A day rate and a salary are different kinds of numbers, and multiplying one into the other misleads both ways. A gross salary hides about 21 % the employer pays on top in social contributions, plus 30 days of paid leave, public holidays and 19.5 sick days at full pay. A day rate has to fund all of that out of roughly 187 billable days a year, plus full health, pension and unemployment cover. €800 a day lands near a €110,000 to €120,000 salary, not €200,000, and a €70,000 salary needs €500 to €540 a day just to break even.
"€800 a day? That is €200,000 a year." You hear this from recruiters, from friends who are thinking about going solo, and from freelancers who want to feel good about their rate. It is wrong by roughly half. It is equally wrong the other way: a €70,000 employee who quotes €350 a day because "that is what I earn now" will be poorer by spring.
This article does the conversion properly, in both directions, with 2026 numbers. It borrows the day count from our 187-day formula and does not recompute it.
What a salary hides
Take a gross salary of €70,000. That is what the employee sees on the contract. It is not what the employer pays, and it is not what the employee keeps.
The employer's add-on. In 2026 the employer pays, on top of gross, half of the health insurance (7.3 % plus half of the average 2.9 % Zusatzbeitrag), 1.8 % long-term care, 9.3 % pension and 1.3 % unemployment insurance, per the TK contribution table for 2026. Added up, that is about 21 % of gross, our arithmetic from the table. Two costs come on top and vary too much to print: statutory accident insurance, set per Berufsgenossenschaft and industry, and the U1/U2 levies that reimburse small employers for sick pay and maternity pay. So 21 % is the floor, not the ceiling.
The percentages stop at the assessment ceilings, which the BMAS ordinance for 2026 sets at €69,750 a year for health and care and €101,400 for pension and unemployment. Above those, the employer's add-on shrinks as a percentage. That matters for the €800-a-day example later.
Paid time not worked. Permanent employees in Germany get about 30 days of paid leave a year, per an IAB survey published in December 2025 on 2023 data (fixed-term staff: 28.3). Add nine nationwide public holidays, ten to thirteen depending on the Bundesland. Add sick days: DAK-insured employees were off sick for 19.5 calendar days on average in 2025, per the DAK report of January 2026, at full pay for the first six weeks of each illness.
None of that appears in the €70,000. All of it is paid.
What a day rate hides
A freelancer's €800 is revenue, not income. Before it becomes anything like a salary it has to cover:
- Business costs. Freelancers in DACH spend €783 a month on average on software, hardware, insurance, training and accounting, per the Freelancer-Kompass 2026. Call it €9,400 a year.
- Health and care insurance, both halves. A voluntarily insured freelancer pays the full 14.6 % plus 2.9 % Zusatzbeitrag plus 3.6 % care (4.2 % if childless) on income up to the €69,750 ceiling. At the ceiling that is about €1,226 a month with children and €1,261 without, so €14,700 to €15,100 a year. Detail in our guide to health insurance for freelancers.
- Pension. Nothing is deducted automatically, and nobody adds an employer half. If you want to save what an employee and employer together put into the state scheme, that is 18.6 % of income up to €101,400.
- Unemployment cover. Only by opting in under § 28a SGB III within three months of starting. The contribution is 2.6 % of the 2026 Bezugsgröße of €3,955 (§ 341 and § 345b SGB III): €102.83 a month, half that in the founding year and the year after. The window and the fallback are in our piece on safety nets for freelancers.
- Disability and sick-pay cover. Private, priced by age and profession, not in this calculation. Budget for it.
- The days you cannot sell. Holiday, public holidays and training are already inside the 187 days. Sick days are not. 19.5 calendar days is about 14 working days, our conversion, and every one of them is a day rate you do not invoice.
Worked example: €800 a day into a salary
Revenue: 800 × 187 = €149,600.
Now subtract what an employee never has to think about.
- Business costs: about €9,400
- Health and care insurance at the ceiling, childless: about €15,100
- Pension saving to match an employee's 18.6 % on €101,400: about €18,900
- Voluntary unemployment insurance: about €1,200
- Sick days, 14 × €800: €11,200
That leaves about €93,800 before income tax, with pension, health and unemployment funded, but no disability cover and no project-gap buffer yet. Skip the sick-day line because you were lucky this year and it is €105,000.
Compare an employee on €100,000 gross. Their own deductions in 2026 come to about €18,400 (health and care on €69,750, pension and unemployment on €100,000), leaving about €81,600 before income tax, with everything above already funded and 30 paid days off. The employer's total bill for that person is about €118,000; the add-on is closer to 18 % than 21 % here because health and care are capped.
So €800 a day sits somewhere between a €100,000 and a €120,000 employee, depending on how you value sick pay and how many days you really sell. The €200,000 figure assumes 250 billable days, no insurance, no costs and no illness. Nobody has that year.
Worked example: €70,000 salary into a day rate
Start with what the employee keeps before income tax: €70,000 minus their own contributions (about €15,200 in 2026, childless) is roughly €54,800.
To arrive at the same €54,800 as a freelancer, you have to earn it plus everything the employer and the payroll used to handle:
- Health and care, full rate on €69,750: about €15,100
- Pension saving at 18.6 % of €70,000: about €13,000
- Voluntary unemployment insurance: about €1,200
- Business costs: about €9,400
Total: about €93,600 of revenue. Divided by 187 days: €500 a day. Reserve 14 sick days and divide by 173 instead: €541. That is the break-even, before a single week without a project and before disability cover. A day rate of €350 "because that is my salary" delivers, after the same deductions, roughly the pre-tax income of an employee on €36,000.
For the hourly version of this calculation, our guide to calculating your hourly rate walks through the same logic with a project-gap buffer built in.
Where the market sits
Two reference points, both 2026. The Stepstone Gehaltsreport 2026 puts the median gross salary in Germany at €53,900 (mean €59,100) across 1.33 million records. The Freelancer-Kompass 2026 puts the average DACH freelance hourly rate at €103, with 12 % of working time not billable.
Do not compare those two numbers directly. One is an employee's gross before the employer's add-on. The other is a rate before the freelancer's own costs, full-rate contributions and unsold days. The only fair comparison is total employer cost per employee against total freelance revenue needed, which is what the two examples above do.
What to do on Monday
- Write down your real day count from last year's invoices. If it is 150, redo both examples with 150. The conversion gets worse fast.
- Put the five freelancer-only lines in a spreadsheet: business costs, full health and care, pension saving, unemployment opt-in, sick-day reserve. Update the ceilings every January.
- If you are employed and thinking about it: take your gross, subtract your own deductions, add the four lines above, divide by 187. That is your floor, not your target.
- If you are freelancing and a recruiter offers a salary: multiply your day rate by your real days, subtract the five lines, and only then compare. Ask what their 21 % on top is worth to you in cover you currently buy yourself.
- Check the § 28a window. If you started self-employment less than three months ago, the unemployment opt-in is still open. After that it is closed for good.
The rate tells you what a day must be worth. The job is filling the days. A free 9am profile puts you in front of companies across DACH that hire freelancers, and their project search runs over more than 100 job boards, so the 187 has a better chance of being 187.
This article is general information for practitioners and does not replace tax, legal or financial advice.
