Who is entitled to a Christmas bonus (Weihnachtsgeld) in Germany?

Many employees in Germany get a Christmas bonus with their November paycheck. How do you know if you are entitled to one? And if you are, how much can you expect in your bank account?

51 percent of German workers receive Weihnachtsgeld

According to the WSI-Tarifarchiv of the Hans Böckler Foundation, 51 percent of all workers employed in Germany receive a Christmas bonus payment with their November paycheck, also known as Weihnachtsgeld.

While all contracted employees in Germany are entitled to sick pay and holiday pay, not everyone is entitled to a Christmas bonus. Whether an employer will pay out a Christmas bonus is either decided in a collective bargaining agreement or through personal negotiations and stipulated in your employment contract.

If your employment contract is based on a collective bargaining agreement, which includes a Christmas bonus payment, your employer is obliged to pay the bonus during the period to which the bargaining agreement applies. Employees whose contracts are negotiated by trade unions via collective bargaining agreements are twice as likely to receive Weihnachtsgeld.

Slightly different rules apply if you personally negotiated for a Christmas bonus payment from your employer. In this case, your employer can decide every year whether or not they will pay out the bonus. However, if your employer has paid out the bonus unconditionally for the past three consecutive years, they must continue to do so.

How much is a typical Christmas bonus in Germany?

So, if a Christmas bonus has been agreed upon, how much extra money can you expect to receive with your November paycheck? Because employers aren’t legally obliged to pay Christmas bonuses, there is no simple answer to this question.

The bonus amount you receive is typically a percentage of your salary. But this percentage can vary widely depending on the sector you work in and the number of years you have been working in your current job. 

This means that one employee at a company could receive a Christmas bonus payment worth 25 percent of their monthly salary, while their coworker receives a payment worth 55 percent of their monthly salary. According to IG Metall, Germany’s steel and metal workers’ union, some employees in the industry receive Weihnachtsgeld worth 110 percent of their monthly salary.

If a Christmas bonus is stipulated in your employment contract, you will typically become eligible to receive it after you have worked at the company for six months. The amount you receive will increase as your service years increase, and you will typically receive your first maximum Christmas bonus payment after 36 months of working at the company.

Given that bosses can decide whether or not to pay Christmas bonuses and how much they want to pay, if employees are paid differing amounts, the “objective criteria for the unequal distribution must be made public,” according to health insurance provider TK.