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It depends on the type of marginal part-time employment and the hourly wage. In a minijob with an earnings limit, you may not earn more than €520 per month. The statutory minimum wage in Germany is €12 per hour. If you earn this, you are not allowed to work more than 43.3 hours per month. The higher your hourly wage, the fewer hours you are allowed to work per month.
With short-term employment (as offered at Zenjob), the number of hours doesn’t matter as much as the number of working days. With this type of minijob, you can work up to 70 days per calendar year. A working day is every day you work a shift, regardless of how long or short it is. If you only work 8-hour shifts, you can work up to 560 hours in total over the course of your short-term employment.
Additionally, there are some other factors to consider when it comes to working hours in a minijob. As a student from the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland, you may only work up to 20 hours per week while classes are in session (Vorlesungszeit). As a student from all other countries, you may only work 120 full days or 240 half days per year in Germany.
If you have a minijob alongside a full-time job, you must comply with the maximum working hours of 48 hours per week stipulated in the German Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz).
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This depends on the type of marginal employment. If you have a minijob with an earnings limit, you may earn up to €520 per month tax-free, as your employer usually covers the flat-rate taxation of 2% of your earnings.
A short-term minijob (as offered by Zenjob) is generally subject to tax. Wage tax is automatically deducted from your monthly salary. However, it is possible to get some or all of it back at the end of the year. In Germany, the basic annual tax-free allowance (Grundfreibetrag) for single persons is €10.347. If your total income for the year is below this amount, you should be able to get some money back by filing an income tax return.
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A part-time job or side job is any employment that on its own does not suffice to secure your livelihood. It is merely an additional source of income. Usually, a side job is carried out in addition to a full-time job or full-time studies.
Minijobs are a type of part-time job. They are characterized by the fact that they either have an earnings limit of €520 per month or are only carried out for up to 70 days or 3 months per year.
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Yes, you can under certain conditions.
If you do NOT have a main job that is subject to social security contributions, you may have several minijobs with an earnings limit at the same time. Please note that your total income in all these minijobs combined may not exceed €520 per month. If you earn more than that, all of them are subject to social security contributions.
Alternatively, if you do NOT have a main job that is subject to social security contributions, you can have a short-term job in addition to a minijob with an earnings limit. The advantage is that the income from the short-term job is not combined with the income from the €520 minijob.
If you have a main job that is subject to social security contributions, you are only allowed to work in one minijob with an earnings limit at a time. Please note that you are allowed to have a short-term job in addition to the €520 minijob. The advantage is that the income from the short-term job is not combined with the income from the €520 minijob.
Alternatively, if you have a main job that is subject to social security contributions, you can have several short-term jobs at the same time. Please note that in all your short-term mini-jobs combined, you may not work for more than 3 months or 70 working days in a calendar year.
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It can be difficult to find a minijob in Germany that doesn’t require any German skills. Not so in the Zenjob app: here, you will only find short-term minijobs in English if you don’t speak German. All you have to do is register once in our app and create a profile. Then you can book the shifts that suit you best with just a few clicks, without having to write a single application.
Please note that there are some requirements to register with Zenjob.
- You must be over 18 years old.
- You need to have good English or German skills.
- You must either have a main job in Germany that is subject to social security contributions or study full-time at an officially recognized university in Europe.
- You need a valid German ID or a valid passport with a work permit in Germany.
- You need to have a place of residence in Germany, a German social security number (Sozialversicherungsnummer), and European health insurance.
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Yes, you need a work permit to have a minijob in Germany.
If you want to use Zenjob to find English minijobs in Germany, you need to have a valid German ID or a valid passport with a work permit in Germany and a place of residence in Germany. You also need to have a main job in Germany that is subject to social security contributions or study in full-time at an officially recognized university in Europe.
Find Short-Term Minijobs for English-Speakers
Finding a minijob in English has never been this easy in Germany. Download the Zenjob app and find short-term minijobs in English from a wide range of industries. Register once and book a shift whenever it suits you best.
Please note that we only offer short-term minijobs (kurzfristige Minijobs) in the Zenjob app. We do NOT offer minijobs with an earnings limit (€520 minijobs). How does that benefit you? You can earn as much as you want and freely plan your shifts as you wish.
Find English minijobs via app
In the Zenjob app, you never have to worry about whether a job requires German skills or not. We automatically match you with minijobs in your preferred language (English or German). All you need to do is choose the shift you like best and book it with just a few clicks.
Restock shelves in shops
Are you looking for simple but active minijobs? Then working as a stock clerk should be ideal for you. Large drugstores, organic markets and well-known supermarket chains are constantly looking for hard-working temps to stock shelves and keep the sales floor tidy. These temporary minijobs are ideal for beginners.
Work in restaurants
In our app, you will find many short-term minijobs in the food service industry that don’t require any German skills. Working as a kitchen helper is one of our most popular minijobs in this sector. It involves keeping the kitchen tidy and doing some food prep work to ensure smooth service.
What exactly is a minijob in Germany?
There are very precise regulations in Germany that determine what counts as a minijob. According to the Minijob-Zentrale, a minijob is a marginal part-time employment which either has an earnings limit (€520 per month) or is only carried out for a limited period of time, i.e. so-called “€520 minijobs” or short-term minijobs (kurzfristige Beschäftigung).
At Zenjob, you will only find short-term minijobs (kurzfristige Beschäftigung). The biggest advantage of this type of employment is that there is no income limit. You can earn as much money as you want and are only limited by the total number of work days. Once you’ve reached 70 work days in a calendar year, you have to take a two-month break from short-term employment.
For your short-term employment at Zenjob, we need your income tax card (Lohnsteuerkarte) and a social security number (Sozialversicherungsnummer). You can register with Zenjob if you are a full-time student at an officially recognised university in Europe or if you have a main job that is subject to social insurance contributions. You must also have a place of residence in Germany, speak good English or German, and have a German ID (Personalausweis) or a passport with a valid work permit in Germany.