15 October 2026, last downloaded on 17 October 2026; 71 funds are open to the public in at least one state.

One catch: the umbrella body only shows a new rate from the day it applies. A rise on 1 January 2027 appears on 1 January, not in December when the boards decide it. Until then the calculator uses today’s rate for 2027 too, and says so.

Employees

Contribution = pay up to the contribution ceiling (€5,812.50 a month in 2026, €6,375 in 2027) × (14.6 % + the fund’s additional rate), split half and half with your employer (sections 223, 241, 249 SGB V). Care insurance: 3.6 % split in half; childless members aged 23 and over pay 0.6 % on top alone, parents pay 0.25 % less for each child under 25 from the second to the fifth (section 55(3) SGB XI). In Saxony employees pay 0.5 % more and employers that much less (section 58(3)). For 2027 the calculator sets the care ceiling at €6,075 under the current section 55(2) SGB XI, one twelfth of the threshold in section 6(7) SGB V; health insurance is €3,600 a year higher since the 2026 contribution stabilisation act.

Transition zone (€603.01 to €2,000): two contributory amounts under section 20(2a) SGB IV with factor F 0.6619. The total is half the rate on the first amount, rounded and doubled; your share is half the rate on the second, in Saxony half the care rate plus 0.5 points; the employer pays the difference. The general and additional contributions are rounded separately. The childless surcharge applies to the first amount, the reduction for children to the second. At €1,000 and 3.0 percent that gives €854.06 and €568.36, health insurance €150.32 of which €50.02 is yours; this case is a test in the code. Up to €603 (minijob) you pay nothing.

Pensioners, self-employed, students

State pension (compulsory pensioners’ cover): half the rate plus half the additional rate, the pension fund pays the other half (sections 247, 249a SGB V); care insurance alone. Company pensions pay the full rate alone; €197.75 is exempt for health insurance, but for care insurance that amount is only a threshold (section 226(2)). A new additional rate reaches pensions only from the second month after it changes (section 247, sentence 3). Self-employed members pay everything themselves on profit, at least on €1,318.33 (section 240(4)), at 14 % without or 14.6 % with sick pay. Students pay seven tenths of the general rate (10.22 %) plus the additional rate on the BAföG need rate of €855 (sections 236, 245).

Ranking, savings, deadlines

The ranking shows every fund open nationwide or in the chosen state; your home or work address counts. Company funds open only to their own staff are left out of the ranking and appear in the full list only on request. Savings are the difference in your own share times twelve. The switch date follows section 175(4) SGB V: twelve months’ lock-in, notice to the end of the month after next, and after a rate rise a special right to leave until the end of the month it takes effect.

Tests that block every release

More than thirty cases worked out by hand run before each build: employees with and without children, Saxony, above the ceiling, 2026 and 2027, the transition zone (the published €1,000 example and the official examples of the joint circular of 16 August 2022 and the GKV-Spitzenverband guidance of 31 March 2025, Saxony included), minijob, pension with and without a company pension, self-employed at the minimum base, students, family cover and five deadline cases. A difference of more than one cent stops the release.

What the calculator cannot do

Compare benefits: bonus schemes, extra services and service quality differ but cannot honestly be priced in euros; we show the price only.
Private health insurance, civil servants with Beihilfe, foreign pensions, several jobs at once.
Sick-pay options of individual funds.
Draft laws: the Care Reorganisation Act (higher childless surcharge, single care ceiling) is built in only once enacted.

Updates

Fund list daily, thresholds with each ordinance and notice (2027 values become final with the published reference-value ordinance and the Federal Gazette notice of the average additional rate), full review at least every 12 months. Report errors to contact@zusatzbeitragrechner.de. See the editorial policy.

How we calculate