COMPARE: How does your salary stack up against Germany's top earners?

Germany's Finance Ministry has compiled a new wage table that shows the distribution of incomes in Germany.

The data reveals who in Germany is considered super rich, who counts as a high earner and who is a lower earner, according to their income.

It comes amid a dispute over major tax reforms that is causing friction among members of the coalition government. 

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What counts as a high or low income in Germany?

According to the figures obtained by newspaper Bild, employees in Germany with a monthly income of €24,608 or more (before tax) are considered the super wealthy, placing them in the top one percent nationwide.

Employees earning more than €9,291 per month are classified among the country’s top earners.

Those with monthly incomes above €6,530 are considered high earners, a group that makes up the top 20 percent of income tax payers.

A further category of relatively high earners includes people bringing in more than €4,540 a month.

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By contrast, around half of all people in Germany are classed as middle, low or very low earners. Middle-income earners take home up to €3,724 per month, while low and very low earners receive no more than €3,381.

The wage data also shows that around one in five people in Germany (20 percent) earn less than €1,538 per month – a group that includes millions of pensioners.

Debates over tax reform 

The wage table is expected to be on the agenda at the coalition summit taking place on Tuesday evening.

Parties are broadly in agreement on providing relief for lower and middle incomes.

But Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of the centre-right CDU, and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, of the centre-left SPD, still have to thrash out the details and come to a meeting point on how exactly taxation for higher earners might change.

The SPD has previously proposed hiking the top tax rate to 49 percent. Meanwhile, CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann suggests that the top tax rate should apply from €80,000 instead of €68,000.

Green Party finance expert Katharina Beck, meanwhile, has called on Klingbeil to focus efforts on raising the basic tax-free allowance, which currently stands at €12,348 for 2026. 

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"This will benefit all taxpayers," she said. Beck also called for health insurance contributions to be reduced by two percentage points.

"This will provide relief for both low and middle incomes as well as employers," Beck said.