Working as a student in Germany

1. Two separate limits, often confused

There are two different rule sets governing student work, they have different thresholds, and they exist for different reasons. Conflating them is the source of most confusion.

The social insurance rules determine what is deducted from your pay. The immigration rules determine whether you are complying with your residence permit. You can be entirely fine on one and in breach of the other.

2. The Werkstudent privilege

A student working up to 20 hours a week during term is exempt from health, long-term care and unemployment insurance contributions. Only pension contributions are deducted. This is the Werkstudentenprivileg and it makes student work considerably better paid in net terms than the same job done by a non-student.

During the holidays you may work more than 20 hours without losing the privilege, which is why full-time vacation work is common and unproblematic on the insurance side. The immigration limit, however, still applies to non-EU students in the holidays.

The privilege depends on your studies being your main activity. Someone working 35 hours a week and studying around it can lose it, with full contributions becoming payable.

3. The kinds of student work, and which is worth taking

Not all student jobs are equally useful, and the university-internal ones are consistently undervalued by international students.

• HiWi posts at your own university: flexible, relevant to your subject, and a route into a research group
• Werkstudent positions in industry, often 15 to 20 hours a week and frequently leading to a graduate offer
• Minijobs, capped in monthly earnings, simple and with almost no deductions
• Mandatory internships forming part of the degree, usually treated separately for both insurance and immigration
• Voluntary internships, which count as ordinary work for both rule sets
• Hospitality and retail, easy to find and generally the least useful for your CV

4. Internships

The distinction between a mandatory and a voluntary internship runs through everything: pay, insurance and immigration.

A mandatory internship required by your study regulations is generally exempt from the minimum wage, treated favourably for social insurance, and for non-EU students usually does not count against the work allowance. A voluntary internship is ordinary employment: the minimum wage generally applies beyond a short duration, and it counts against your allowance.

Get written confirmation from your university that an internship is mandatory before it starts. Employers ask for it, and it is what determines your treatment.

• Mandatory internship: minimum wage generally does not apply; favourable insurance treatment
• Voluntary internship: minimum wage generally applies beyond a short duration; counts as ordinary work
• Both should be covered by a written internship agreement
• Non-EU students: confirm with the foreigners’ authority how the internship counts
• Unpaid mandatory internships are lawful; unpaid voluntary ones often are not

5. Tax, and the refund most students never claim

Income below the basic tax-free allowance is not taxed. Many students nonetheless have wage tax deducted month by month, because the deduction is calculated as though the monthly figure continued all year.

The result is that a large number of students are owed a refund and never file for it. A return is straightforward at student income levels, can be filed online for free, and can be submitted for several previous years.

Students in a first degree can also often carry forward their study costs as a loss, which reduces tax in the first years of employment afterwards. This is genuinely worth money and is widely unknown.