Tax in Germany
See what Germany's tax rules do to your property portfolio.
What Freeholt models for property, income and retirement in Germany, and what it does not.
Free to start. No card. Rules reviewed 1 July 2026.
Modelled here
- Tax on rental income
- Capital gains on a sale
- Duty on purchase (approximate)
- Income tax beyond the rent
- Dividends, interest and share sales
- Retirement savings
- Inheritance and what happens on death
EUR · Rates as at 1 July 2026 · Rates editable in Settings · Estimates, not advice
Net rent (mortgage interest fully deductible) is taxed at progressive rates (14 to 45%) for residents and non residents alike. Non residents lose the basic tax free allowance. Sale gains are tax free after a 10 year holding period.
How rental income is taxed in Germany
For a resident owner: Progressive rates from 14% to 45%, stacked on other income in this country. The top rate of 45% applies above €277,825. For an owner living abroad and renting this out: Progressive rates from 14% to 45%, stacked on other income in this country. The top rate of 45% applies above €265,477.
Interest and losses
Mortgage interest is deductible against the rent. A rental loss is ring fenced: it carries forward against future rental income rather than reducing other income now.
Capital gains on a sale
Gains are added to income and taxed at the marginal income rate. The gain is fully exempt once the property has been held 10 years.
Annual property tax while holding
An annual property or land tax is not modelled here, which is not the same as there being none. Treat holding costs on this page as excluding it.
What it costs to buy
Purchase duty here is more than a single rate, and Freeholt prices the published rules rather than an average. Grunderwerbsteuer transfer tax is state set at 3.5 to 6.5%, plus ~2% notary and registration and any agent fee.
Income tax in Germany, beyond the rent
Progressive, up to 45%. The bands run Up to 12,348 at 0%; 12,348 to 17,799 at 14%; 17,799 to 69,878 at 24%; 69,878 to 277,825 at 42%; Above 277,825 at 45%. Rental profit joins this ladder. The figures here are shown for a single filer; filing jointly can change the bands or the allowance. Figures in EUR, as verified 29 August 2026.
Dividends, interest and share sales
How Germany taxes investment income. For dividends: Flat 26.375%. For interest: Flat 26.375%. For share sale gains: Flat 26.375%. First 1,000 of investment income is tax free each year. That is one allowance shared across dividends, interest and share sale gains, not 1,000 each. A couple filing jointly gets 2,000.
Pensions and retirement savings
EET. Deductible in, taxed out. Contributions come off taxable income. No annual cap is modelled. Growth inside the fund is untaxed. Withdrawals can start from age 67. The rest is taxed as income.
Inheritance and what happens on death in Germany
Charged on each beneficiary's share, at a rate that depends on how they were related, at up to 50%. The charge falls on each person who inherits rather than on the estate as a whole, so who inherits, and how closely they were related, changes the bill. The 50% is a worst case rather than a rate anyone is promised. It is the top of the least generous class of beneficiary, usually somebody unrelated, and a child inheriting from a parent normally faces a good deal less. A surviving spouse is not exempt outright: they get an allowance of 500,000, and anything above it is charged. These rules were verified 5 August 2026. Freeholt models the country's rules rather than any particular will, so what an estate pays still depends on who inherits and what is in it.
Worth knowing about tax in Germany
The 26.375% already contains Germany's 5.5% solidarity surcharge (25% × 1.055), so nothing is added on top here. Even though the income tax figure alongside it leaves the surcharge out.
How Freeholt models Germany
Every rate above is priced from Freeholt's own table for Germany and runs through the whole projection: rental income, a modelled sale and the annual holding costs all use the same figures. They are also defaults that can be edited in Settings, so a position that differs, or a rate that changes before we catch it, can be corrected and the projection reprices around it.
What running this property costs
In Germany this covers non recoverable Nebenkosten (Hausgeld for apartments), Grundsteuer property tax, insurance, maintenance and management. Many running costs are passed to tenants.
