Pension and Health Insurance Deductions for Self-Employed in Germany 2026

If you're self-employed in Germany, you pay your health, long-term care, pension and other compulsory insurance contributions out of your own pocket. The good news: a large share of those contributions reduces your income tax. In 2026 the cap on retirement-pension contributions is 30,826 € (single) and 61,652 € (married, joint assessment). Used well, this saves several thousand euros a year. Here's how it works in 2026, and how Norman captures the contributions automatically.

Key takeaways

• Pension provision (statutory pension, Rürup, Versorgungswerk) is 100% deductible in 2026, up to the cap of 30,826 € (single) or 61,652 € (joint assessment).
• Health and long-term care insurance are fully deductible at the level of basic care; add-ons are not.
• Other insurance (occupational disability, liability, accident) falls under a 2,800 € cap, usually already used up by health insurance.
• Business insurance (professional liability, cyber) is not a Vorsorgeaufwendung but a business expense in the EÜR.
• Everything private goes into the Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand, never the EÜR.

What are Vorsorgeaufwendungen?

Vorsorgeaufwendungen are contributions to insurance against typical life risks: old age, illness, long-term care, unemployment, occupational disability and liability. For tax purposes they're treated as Sonderausgaben (special expenses) under §§ 10, 10a EStG: they reduce your taxable income, not the profit from your self-employment activity.

Important: Vorsorgeaufwendungen do not belong in the income-surplus calculation (EÜR) but in the Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand attachment of your annual income-tax return.

The three tiers of Vorsorgeaufwendungen

The tax office treats Vorsorgeaufwendungen in three tiers, each with its own rules and caps. Once you know which tier a contribution falls into, you know instantly how much of it counts for tax.

Pension contributions: 100% deductible up to the cap

Since 2023, contributions to the basic pension layer are fully deductible as Sonderausgaben. This includes:

• Statutory pension insurance (gesetzliche Rentenversicherung), voluntary or mandatory
• Profession-specific pension funds (Versorgungswerk for doctors, lawyers, architects, tax advisors and others)
• Rürup pension (Basisrente)
• Agricultural retirement fund (landwirtschaftliche Alterskasse)

The 2026 cap is 30,826 € for single filers and 61,652 € for joint assessment. It's not an arbitrary number: it derives from the maximum contribution to the miners' pension insurance: West contribution ceiling 124,800 € × rate 24.7% = 30,825.60 €, rounded to 30,826 €. Because the ceiling rises every year, so does the deductible cap:

Note: self-employed people are not automatically covered by statutory pension insurance. If you have no mandatory pension obligation, a Rürup pension is the only private retirement product that's fully deductible, so it is worth checking. Maxing out the cap via Rürup typically saves several thousand euros a year, depending on your marginal tax rate.

Health insurance: full for basic, limited for extras

Contributions to health and long-term care insurance are fully deductible as long as they cover basic care. This applies to:

• Statutory health insurance (GKV) for voluntarily insured self-employed
• Private health insurance (PKV) up to the basic-tariff equivalent

Add-ons such as single-room hospital coverage, chief-physician treatment or international health cover are not fully deductible. Each year your PKV provider issues a certificate showing what share of contributions counts as basic care; that figure goes into your tax return.

Sickness allowance (Krankentagegeld) can only be deducted within "other Vorsorgeaufwendungen", and there the cap for self-employed is 2,800 € per year.

Other Vorsorgeaufwendungen: 2,800 € cap

Within the 2,800 € limit (for self-employed paying their own health insurance) you can deduct:

• Voluntary unemployment insurance contributions
• Occupational-disability insurance (Berufsunfähigkeitsversicherung)
• Term life insurance (Risikolebensversicherung)
• Private liability insurance (Haftpflichtversicherung), not work-related
• Accident insurance (Unfallversicherung)

For comparison: employees only have a 1,900 € limit here. The higher figure for the self-employed offsets the fact that they carry their entire health insurance themselves.

