German employers rarely dazzle with headline salaries — the money hides in the extras. Vouchers, the Deutschlandticket, meal subsidies, childcare allowances, phone plans: fringe benefits are legally part of your remuneration, often add €200–€400 net per month, and are routinely forgotten when employment ends. For expat employees comparing offers or negotiating an exit, understanding which benefits exist, where the legal claim comes from, and what survives a dismissal is worth real money. This article walks through the common tax-favoured benefits (informational — your tax advisor owns the details), the legal bases of your claims, and how to price benefits into severance talks.
The common tax-favoured benefits
These are the extras you will most often meet in German contracts and benefit portals. The tax figures are the commonly applied 2025/2026 framework values — they change periodically, so treat them as orientation, not gospel:
- €50 monthly Sachbezug allowance (Gutscheine): benefits in kind up to €50 per month — typically shopping or fuel vouchers or a benefits card — are tax- and contribution-free (§ 8 EStG), provided they are granted on top of salary and cannot be paid out in cash. Over a year: €600 net-equivalent.
- Deutschlandticket / Jobticket: employer subsidies for public-transport passes are tax-free when paid in addition to salary (§ 3 Nr. 15 EStG); many employers cover the Deutschlandticket wholly or largely.
- Meal subsidies: via canteen, vouchers or digital meal apps, employers can subsidize workday meals at favourable flat tax values — commonly worth €6–€7 per working day, well over €1,000 per year for full-timers.
- Vermögenswirksame Leistungen (VwL): employer contributions of up to €40 per month into a savings contract; a small classic, often forgotten and unclaimed even where a collective agreement grants it.
- Phone and internet: an employer-owned phone or laptop may be used privately entirely tax-free (§ 3 Nr. 45 EStG) — a genuine perk if it replaces a private contract.
- Kindergarten subsidy: employer payments toward the care of non-school-age children are tax-free without a fixed cap (§ 3 Nr. 33 EStG) — for Kita fees of €300–€600 per month, one of the most valuable benefits available.
- Health promotion: certified prevention courses and health measures up to €600 per employee per year, tax-free (§ 3 Nr. 34 EStG).
Larger items — company cars, bike leasing, company pensions — follow their own rules; see our dedicated articles where they exist.
Where your legal claim comes from
A benefit is only as good as its legal basis. Four sources, in descending order of robustness:
1. The employment contract
A benefit promised in the contract is enforceable remuneration. Watch the wording: „the employer currently grants…” plus a Freiwilligkeitsvorbehalt (voluntariness reservation) is weaker than an unconditional grant — though blanket reservations covering ongoing remuneration components are frequently invalid as standard terms (§ 307 BGB). This is one more reason to have contracts checked before you sign.
2. Collective agreements and works agreements
Tarifvertrag or Betriebsvereinbarung benefits (VwL is a classic tariff benefit) apply with normative force — the employer cannot contract around them to your disadvantage.
3. Betriebliche Übung — the three-times rule
Where the employer grants a benefit repeatedly without reservation, a binding entitlement can arise from established practice. For annual gratuities, courts traditionally assume that three unconditional payments in a row create a claim for year four. For monthly benefits the doctrine applies analogously: months or years of reservation-free granting harden into contract. Employers defend with express reservations — whose validity is, again, reviewable.
4. Equal treatment
The general equal-treatment principle (arbeitsrechtlicher Gleichbehandlungsgrundsatz) forbids arbitrarily excluding individual employees from a benefit granted to a comparable group. If everyone on your team gets the €50 voucher and the Jobticket and you — the foreigner, the part-timer, the one on notice — do not, you likely have a claim unless the employer shows an objective reason.
Can the employer just stop a benefit?
Not unilaterally, once a claim exists. The lawful routes — revocation under a valid, transparent Widerrufsvorbehalt exercised with fair discretion, a Änderungskündigung (termination with offer of changed terms), or renegotiation — are demanding, and employers often skip them and simply switch the benefit off. If your voucher card stops loading or the Kita subsidy vanishes from the payslip, object in writing promptly: benefit arrears are payment claims, and a contractual Ausschlussfrist of often only three months can quietly extinguish them month by month.
