Finding a minijob (and also earning more than €520) doesn’t have to be difficult. How does it work? Well, not all minijobs are the same. At Zenjob, you’ll find minijobs as short-term employment in various industries, all in our app. Easy to find, easy to book. You’ll pay income tax, but without an income limit – and always with complete flexibility to work when and where you want.
There are very specific regulations in Germany that determine what counts as a minijob. According to the Minijob-Zentrale, a minijob is either short-term employment (kurzfristige Beschäftigung) or marginal part-time employment which either has an earnings limit (€520 per month) or is only carried out for a limited period of time, i.e. so-called “€520 minijobs”. Here are the most important differences between the two types of minijobs.
Maximum earnings
Unlimited
Maximum working days
70 per calendar year/ framework agreement
Maximum working hours
Occasionally (flexible)
Contract type/length
1-year framework agreement
Income tax
Yes
Social security contributions
No
Maximum earnings
€520 per month
Maximum working days
Unlimited (up to €520 per month)
Maximum working hours
Regularly (fixed hours per month)
Contract type/length
Employment contract on an hourly basis
Income tax
Only for tax classes 5 and 6
Social security contributions
No
At Zenjob, you will only find short-term minijobs (kurzfristige Beschäftigung). The biggest advantage of this type of employment is that there is no income limit. You can earn as much money as you want and are only limited by the total number of work days. Once you’ve reached 70 work days in a calendar year, you have to take a two-month break from short-term employment.
In the Zenjob app, you never have to worry about whether a job requires German skills or not. We automatically match you with minijobs in your preferred language (English or German). All you need to do is choose the shift you like best and book it with just a few clicks.
Are you looking for simple but active minijobs? Then working as a stock clerk should be ideal for you. Large drugstores, organic markets and well-known supermarket chains are constantly looking for hard-working temps to stock shelves and keep the sales floor tidy. These temporary minijobs are ideal for beginners.
In our app, you will find many short-term minijobs in the food service industry that don’t require any German skills. Working as a kitchen helper is one of our most popular minijobs in this sector. It involves keeping the kitchen tidy and preparing food to ensure smooth service.
Short-term employment is generally subject to income tax (Lohnsteuer). The amount of tax you pay mainly depends on your tax class, but also on any child allowance (Kinderfreibetrag) and the so-called registration period (Anmeldezeitraum).
For your short-term employment at Zenjob, we need your income tax card (Lohnsteuerkarte) and a social security number (Sozialversicherungsnummer). You can register with Zenjob if you are a full-time student at an officially recognised university and have a valid certificate of enrolment. You must also have a place of residence in Germany, speak good English or German, and have a German ID (Personalausweis) or a passport with a valid work permit in Germany.
It depends on the type of marginal part-time employment and the hourly wage. In a minijob with an earnings limit, you may not earn more than €520 per month. The statutory minimum wage in Germany is €12 per hour. If you earn this, you are not allowed to work more than 43.3 hours per month. The higher your hourly wage, the fewer hours you are allowed to work per month.
With short-term employment (as offered at Zenjob), the number of hours doesn’t matter as much as the number of working days. With this type of minijob, you can work up to 70 days per calendar year. A working day is every day you work a shift, regardless of how long or short it is. If you only work 8-hour shifts, you can work up to 560 hours in total over the course of your short-term employment.
Additionally, there are some other factors to consider when it comes to working hours in a minijob. As a student from the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland, you may only work up to 20 hours per week while classes are in session (Vorlesungszeit). As a student from all other countries, you may only work 120 full days or 240 half days per year in Germany.
If you have a minijob alongside a full-time job, you must comply with the maximum working hours of 48 hours per week stipulated in the German Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz). Please note that you can only sign up with Zenjob if you study full-time at an officially recognized university.
This depends on the type of marginal employment. If you have a minijob with an earnings limit, you may earn up to €520 per month tax-free, as your employer usually covers the flat-rate taxation of 2% of your earnings.
A short-term minijob (as offered by Zenjob) is generally subject to tax. Wage tax is automatically deducted from your monthly salary. However, it is possible to get some or all of it back at the end of the year. In Germany, the basic annual tax-free allowance (Grundfreibetrag) for single persons is €10.347. If your total income for the year is below this amount, you should be able to get some money back by filing an income tax return.
A part-time job or side job is any employment that on its own does not suffice to secure your livelihood. It is merely an additional source of income. Usually, a side job is carried out in addition to a full-time job or full-time studies.
Minijobs are a type of part-time job. They are characterized by the fact that they either have an earnings limit of €520 per month or are only carried out for up to 70 days or 3 months per year.
Yes, you can under certain conditions.
If you do NOT have a primary job subject to social security contributions, you may have several minijobs with an earnings limit at the same time. Please note that your total income in all these minijobs combined may not exceed €520 per month. If you earn more than that, all of them are subject to social security contributions.
Alternatively, if you do NOT have a primary job that is subject to social security contributions, you can have a short-term job in addition to a minijob with an earnings limit. The advantage is that the income from the short-term job is not combined with the income from the €520 minijob.
It can be difficult to find a minijob in Germany that doesn’t require any German skills. Not so in the Zenjob app: here, you will only find short-term minijobs in English if you don’t speak German. All you have to do is register once in our app and create a profile. Then you can book the shifts that suit you best with just a few clicks, without having to write a single application.
Please note that there are some requirements to register with Zenjob.
Yes, you need a work permit to have a minijob in Germany.
If you want to use Zenjob to find English minijobs in Germany, you need to have a valid German ID or a valid passport with a work permit in Germany and a place of residence in Germany. You also need to study full-time at an officially recognized university.