P-Konto 2026: how a protection account shields your balance
Enter the people you support, your children and any benefits: the tool shows what your Pfändungsschutzkonto keeps away from a creditor each month and which part the bank applies without proof.
Protected on the P-account per month
€1,590
The bank protects this base amount automatically.
| Base amount (s. 899(1)) | €1,590 |
| Dependants (s. 902 no. 1) | €0 |
| Child benefit (s. 902 no. 5) | €0 |
| Other benefits | €0 |
Child benefit €259 per child (section 66 EStG). Exemption-limit notice 2026, Federal Law Gazette 2026 I No. 80, valid 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027.
Prepared by Radif Partners · How we calculate · 2026 table (Federal Law Gazette 2026 I No. 80) and ZPO checked on 28 October 2026
A P-Konto (Pfändungsschutzkonto, garnishment protection account) is your ordinary German current account, run with protection against garnishment once you ask your bank for it (section 850k of the Code of Civil Procedure, ZPO). Every individual has that right at any time, even if the account is overdrawn; afterwards it is kept in credit only. When a creditor garnishes the balance, you may use €1,590 until the end of each calendar month since 1 July 2026, compared with €1,560 before. That figure is the monthly basic exemption of €1,587.40 rounded up to the next full ten euros (section 899(1) ZPO), and the bank applies it with no paperwork. People who support family members, receive Kindergeld (child benefit) or get certain social benefits are entitled to more (section 902 ZPO). For example, with one child you maintain and receive child benefit for, €2,446.42 a month is protected. Each person may hold only one P-account. If the account is in the red when you convert it, the bank may not use protected credits to pay off the overdraft (section 901 ZPO).
What a P-account protects and what it does not
A P-account is not a separate product but a mode in which your existing payment account is run. As long as nobody garnishes it, you will notice little day to day. Protection only matters when a creditor reaches for the balance with a garnishment and transfer order (Pfändungs- und Überweisungsbeschluss). Then a fixed amount stays outside the garnishment until the end of the calendar month, and you can use it as usual.
There is no separate table for the amount. Section 899(1) ZPO takes the monthly basic exemption used for wage garnishment and rounds it up to the next full ten euros. €1,587.40 thus becomes €1,590; from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 it was €1,560. Where the money comes from does not matter: wages, a pension, unemployment benefit or a gift from your parents are all equally protected once in the account. The wage table, by contrast, applies at your employer before the money is paid out; the garnishment table 2026 has the details.
Unspent money does not lapse at once. Whatever part of the protected amount you do not use in one month remains protected on top in the three following calendar months. The page on carrying over the allowance shows how that works.
| Component | Amount per month | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Base amount | €1,590 | s. 899(1) |
| First dependant | €597.42 | s. 902 sentence 1 no. 1 |
| Second to fifth dependant, each | €332.83 | s. 902 sentence 1 no. 1 |
| Child benefit per child | €259 | s. 902 sentence 1 no. 5 |
Above the base: the top-up amounts
The base amount suits a single person with no family. For every other situation section 902 ZPO lists six groups of top-ups (Erhöhungsbeträge). The most important is maintenance: for the first person you support under a legal duty, €597.42 is added, and a smaller sum for each further person up to the fifth. Kindergeld and other statutory payments for children are also free, unless the child itself is garnishing for its own maintenance. Then come one-off social benefits, payments for extra costs caused by a disability, money from the “Mutter und Kind” foundation, and benefits under Social Code II or XII or the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act to the extent they exceed the base amount.
The bank does not know about these amounts by itself. It may pay them out to the creditor until you hand in a certificate (Bescheinigung). Who issues it and when it takes effect is covered under the P-account certificate; ready totals for every household size are on P-account allowance 2026.
P-account allowance from 1 July 2026
P-account allowance from 1 July 2026
€2,446.42
| Base 2026 / 2025 | €1,590 / €1,560 |
| Top-up for dependants | €597.42 |
| Child benefit | €259 |
The rules for you and for the bank
Every natural person has the right to a P-account; companies and associations do not. You can ask for it at any time, even when the account is overdrawn (section 850k ZPO). Two conditions come with it: the account is kept in credit only, and you assure the bank that you hold no other protection account. Anyone who breaks that assurance risks a creditor obtaining a court order that leaves only the account of its choice protected.
An overdraft must not eat up the protection. From the moment you ask for the conversion, the bank may not set its own claims off against credits that would be protected on a P-account. If a garnishment is already in place, this ban starts on the day the bank learns of it, but only if you then convert in time. How those deadlines run is explained under opening a P-account.
A joint account, for instance with your spouse, cannot itself become a P-account. Section 850l ZPO helps with a one-month freeze after the transfer order is served: during that month you can have your per-head share of the balance moved to an account at the same bank in your sole name and have that account run as a P-account. You need neither the co-holders nor the creditor to agree. What else happens after a garnishment is described under account garnishment.