Unemployment Benefit I Calculator

Unemployment benefit I is not welfare but an insurance benefit: you paid contributions for years, now you get something back. How much is set out in Book Three of the German Social Code in a chain of sections hardly anyone reads in one go. The calculator walks through that chain for you and ends with four numbers: money per day, money per month, for how long and from when.

It starts with your gross pay of the last twelve months, Christmas and holiday bonuses included, the severance not. The employment agency turns this into an amount per calendar day, the Bemessungsentgelt (§§ 150, 151 SGB III). Anything above the contribution ceiling does not count: in 2026 that is 8,450 euros a month, for months in 2025 still 8,050 euros. So never more than about 277.81 euros per day enters the calculation.

From this daily amount the agency takes flat deductions, whatever your real payslip said (§ 153 SGB III): a 20 percent social insurance flat rate, wage tax according to the official BMF flow chart for your tax class, and the solidarity surcharge. Church tax and child allowances play no part. What remains is the Leistungsentgelt, a kind of flat-rate net pay. You receive 60 percent of it, 67 percent with at least one child (§ 149 SGB III). A full month always counts 30 days.

How long the money flows depends on two things: how many months you paid contributions in the last five years and how old you are (§ 147 SGB III). Twelve months of contributions bring six months of benefit, 24 months bring twelve. From age 50 up to 15 months are possible, from 55 up to 18 and from 58 up to 24 months. The basic condition is the qualifying period: at least twelve months of insured work in the last 30 months.

The part that costs many people money is the blocking period (§ 159 SGB III). If you quit yourself or sign a termination agreement without good reason, you usually get no money for twelve weeks, and the benefit period shrinks by at least a quarter (§ 148 SGB III). If you register as job seeking too late, you lose another week. The calculator shows the weeks with dates and explains when a good reason may apply, for example a medical certificate or a termination agreement with at most half a monthly salary of severance per year instead of an announced redundancy.

If there is a severance and the job ends earlier than your employer could have given notice, the claim rests for a while (§ 158 SGB III). The calculator works out the notice period under § 622 BGB or from your input, takes the share of the severance that counts by age and length of service, and shows which of the three statutory limits applies. Important: resting only pushes the money back, you do not lose it. Then there is the registration duty under § 38 SGB III: at the latest three months before your last working day, or within three days if you learn of it later. You can add the deadline to the deadline tracker with one click.

It remains important: the result is an estimate, not an approval. Only the notice from your employment agency is binding, and whether a blocking period applies is decided only after you have been heard. Werkzeu.ge does not replace advice from the agency, a lawyer for employment or social law, or a counselling service. But you go into the conversation prepared, know your deadlines and can tell whether the notice is plausible.