Germany’s Federal Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) has said the federal government will increase the national minimum wage to 15 euros per hour in January 2026.

Heil says German minimum wage will rise to 15 euros

The German minimum wage will rise to 15 euros in 2026, Labour Minister Hubertus Heil has announced. The current minimum wage in Germany is 12,41 euros per hour and will increase to 12,82 euros on January 1, 2025.

The national minimum wage increases annually in Germany - by how much is determined by the Minimum Wage Commission (Mindestlohnkomission). The commission will now review Heil’s proposal and decide whether or not the rise adequately protects employees and employers in Germany.

“[The wage increase is] a question of fairness that people who work full-time can also live from their work," Heil said, speaking of the increase planned for 2026.

Around six million people in Germany earn minimum wage, according to Heil. Of these six million people, women and people working in federal states of the former East are disproportionately represented in low-paid work. 

According to 2022 figures from the Hans Böckler Foundation's Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), 44 percent of employees in Sonneberg, Thuringia, were employed in minimum wage work, 43,1 percent in Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg and 40 percent in Saale-Orla, Thuringia.

Ver.di says wage planned wage rises for 2024 and 2025 are insufficient

Responding to Heil’s announcement, Germany’s largest trade union, ver.di, called the increase “completely insufficient” calling for the minimum wage to be raised to 15 euros immediately.

Ver.di points out that increasing the minimum wage to 15 euros per hour would bring Germany’s minimum wage law in line with EU Minimum Wage Directive, which suggests that the minimum wage should be 60 percent of a country’s median income.

“The minimum wage has thus helped to reduce wage inequality in various regions in Germany. [...] If there are only small increases, as planned for 2024 and the coming year 2025, that will weaken the positive effect of the minimum wage,” the organisation wrote in its statement.

With the next federal election scheduled for September 28, 2025, by the time Heil’s current proposal is adopted, the current SPD-Greens-FDP traffic light coalition may no longer be in power. Rock bottom approval ratings at the moment suggest that is a likely scenario.

Meanwhile, the CDU and AfD are gaining significant ground, particularly in the former East. A state election (Landtagswahl) in Thuringia on September 1 saw the populist party make history, as the first far-right win in a Landtagswahl since WWII. Both parties have criticised the move to a 15-euro minimum wage, with the AfD having voted against the rise to 12 euros in 2021.

On September 22, voters will head to the polls for a state election in Brandenburg, the next temperature check for how the Ampelkoalition’s favour is fairing in the federal states which feel left behind.

Thumb image credit: Emilija Miljkovic / Shutterstock.com