How borrowing works here
Long amortising loans with 10 to 15 year fixed rates are standard; expect ~1 to 2% initial amortisation plus the fixed rate.
What actually happened here
This country's own record, one year at a time. Nothing on this page is borrowed from another country. Move across a chart to read a year.
Recent rule changes in Germany
- Abolition of the 10 year speculation period exemption was proposed (Jun 2025) and rejected in committee. Current law modelled.(proposed only, never priced into your figures)
What Freeholt models here
- ModelledTax on rental income
- Resident and non resident rates, with interest and losses treated under the local rule.
- ModelledCapital gains on a sale
- Priced in the year of the sale under the rules of that year.
- ApproximateDuty on purchase
- The published scale is priced from the rules in force, which differ by band and are summarised here.
- Not yetAnnual property or land tax
- Not priced here; the page says where the charge falls instead.
- ModelledIncome tax beyond the rent
- Salary and other income, stacked with the rent.
- ModelledDividends, interest and share sales
- Investment income and gains, with the local allowances.
- ModelledRetirement savings
- Contributions, the fund and the way out.
- ModelledInheritance and what happens on death
- Who pays, and on what, when property passes on.
What Freeholt does not model here
- Any annual property or land tax, which may still exist here
- Treaty relief between this country and the owner's country of residence
What the figures above leave out (8)
- Germany's tariff is a formula whose rate climbs continuously, and it is approximated here as five flat bands. The error is small and changes direction across the scale rather than running one way.
- Germany's solidarity surcharge (5.5% of the tax) is not included. The real bill is a little higher.
- Married couple splitting is not modelled, so a couple's figure is overstated.
- German income tax for a non resident is not modelled. No non resident schedule was sourced, and the resident tariff is not borrowed because a non resident does not get the Grundfreibetrag, Germany's tax free basic allowance; no figure is shown rather than a wrong one.
- Germany taxes a pension in payment on a share that rises with the year of retirement, reaching 100% only for those retiring from 2058. The whole pension is taxed here, so for anyone retiring before then the tax is overstated, by less each year and not at all from 2058.
- Only Germany's statutory and Rürup path is modelled. A Riester holder's contribution relief is overstated here; the withdrawal side happens to agree.
- The access age used is 67, the Regelaltersgrenze (Germany's standard state pension age) as it will stand from 2031. It is still rising towards that, so anyone whose own pension age is lower before 2031 has a withdrawal refused here rather than priced: a refusal, not a wrong number.
- Germany does cap the pension contributions that may be deducted (the Höchstbetrag), but no figure for it was sourced, so no ceiling is enforced here. A contribution above the real ceiling is shown as fully relieved and is never warned about, so the relief on a large contribution is overstated.
Coverage deepens country by country. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
Compare with another country
Each page is built from the same table the app runs on, so the figures line up side by side.
Compare Germany with another country — rent, gains, annual tax and duty, side by side.
Questions people ask
- Does Freeholt model Germany property tax?
- Yes. Rental income tax, capital gains on a sale and duty on purchase are priced from Freeholt's own rate table for Germany. Duty on purchase carries a simplification that the page names beside the figure. Annual property or land tax is not priced here, and the page says so rather than showing a zero. Any rate or threshold can be corrected in Settings so the whole projection reprices. Every figure is an estimate, not advice.
- How is rental income from Germany taxed if I live somewhere else?
- Progressive rates from 14% to 45%, stacked on other income in this country. The top rate of 45% applies above €265,477. Tax may also be due in the country of residence, with credit for what was paid here. Estimates only, not advice.
- What are the Germany figures as at?
- The rate table for Germany was last reviewed on 1 July 2026. Freeholt date stamps every country rather than implying all of them were checked on the same day. Estimates only, not advice.
Model a property in Germany alongside everything else you own: see the year your portfolio starts paying you back.