Pfändungsrechner 2026: what is left of your pay in Germany

It starts with an enforceable title: a judgment, an enforcement order or an enforceable settlement. With it, the creditor applies to the local court for a garnishment and transfer order (Pfändungs- und Überweisungsbeschluss). You are not heard beforehand. The order is served on your employer, called the third-party debtor, and from that day the garnishment is in effect under section 829(3) ZPO. A copy is served on you as well.

Within 2 weeks your employer must state whether it accepts the claim and whether other garnishments already exist (section 840 ZPO). From the next payday it deducts the attachable amount and pays it to the creditor until the debt, interest and costs are settled. The wage garnishment page estimates how long that takes; the employer’s duties are set out under employer duties.

The calculation uses net pay as defined in section 850e ZPO: gross pay minus income tax, solidarity surcharge, church tax and social insurance. Some payments come out first because section 850a ZPO protects them: half of any overtime pay, a customary holiday bonus, expense allowances and dirt or danger allowances within customary limits, and a Christmas bonus up to €795. If you have private health insurance, the customary premium is deducted like a social contribution.

The result is the net figure you look up in the table. With two jobs, each employer first works out its own share; the creditor can ask the court to combine both incomes, and then more becomes attachable. The difference is shown under multiple incomes.

The limits follow the basic income tax allowance. Under section 850c(4) ZPO they rise on 1 July by the percentage by which the basic allowance in section 32a EStG rose on 1 January compared with the year before. In 2026 that was just over two percent: the basic exempt amount went from €1,555.00 to €1,587.40 a month, the ceiling from €4,766.99 to €4,866.30.

The next table applies from 1 July 2027. It has not been published, and its level depends on the basic allowance that section 32a EStG sets for 2027. Until then the 2026 table stays unchanged. Under garnishment table 2027 you can test what a given rise would change, using your own assumption.

Everyone may have one current account run as a garnishment protection account, even if it is overdrawn; the bank must do so on request (section 850k ZPO). A P-account keeps €1,590 a month safe from garnishment, whether the money comes from wages, a pension or benefits. Whatever you do not use in one month stays protected for up to three following months.

More protection requires proof. For dependants, child benefit and certain benefits, the family benefits office, your employer or a recognised body issues a certificate, and the bank raises the allowance from the second business day after you hand it in. Work out the amount under P-account allowance 2026 and the dates under opening a P-account.

Some income is fully protected: basic income support under SGB II (section 42(4) SGB II), housing benefit, payments covering extra costs of a disability and the allowance for the blind. Parental allowance is protected up to €300 a month. Child benefit can only be reached by a child claiming maintenance.

Other income is treated like wages: pensions, unemployment benefit I and sickness benefit fall under the table (section 54(4) SGB I). The exempt income page has a quick check per type of income; pensions have their own pension garnishment calculator.

If a child or a former spouse garnishes for statutory maintenance, the table does not apply. Under section 850d ZPO the court may reach deeper and leaves you only what you need for your own necessary living costs and for maintenance creditors ranking ahead of or equal to the one enforcing. You may never keep more than the table would allow.

The order states the amount left to you; there is no table for it, and a serious site does not invent one. The calculator under maintenance garnishment takes the figure from your order and shows what your employer pays over and where the upper limit lies.

This site gives the figure without asking for your name, phone number or email, and it points you to no service provider. Every number comes from a file holding the values of the official notices and statutes with the date they were checked; no figure appears in the text that does not come from that file or from the calculator. Our last check was on 28 October 2026.

The publisher is Radif Partners, not a court or an advice service. The calculator replaces neither the order that applies to you nor legal advice. The page how we calculate explains the arithmetic and what we deliberately leave out; about us says who we are.