Germany Freiberufler vs Angestellter Calculator

An Angestellter (employee) is on payroll: their employer withholds income tax and splits statutory social insurance (health, pension, unemployment, long-term care) roughly 50/50. A Freiberufler (freelancer in a liberal profession, covering many IT contractors, consultants, designers, and similar roles without a Gewerbe/trade registration) invoices clients directly, pays their own income tax via quarterly prepayments and an annual return, and, unlike an employee, is generally NOT required to pay into the statutory pension or unemployment insurance schemes at all.

No, and often the opposite. At this calculator's default settings (100.000 € revenue, a 20% cost allowance, standard voluntary GKV), a Freiberufler nets about 663 € a month less than an Angestellter earning the same figure as salary, mainly because a freelancer pays the FULL combined health insurance rate alone (17.5%, versus an employee's employer-subsidised share) and loses a further chunk of revenue to modeled business costs before tax even applies. A Freiberufler can come out ahead when real business costs are lower than the 20% default, or when income sits high enough that the missing 10.6% combined pension and unemployment contribution outweighs the extra health insurance cost, but neither outcome is automatic. A higher net figure, when it does happen, still doesn't mean a better financial outcome once you price in the missing pension contribution.

No. It models voluntary statutory health insurance (freiwillige gesetzliche Krankenversicherung), the common default for German freelancers, using the 2026 self-paid rate, minimum assessment base, and contribution ceiling. Private insurance (PKV) is also available to Freiberufler regardless of income, but its price depends on your age and health at entry rather than your income, so it can't be reduced to a formula. A flat €500/month proxy is offered as a simpler alternative toggle, but real PKV premiums vary widely.

It's the gross annual salary an Angestellter would need to earn to take home the SAME net income as the Freiberufler figure shown, given the same church tax and children settings. At 100.000 € Freiberufler revenue, for example, that works out to about 81.239 €, meaningfully less than the freelancer's own revenue figure. It's a useful reference point if you're negotiating a permanent offer against a freelance rate and want to compare on a like-for-like net basis rather than comparing two very different gross figures directly.

Correct, for most Freiberufler. Unless you fall into a specific exception (certain "artist-like" and teaching professions under the Künstlersozialkasse, or a regulated profession with its own Versorgungswerk, e.g. some doctors, lawyers, and architects), you are not compulsorily insured in the statutory pension scheme. Many freelancers voluntarily contribute to the statutory scheme, a Versorgungswerk, or a private pension instead, but the amount is a personal choice, not a formula. This calculator deliberately does not estimate it, and flags the gap clearly so you don't mistake a freelancer's net figure for a genuinely comparable outcome without pricing that gap in yourself.

This is a simplified MVP estimate, not tax or financial advice. Freiberufler business costs are modeled as a flat percentage of revenue rather than your actual itemized expenses, and the freelancer side does not model pension, unemployment insurance, sick-pay continuation, or PKV pricing. Consult a Steuerberater (tax advisor) for numbers specific to your actual costs, profession, and insurance choices.

In one important way, yes. An Angestellter's net figure already has their mandatory 9.3% Rentenversicherung and 1.3% unemployment insurance contribution deducted, real money set aside for their future that their employer matches. The Freiberufler side has nothing equivalent taken out, not because it's free, but because it simply isn't compulsory. Line the two net figures up without adjusting for that and you're not comparing like with like. The fairer approach is either to price in your own voluntary pension contribution before comparing nets directly, or to use the equivalent employee gross figure above, which tells you what salary an employee would need to match the freelancer's take-home without you having to guess at a pension number at all.