Voluntary insurance

Everyone residing in Germany is required to have health insurance. For most people, insurance in the statutory health insurance system is mandatory. The voluntary insurance option is of interest to those who are not legally obligated to be insured but still wish to have the protection of statutory insurance. This includes self-employed individuals, employees with high incomes, or those who no longer qualify for family insurance.

Basis for contribution calculation

The contribution as a voluntary member is calculated based on your income up to the contribution assessment ceiling of €5,812.50 per month. If your income is lower, your contributions for voluntary insurance are based on the amount of your actual income. The minimum income for contribution calculation is €1,318.33 per month.

This means that in 2026 you will pay contributions based on:

Health Insurance Contribution

The reduced contribution rate is 17.8% (including additional contribution), and the standard contribution rate is 18.4% (including additional contribution). Whether you pay the reduced or standard rate depends on the type of your income. If you have different types of income, it may be that a portion of your monthly income is subject to the reduced rate, while another portion is subject to the standard rate. You can find information on which types of income are used for contribution calculation here.

Long-Term Care Insurance Contribution

The basic contribution rate for long-term care insurance is 3.6%. This applies to insured persons with one child or to those under 23 years of age.

Insured persons with two or more children receive relief depending on the number of children. For each child under 25 years old, the basic contribution rate is reduced by 0.25 percentage points. A detailed table of contribution rates according to the number of children can be found here.

For insured persons over 23 years of age without children, the contribution rate is 4.2%.

Use our contribution calculator, to calculate your individual contribution.

All income used to cover living expenses is considered contributory income, including, for example:

Once a year, we will send you a questionnaire about your income situation in order to determine the contributions you need to pay.

If your spouse or partner is not covered by statutory insurance, their income will be included in the calculation of your contributions.

Suitable forms of evidence include income tax assessments, pay slips or bank statements.

You can conveniently verify your income online at any time in Meine SBK:

Income enquiry

You can easily pay your contributions by direct debit. To do so, grant us a direct debit authorisation in the Meine SBK app. We will then debit your contributions from your account on time.

Alternatively, you can give us a direct debit authorisation via a SEPA direct debit mandate.

SEPA direct debit mandate form

Or you can transfer your contributions yourself. Please note, however, that your contributions must be credited to our account by the 15th of the following month at the latest. For example, contributions for January are due by 15 February at the latest. Please transfer your contributions to:

SBK Siemens-Betriebskrankenkasse
IBAN: DE58 7902 0076 0027 9131 99
BIC: HYVEDEMM455
UniCredit Bank GmbH