Important: basic health-insurance contributions already count in the first tier (fully deductible) and are charged against this limit. If they exceed 2,800 €, the 2,800 € cap for "other insurance" is effectively used up; additional policies such as occupational-disability or liability cover will not lower your tax bill any further. That's no reason to skip the cover; you just lose the tax break, not the protection.

Business insurance: book directly as business expense

Insurance with a business character is not part of Sonderausgaben; it goes into the EÜR as a business expense. This includes:

• Professional liability insurance (Berufshaftpflicht)
• Business liability insurance (Betriebshaftpflicht)
• Office contents insurance (Inhaltsversicherung)
• Errors-and-omissions insurance (Vermögensschadenhaftpflicht) for consultants and IT services
• Cyber insurance

These contributions reduce your profit directly and save you both income tax and trade tax (if you're classified as Gewerbe). The difference from private Vorsorgeaufwendungen is decisive: it determines where the contribution lands on the return and whether it lowers profit or only taxable income:

This exact split decides whether you deduct too much or too little. More in our post on business vs. employee expenses.

Worked example for 2026

A self-employed web designer (single, tax class I) pays in 2026:

Result: total deduction 19,100 €. At a 35% marginal rate, that saves around 6,685 € in income tax, purely from correctly sorting contributions she was paying anyway.

Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand: where to enter what

All private provision contributions land in the Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand of your income-tax return, not in the EÜR. The attachment is organised into three blocks that mirror the three tiers above:

1. Pension contributions: statutory pension, Versorgungswerk and Rürup. The figures are on the certificates from your provider.
2. Health and long-term care insurance: you enter the basic share that GKV or PKV certifies each year.
3. Other Vorsorgeaufwendungen: occupational disability, liability, accident and similar policies, capped at 2,800 €.

Business insurance does not appear here; it belongs in the Anlage EÜR as a business expense. This clean split is the most common error point: enter professional liability as a special expense by mistake, and you throw away the full profit deduction.

How Norman handles your insurance contributions

Norman picks up all insurance payments automatically through bank synchronisation. The AI bookkeeping sorts them into the right bucket: business insurance flows into the EÜR as a deductible expense, while private Vorsorgeaufwendungen are prepared for the Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand of your income-tax return. No statement digging, no sorting contributions into tiers by hand.

Other classic tax levers for self-employed people are covered in Home Office Tax Deduction in Germany 2026 and Estimated Tax Payments in Germany.

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Frequently asked questions

How much Vorsorgeaufwendungen can I deduct as self-employed?

Pension provision (pension, Rürup, Versorgungswerk) is fully deductible in 2026 up to 30,826 € (single) or 61,652 € (couples). Basic health and long-term care insurance is deductible with no fixed euro cap. Other insurance falls under a 2,800 € limit that is often already used up by health insurance.

Is private health insurance fully deductible?

Only the basic share. Your PKV certifies each year which part of the contributions covers the legally required basic care; that part is 100% deductible. Add-ons such as chief-physician treatment or a single hospital room do not count.

Is the Rürup pension tax-deductible?

Yes. The Rürup pension (Basisrente) is the only private retirement product whose contributions count 100% as special expenses, within the 30,826 € cap. For self-employed people without mandatory pension cover it's the most important lever to combine retirement saving with a tax break.

Does occupational-disability insurance count as Vorsorgeaufwendungen?

Yes, but only under "other Vorsorgeaufwendungen" with the 2,800 € limit. Because that limit is usually already used up by health insurance for the self-employed, there is often nothing left for disability cover for tax. It's still worth having; the tax break just doesn't apply.

What's the difference between Vorsorgeaufwendungen and business expenses?

Vorsorgeaufwendungen are private protections (pension, health, disability) and reduce your taxable income as special expenses. Business insurance (professional liability, cyber) is a business expense and reduces your profit directly; it belongs in the EÜR, not the Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand.

Conclusion

Vorsorgeaufwendungen are one of the largest tax levers for the self-employed in 2026. Plan pension and health insurance deliberately and you can use the full 30,826 € cap and save several thousand euros a year. With a clean separation of business and private insurance, and bookkeeping that does that split for you, you avoid mistakes and capture the maximum deduction.