IN NUMBERS: What’s a good salary in Germany?

Ahead of the last federal election, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz famously called himself “upper middle class” despite the fact that he owns two private jets, and was then said to be earning close to €1 million per year.

Many workers in Germany would likely agree that Merz’s income and net worth push him beyond the realm of what can reasonably considered middle class.

But the question of where exactly the boundaries between low-, middle- and high-wage incomes sit can be a useful one. For foreign workers, especially those who are relatively new to Germany and might not yet have a clear sense of what a decent local wage is, these figures offer a guide to how good (or bad) a salary offer may be.

A recent study by the German Economic Institute (IW) provides the latest figures.

The IW evaluation effectively compares salaries to the median wage across Germany within different groups to define; low, lower middle, middle, upper middle and wealthy income levels.

Median wages were taken from European Union figures from 2024, which were published in July of this year. The study found that the median income for a single person in Germany was €2,419 per month before tax.

Earning 60 percent of this or less, makes one comparatively poor according to the IW breakdown, whereas earning 2.5 times more than this makes one rich.

Notably, regional price differences were not considered here — in reality a median salary in Munich would go considerably further in Berlin, or especially in an eastern city like Leipzig or Dresden.

Additionally these figures do not consider other aspects of personal wealth such as home ownership.

Here are the latest figures:

For a single person

A single-person household with a monthly net (netto) income of less than €1,450 is relatively poor, according to IW.

A lower middle class wage would be between €1,450 and €1,940, with a middle class wage extending up to €3,630.

The upper middle class would then include everyone above this, up to €6,050.

Lastly, those who earn more than €6,050 as a single-person household could be considered rich, or high-income earners.

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Single parents with a child under the age of 14

For a single parent with a child under the age of 14, wages up to €1,890 net per month would be at the low end of the spectrum.

The lower middle includes single parents earning €2,520 or less per month, and the middle class would extend up to €4,720.

Those who reach up to €7,860 are in the upper middle, and above that a single parent is relatively rich.

A two-person household without children

A childless couple with a net income of up to €2,180 per month is relatively poor.

Up to €2,900, one is assigned to the lower middle class, and with up to €5,440 per month to the middle class.

Earning up to €9,070 puts one in the upper middle class, and earning more than that makes you rich.

Two-parent household with one child under 14

With children involved, the thresholds are higher.

In this category, earning a net household income of less than €2,610 per month, puts a household with a child under the age of 14 in the low-income range, according to IW.

Earning more than this and up to €3,480 marks the lower middle. And up to €6,530 net income per month is the middle.

Upper middle income then extends to €10,890 per month before tax, with anything above that making a household wealthy.

Two-parent household with two children under 14

With a joint net income of up to €3,050 per month, a family with two children under the age of 14 is relatively poor.

Above that and up to €4,060, marks the lower middle class, and then above that and up to €7,620 marks the middle class.

Above that and up to €12,700 can be considered the upper middle class, while those with more can be considered rich.

Real wages continue to rise

A bit of good news for all workers, regardless of your income level, is that overall wages in Germany have continued to rise — and faster than consumer prices.

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According to the Federal Statistical Office, employees had 1.5 percent more at their disposal in the second quarter of this year than a year earlier.

A ‘real wage’ increase refers to wages rising faster than inflation, meaning that purchasing power, on average, has increased.

In the first quarter of this year, real wages had risen by 1.8 percent. That trend is expected to continue, at least into the next year, according to OECD figures. The same cannot currently be said in many other European countries.

However, the continuing rise of energy prices and inflation could end up overtaking wage increases and reverse that trend in the months or years to come.

With reporting by DPA.