German Tax Class Calculator 2026: IV/IV or III/V for Married Couples

Germany has six wage tax classes (Steuerklassen). Class I covers single, permanently separated and divorced employees, class II single parents, who also receive the relief amount of EUR 4,260 a year. Classes III, IV and V are reserved for married couples and registered civil partners, and class VI applies to every second and further job, with no allowances at all. When you marry, the tax office puts both of you into IV/IV automatically, with no application needed.

From there a married couple has three options: IV/IV, III/V, or IV/IV with a factor. Under IV/IV each partner is taxed roughly like a single person, but without the harshness of class V. Under III/V, class III applies the doubled basic allowance and the splitting factor of 2, while class V uses an official special tariff with no basic allowance of its own. That is exactly why III/V shifts net pay from the lower earner to the higher earner.

Here is the point most couples only grasp when the first tax assessment arrives: the tax class does not change your annual tax. Spouses who file jointly are treated as a single taxpayer under section 26b EStG, the tax follows the splitting tariff, and it comes out identical under IV/IV and III/V. The class decides only how much of it your employer holds back each month. Whatever was withheld in excess comes back as a refund, whatever was withheld short is collected afterwards.

That produces the familiar pattern: III/V gives a single-earner couple, or one with a clearly dominant salary, noticeably more net per month, but it produces back payments far more often, because too little was withheld across the year. This is why a tax return is mandatory with III/V and with the factor method (section 46 (2) no. 3a EStG). With roughly equal salaries the effect even reverses: the class V tariff then bites harder than class III relieves, and IV/IV withholds less overall.

The middle path is the factor method (Faktorverfahren) under section 39f EStG. Both partners stay in class IV, the tax office derives a factor below 1 from your expected annual salaries, and your employers apply it to the wage tax. The monthly withholding then lands very close to the actual annual tax and splits it fairly between the two salaries, without the class V back-payment trap. The factor is valid for up to two calendar years. This calculator describes the factor method but does not compute it, because it depends on the tax office forecast figures for your specific case.

One reason to choose a class deliberately even though the annual tax is fixed: wage replacement benefits such as parental allowance (Elterngeld), sick pay, unemployment benefit I and short-time work allowance are calculated from net pay, and therefore indirectly from your tax class. If you expect any of those, review the combination early. What usually counts is the class that applied for most of the months before the benefit starts, not one you switch to shortly beforehand.

You change the class online through ELSTER, using the application for a change of tax class for spouses. Since 2020 you may change as often as you like, and an application received by 30 November still takes effect for the current year. On the political debate: moving III/V into the factor method was in the draft of the Steuerfortentwicklungsgesetz but was dropped before the law passed in December 2024. It is still discussed, but nothing is decided. As of August 2026 classes III and V remain in force with no binding end date.