German Tax ID & Taxes

Your German Tax Identification Number /Tax ID (in German: Steueridentifikationsnummer) is a unique 11-digit number provided to you by the German Federal Tax Office (in German: Bundeszentralamt für Steuern). This German Tax ID is only issued once per lifetime and remains the same for your entire life in Germany. It is needed by Eurowings Digital for payroll accounting purposes (--> to transfer your wage taxes to the tax office in time and correctly).

The German Federal Tax Office will send your German Tax ID automatically to your registered address a few weeks after you’ve registered at the city registration office. In case your German Tax ID is needed urgently by the payroll provider, you can also get in touch with the German Federal Tax Office.

Please provide a copy of the letter containing your German Tax ID by email to the HR Team of Eurowings Digital as soon as you received it!

As in other countries, you need to pay taxes in Germany. Therefore, it is also needed (and recommended) to do a tax declaration at the end of each year. Your tax declaration will be processed by your local tax office in Germany. If you want to know which tax office is in charge of you (there can be different tax offices per city), please take a look at this link.

Besides the German Tax ID, there is also a so-called tax number (in German: Steuernummer) generated by the local tax office. This tax number is needed for your annual tax declaration and is solely required for the settlement of your tax matters. Tax numbers have the format xx/xxx/xxxxx. Please note that this tax number can change over the years (especially when you are moving places within Germany and another tax office becomes responsible for you).

Additionally, we would like to give you some first insights into the German wage tax system. There are different wage tax classes (in German: Lohnsteuerklassen) in Germany. In a nutshell, your wage tax class is defined by your marital status/family status. Depending on this, you will be assigned to the corresponding wage tax class by the tax office. Through this assignment as well as your German Tax ID, the payroll accounting team of Eurowings Digital can apply the correct tax rate for your monthly payslip.

Your monthly gross salary, your German wage tax class, and religion impact how much wage tax (“Lohnsteuerabzug”), solidarity contribution (“Solidaritätszuschlag”), and church tax (“Kirchensteuer”) you will have to pay. Below you can find a short overview of the different German Tax Classes:

Please note: In case you are married, both partner will be automatically assigned to tax class 4. If you want to have a different tax class combination (3 and 5 or 5 an 3), you need to request it with the tax office pro-actively.

Church Taxes

Everyone who is baptized catholic, protestant, or jew needs to pay church taxes in Germany (app. 9% of the income tax). That is why the clerks at the city registration office are going to ask you whether you are baptized when registering with the city. Please tell the truth because the tax office might request your data later on. If you have not paid church taxes (despite you are baptized), you will be charged the whole amount at one time to pay it back.

There is only one way to get "rid" of church taxes: You can officially step out of the church at the district court (in German: Amtsgericht) in the city of your place of residence. It costs app. 30 Euro (one-time payment) to step out of the church.

For getting a first (rough) idea about your app. net salary in Germany, please feel free to take a look into this gross/net salary calculator.