Salary Calculator: Gross-Net & Average Salary
Calculate your net salary by tax class and compare it with the average salary in your profession and federal state.
Gross-to-Net Calculator
Calculation by tax class, federal state and social security. Basis: as of 2026.
How the Salary Calculator works
The gross-net calculator takes into account your tax class, church tax liability (Kirchensteuer), and current social insurance contributions to calculate the approximate net salary from a gross salary. This is especially helpful when comparing a job offer: a higher gross salary does not automatically mean a higher net salary if, for example, the tax class or marital status differs. Especially when switching from an offer with a certain tax class to another, a direct comparison is worthwhile before you decide on an offer. A simple example to illustrate this: with two offers that have the same gross salary but a different tax class, the actual net salary you receive can differ noticeably, purely because of the different tax treatment. Such differences are easy to overlook if you only compare the gross figure listed in the job ad, without a calculator.
You enter your gross salary monthly or yearly, select your tax class, your federal state, and the number of child tax allowances, and specify whether you are liable for church tax. The calculator then shows a full breakdown: income tax, solidarity surcharge, church tax where applicable, plus contributions to pension, unemployment, health and long-term care insurance, each deducted from the gross salary, until you arrive at the monthly and yearly net salary. Currently the calculator covers statutory health insurance only; private health insurance is not yet included because of its individual tariff structure.
In the second tab, the salary comparison, you also see how typical salaries differ by career field and federal state, based on publicly available benchmark data from Gehalt.de and the Entgeltatlas of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit. This is particularly useful for developing a realistic salary expectation before a job interview: the calculator even formulates a concrete example sentence you can use in the interview, instead of answering the salary expectation question unprepared. It shows an entry-level figure, an average figure, and a figure for experienced professionals, so you can gauge roughly where you stand with your own experience. In addition to the annual gross figure, the comparison also converts the range into an approximate monthly gross amount, so you can match the numbers directly against a monthly salary offer without converting it yourself.
All values are reference figures without legal entitlement; individual variations depending on employer, experience, company size, and negotiation skill remain possible. In particular, the calculation for tax classes III, V and VI is based on a simplified approximation formula rather than the official calculation program of the Federal Ministry of Finance, so for binding figures check your actual payslip or consult a tax advisor. The calculator therefore does not replace a personal salary discussion, but provides a solid starting point that lets you realistically assess your own salary expectation and represent it more confidently in the interview.
Public sector, civil servants and other special cases
The calculator above covers regular private-sector employment. Some professional groups, however, are governed by their own legally or collectively defined pay systems that cannot be mapped with a simple tax-class calculation, because they are based on pay grades, experience levels, and in some cases their own social-insurance rules:
- TVöD (collective agreement for the public sector): applies to employees of the federal government, municipalities and many municipal providers (e.g. care institutions under TVöD-P, social and educational services under TVöD-SuE). Classification follows pay grade and experience level; official tables are published by öffentlicher-dienst.info or the respective employer.
- TV-L (collective agreement of the federal states): applies to state employees, e.g. at universities or state authorities, with its own table structure per federal state.
- Civil servant pay (Beamtenbesoldung): does not follow the TVöD but the pay scales (Besoldungsordnungen A, B, W, R), which each federal state has regulated independently since the federalism reform, amounts therefore differ noticeably between, for example, Bavaria, NRW and Lower Saxony. Only the official pay scale of the respective federal state provides binding figures.
- AVR (church-affiliated providers, e.g. Diakonie, Caritas): is structurally similar to the TVöD but is set independently by the respective church-affiliated provider.
- Special cases such as working students, apprentices, company cars (non-cash benefit): are each subject to their own social-insurance or tax rules (e.g. the working-student privilege) that the current calculator does not model.
For these cases we recommend checking the official pay table of your employer or federal state directly, or asking your HR department for your exact classification, stating generic figures here without knowing your precise pay grade and experience level would not be a serious answer.
Frequently asked questions about the Salary Calculator
Does the salary calculator take TVöD, TV-L, or civil-servant pay into account?
No. The calculator covers the regular, collectively-unbound private sector. TVöD, TV-L, civil-servant pay, and church AVR pay scales have their own legally or collectively defined compensation systems with pay grades and experience levels that cannot be mapped with a simple tax-class calculation. For those, check the official pay table of your employer or federal state.
How is net salary calculated from gross salary?
The calculator deducts income tax, the solidarity surcharge, church tax where applicable, and contributions to pension, unemployment, health, and long-term care insurance from the gross salary, based on your tax class, your federal state, and the number of child allowances. It currently covers only statutory health insurance.
Where do the comparison figures in the salary comparison come from?
The reference figures in the second tab are based on publicly available data from Gehalt.de and the Bundesagentur für Arbeit's Entgeltatlas. These are reference values with no legal claim; individual variation depending on employer, experience, and negotiation skill remains possible.
Does the calculator also compute pension, company cars, or VAT?
No. This calculator only covers the regular gross-to-net conversion for employee salaries (income tax, social insurance, church tax). For pension calculations in retirement, the taxation of a company car as a non-cash benefit, or general VAT conversions, you need a specialized calculator; these scenarios differ significantly, legally, from a normal salary statement.