Minijob From Home & Taxes: the €603 Threshold in 2026

A minijob is a marginal employment where your regular earnings do not exceed a set limit. For 2026 this marginal-earnings threshold is €603 per month (source: Minijob-Zentrale). Whether you work from home, in the office or a mix of both makes no difference to this limit – what counts is your pay, not your workplace.

The key point: for several years the threshold has been dynamically tied to the statutory minimum wage. It corresponds mathematically to roughly ten weekly hours at the minimum wage. When the minimum wage rises, the minijob limit usually rises with it. That is why the exact figure can change from year to year; for 2026 the relevant value is €603 per month.

The calculation is usually based on the yearly average: €603 per month equals €7,236 per year. If your earnings vary, you may exceed the limit in individual months as long as the average fits. There is also a narrow allowance for occasional, unforeseeable overruns. The precise rules are set by the Minijob-Zentrale, and it is worth checking there before you plan to work more.

In a minijob the contributions are carried mostly by the employer, not by you. The employer pays flat-rate amounts to the Minijob-Zentrale, including flat contributions to health and pension insurance and a flat-rate wage tax. For you as an employee this means that of your up to €603, noticeably more usually reaches you net than in a job subject to full social security, because your own share stays small.

If you exceed the threshold permanently and predictably, the minijob stops being a tax-free marginal role and becomes regular employment. Between the minijob limit and currently €2,000 monthly earnings lies the so-called transition zone, colloquially a midijob. There your own social-security contributions rise gradually rather than jumping to the full amount at once, which is meant to cushion the step over the threshold.

Important as a concept: in a midijob you are fully covered by social security and pay in proportionally, but in return you build full entitlements. The exact contribution rates and the transition-zone formula change with legislation. If you deliberately want to go above €603, clarify beforehand with your employer and the Minijob-Zentrale what it means for your net pay – here it pays to calculate rather than guess.

In the vast majority of cases minijob pay is tax-free for you as an employee. That is because the employer usually takes on the flat-rate wage tax of 2 percent and pays it directly to the Minijob-Zentrale. This settles the taxation of the minijob, and you normally do not have to declare the earnings in your own income-tax return at all.

There is a rarer alternative: individual taxation based on your wage-tax characteristics. Then no flat-rate tax applies, but the minijob earnings count toward your personal taxable income. Whether that is cheaper depends on your tax bracket and your other income. In practice employers mostly choose flat-rate taxation because it is simplest for both sides.

Treat this as orientation, not tax advice: which variant applies to you is stated in your employment contract or on your payslip. If you combine several jobs or are unsure whether the earnings count somewhere, ask your employer or check directly with the Minijob-Zentrale and the Federal Ministry of Finance.

A minijob is in principle subject to pension insurance. Your own share is small, because the employer pays the flat-rate pension contribution and you only top up the difference to the full rate. The upside: you accumulate full contribution periods and entitlements. You can, however, apply to be exempted from the pension-insurance obligation, in which case your own share drops away. Whether that is worthwhile depends on your circumstances; the German pension insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung) provides neutral information on this.

If you hold several minijobs at once, the earnings are added together. Once the total exceeds the €603 threshold, the jobs together no longer count as a minijob and become subject to social security. A single minijob up to the limit, by contrast, stays privileged. So do not plan two or three minijobs side by side without keeping an eye on the total.

A special case is a minijob alongside a main job subject to insurance. Here the first minijob usually stays privileged and is not added to the main job. A second minijob, however, is added to the main job and thereby becomes subject to social security. These are basic rules for orientation; the precise classification of your case is best made by the Minijob-Zentrale.

The home-office allowance is a tax relief: it amounts to €6 per day worked from home and is capped at €1,260 per year (source: Federal Ministry of Finance). It works as income-related expenses in your income-tax return – and this is exactly where it usually does not apply to a typical minijob.

The reason is the mechanism from the sections above: if your employer taxes the minijob at the flat rate, your earnings are tax-free for you and do not appear in your tax return. Income-related expenses such as the home-office allowance can only be set against taxable income. If there is no taxable income from the minijob, the allowance for that minijob comes to nothing.

The home-office allowance becomes relevant more when you also have taxable income – for example a main job that you partly do from home. Then you count your home-office days overall and set the allowance against that taxable income. That is the usual income-related-expenses context, and you can roughly estimate the outcome with our home-office allowance calculator.

Treat this section conservatively and as orientation: tax details depend on the individual case. If you combine a minijob, a main job and home office and are looking for the optimum, a quick check with a tax adviser or an income-tax help association is often the safest shortcut.