What survives a termination — and until when
Benefits share the fate of salary, not of the office keycard:
- During the notice period, all remuneration components continue — including during garden leave. An employer who releases you and cancels the Jobticket, meal subsidy and voucher card for the remaining months owes compensation for their value.
- At the termination date, benefits end with the employment. There is no post-contractual right to the Deutschlandticket.
- Pro-rated and annual items — bonuses, gratuities, allowances tied to cut-off dates — follow the rules described in bonus after termination: cut-off clauses are often narrower than employers claim.
Benefits in severance negotiations: price them in
Severance formulas run off the „gross monthly salary” — and the monthly value of benefits belongs in that figure. €50 voucher + €58 Deutschlandticket + €40 VwL + €120 meal subsidy + €200 Kita subsidy is €468 per month of remuneration that a lazy calculation ignores. Over a 0.75-factor severance across 8 years of service, that omission alone costs €2,800. Equally, cancelled benefits during a long notice period are a concrete, calculable claim that strengthens your negotiation. Bring the payslips and the benefits-portal statements to the first advisory meeting — see how severance is calculated.
Worked example
A logistics coordinator in Bonn, gross salary €4,200/month, 8 years of service, receives — alongside salary — a €50 benefits card, an employer-paid Deutschlandticket (€58), €40 VwL, a digital meal subsidy averaging €115/month, and a Kita subsidy of €250/month for her daughter. Total benefits: €513/month. She is dismissed with a 3-month notice period (contractual; the statutory minimum would be longer — itself a point of attack) and released from work; in the release month, the employer cancels the benefits card, the ticket and the meal subsidy, and stops the Kita subsidy.
Position after our review: the notice period is actually 4 months under § 622 BGB (8 years of service); benefits must run through the corrected termination date — 4 × €513 = €2,052 in benefit value alone; and the severance basis is €4,713, not €4,200. Settlement in the Kündigungsschutz proceedings: severance of €28,278 (0.75 × €4,713 × 8), benefits compensated in cash through the corrected end date, plus the pro-rated annual gratuity. Versus the employer’s opening offer (€16,800 on the bare salary, benefits silently dropped), the documented benefits and the corrected notice period added over €13,000.
Frequently asked questions
My employer calls the €50 voucher „voluntary”. Can it be cancelled anytime?
Not necessarily. Voluntariness reservations for ongoing remuneration components are frequently invalid standard terms, and years of unconditional granting can create a claim through established practice. Have the exact wording and the granting history assessed before accepting a cancellation.
Do my benefits continue during garden leave?
Yes. Garden leave releases you from work, not the employer from pay. All remuneration components — vouchers, tickets, subsidies, VwL — continue until the termination date, or must be compensated in money.
Everyone in my team gets the Jobticket except me. What can I do?
Ask in writing why. Under the equal-treatment principle the employer needs an objective reason to exclude you from a group benefit; „you’re on notice” or „you complained” is not one. If no valid reason comes, the claim is enforceable — mind any cut-off clause.
Are these benefits really tax-free for me?
The categories above enjoy specific tax privileges under the EStG, but each has conditions (on-top requirement, caps, certification for health courses). This article is informational; for your personal payroll and tax treatment, consult a tax advisor — particularly if benefits were granted via salary conversion rather than on top.
Can benefits replace a salary increase?
Economically they often beat a gross raise of equal cost because of the tax treatment — but legally, benefits granted instead of salary (conversion) have weaker protection in some scenarios and can complicate social-security-based payments, which are calculated on reduced gross pay. Negotiate benefits on top, not instead.
I forgot to claim benefits for the past year. Too late?
Possibly not, but move fast. Contractual cut-off clauses of three months are common and count from the due date of each monthly benefit; whatever is not yet time-barred should be asserted in writing immediately.