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.

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.

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. Maxing it out via Rürup typically saves several thousand euros a year, depending on your marginal tax rate.

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 — worth checking.

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)

Important: basic health-insurance contributions already count in the first tier (fully deductible). If they exceed 2,800 €, the 2,800 € cap for "other insurance" is effectively used up — additional policies will not lower your tax bill any further.

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).

Worked example for 2026

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

• Rürup pension: 12,000 €
• Private health insurance (basic share): 6,500 €
• Long-term care insurance: 600 €
• Occupational-disability insurance: 1,800 €

Tax-deductible: pension 12,000 € (full, well below the 30,826 € cap), health + care 7,100 € (full), other 0 € (limit already absorbed by basic health insurance). Total deduction: 19,100 €. At a 35% marginal rate, that saves around 6,685 € in income tax.

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.

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

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.