Tax and finance blog

Planning with a view to 2026

You can now calculate the 2026 tax year in our tax calculator. The calculation uses the currently legally valid 2026 tax logic.

This update helps you simulate how current tax and contribution changes may affect your personal net income.

Legally valid tax logic for 2026

The 2026 adjustments are mainly designed to compensate for “cold progression”. This effect occurs when tax burdens rise even though real purchasing power stagnates or falls.

The core measures are:

• Higher basic tax-free allowance: from €12,096 to €12,348 (approx. +2%)
• Shifted tax brackets: marginal rates apply at higher income levels

These changes are intended to prevent inflation-only wage increases from creating a disproportionate tax burden.

Example: Relief for single taxpayers

The effects are often especially visible for single households. With a higher allowance and shifted brackets, a larger share of income remains untaxed or taxed at lower rates.

At the same time, higher incomes are affected by increased social contribution ceilings from 2026:

• Health and long-term care ceiling: €66,150 → €69,750 (approx. +5.4%)
• Pension and unemployment ceiling: €96,600 → €101,400 (approx. +4.9%)

Our updated 2026 calculator shows how these effects can look in individual cases for singles, married households and single parents.

Conclusion

If you want forward-looking tax and financial planning, you can already model scenarios with currently valid 2026 rules.

Try it now: https://www.obolusfinanz.de/en/taxapp