Employees
All the information you need concerning your health insurance contribution
Are you an employee with an annual salary of less than €73,800 in the year 2025 (national average)? Then you can take out insurance with SBK as an employee required to pay insurance contributions for statutory health insurance.
If you are earning more than €73,800 per year (national average), you can voluntarily take out insurance with SBK. This voluntary insurance generally starts on 1 January of the following year – if your salary also exceeds the annual salary limit applicable at that time. If you are starting a new job or changing employers, you can voluntarily take out insurance with SBK right away.
Your SBK social security contributions
As an employee your gross salary and the SBK contribution rate serve as the basis for your monthly social security contributions, i.e. contributions to health, unemployment, nursing care and pension insurance.
Your contributions are deducted from your total income up to the maximum ‘contribution assessment ceiling’ for the type of insurance in question. These ceilings are uniformly defined each year by lawmakers.
Your employer covers half of the contribution for you, but does not pay the additional contribution or the nursing care insurance premium for those without children.
Health insurance contributions
| General contribution rate for employees Additional contribution for SBK Total contribution | 14.6% 3.8% 18.4% |
| contribution assessment ceiling | €5,512.50 monthly €66,150 annually |
| Flat contribution rate for low-income employees (gross salary max. €556; contribution is completely covered by the employer) | 13% |
Nursing care insurance contributions
| Countrywide contribution rate (applies to all members with health insurance) | 3.6%* |
| Employer subsidy (except in the Federal State of Saxony) | 1.8% (1.3% in Saxony) |
| contribution assessment ceiling | €5,512.50 monthly €66,150 annually |
| Flat contribution rate for low-income employees (gross salary max. €556; contribution is completely covered by the employer) | 15.0% |
Unemployment insurance contributions
| Contribution rate | 2.6% |
| Contribution assessment ceiling | €8,050 monthly €96,600 annually |
Pension insurance contributions
| Contribution rate | 18.6% |
| Contribution assessment ceiling for old federal states | €8,050 monthly €96,600 annually |
| Flat contribution rate for low-income employees (gross salary max. €556; contribution is completely covered by the employer) | 15% |
How to calculate your health insurance contributions
Want to know how much your health insurance contributions will be? Your SBK consultant will be happy to help.
If you earn between €556.01 and €2,000 per month gross (‘midi-jobs’), your employee share of your social security contribution will work out to be lower than the employer share. For this reason, a special formula is used to calculate the contribution. Please contact your
Changing employers
When you change employers, nothing changes with regard to your health insurance cover. Your new employer just needs a certificate of your membership with us. Simply contact your
Multiple employers
Do you have more than one employer? In this case your total income from all of your individual jobs is generally calculated together. Moreover, your total income will also be used to determine your contribution deductions up to the maximum contribution assessment ceiling. Each employer recalculates the contributions for you and directs them to us. For this reason it is important for you to inform your employer of all of your jobs.
You are a very low earner if you have a 'mini-job' with a salary of no more than €538 or if you are only temporarily employed. This rule does not apply to trainees and apprentices, however.
Mini-jobs
Mini-jobs do not incur contributions to health, nursing care and unemployment insurance, but do incur contributions to pension insurance. You can, however, request exemption from pension insurance. To do so, submit an application to your employer.
Temporary employment
As a temporary employee, you do not have to pay any contributions in principle if you work as a very low earner for no more than a total of three months within one calendar year. A prerequisite for exemption from contributions is that your employment must be contractually time-limited from the outset. In this case your salary does not matter.
If you have several temporary jobs within a calendar year, these are calculated together. If through several temporary jobs you end up working for more than three months in a calendar year, the same contribution rules apply to you as to regular employees.
Throughout your parental leave you remain an insured member with us. If you are a compulsory insurant with us, you do not pay any health insurance contributions during your parental leave. This is also the case for voluntary members whose spouses are legally required to have insurance.
If you are a voluntary insurant and are not entitled to family insurance – if you are not married, for example, or your spouse has private insurance – you do pay contributions during your parental leave. In most cases this is equal to the minimum contribution of approx. €270.
Questions? We’ll be only too happy to advise you on your insurance cover during your parental leave and the health insurance contributions incurred. Please contact your
If you are temporarily in charge of arranging care for a close relative in need of nursing, you are entitled to ten working days of care leave. Alternatively you can also take six months of leave to take care of a close relative yourself. Regardless of what you decide to do, we will make sure that you are well insured during this time.
As an employee you can include yourself in your spouse's or partner's health and nursing care insurance from the day you take leave of your job – and you can do that without paying health insurance contributions yourself. To do so, your spouse or partner should themselves be a member of a statutory health insurer.
If they are not a member, you will continue to be covered as a voluntary insurant with your previous statutory health and nursing care insurer. You will then usually pay the minimum contribution of approx. €270.
Upon request we will pay subsidies equal to the minimum contribution for health and nursing care insurance. We will also cover the contributions for unemployment insurance. We will cover pension insurance contributions if you as the caregiver spend at least 14 hours per week taking care of your relative in need, but only if you are not providing care in your capacity as an employed professional.
Do you have compulsory statutory insurance with us? Then nothing changes in the first month of your unpaid leave. If the period of unpaid leave lasts longer than a month, however, you can include yourself in your spouse’s family insurance without paying contributions or you can take out voluntary insurance with us.
Your contribution for voluntary insurance depends on your income and is a minimum of approx. €270.
During partial retirement, you only work half of your previous working hours and receive just half of your previous salary. During this time you and your employer pay the normal social security contributions. If your employer pays a top-up amount, no contributions will be incurred by this, unless this top-up causes your income to become higher than your previous net salary.
If you retire immediately after leaving your job, the contributions are lower. Since you are not entitled to sickness benefits, the reduced contribution rate of 17.8% applies in this case.
