EUR 1,000 Entlastungsprämie 2026: § 3 Nr. 11d EStG

The Bundestag passed a new employer-paid bonus on 24 April 2026, codified as § 3 Nr. 11d EStG via the Neuntes Gesetz zur Änderung des Steuerberatungsgesetzes. Up to EUR 1,000 per employee is fully exempt from Lohnsteuer and Sozialversicherungsbeiträge. Bundesrat approval is still pending — the law is not yet in force as of 30 April 2026. Only payments actually made after BGBl publication qualify.

The structure follows the expired Inflationsausgleichsprämie (§ 3 Nr. 11c EStG, EUR 3,000, ran until 31.12.2024): cash subsidies and benefits in kind up to EUR 1,000 per employee. The premium can be paid once the law is published in BGBl I, and the window stays open until 30 June 2027. BMF guidance on the new norm is not yet published.

The single condition that catches founders is the requirement to grant the bonus "zusätzlich zum ohnehin geschuldeten Arbeitslohn". The EUR 1,000 must be on top of regular wages. Funding it through Entgeltumwandlung (rerouting agreed salary into the bonus) disqualifies the payment from § 3 Nr. 11d EStG entirely. A January raise that gets relabelled in May does not count. Document the payment as a discretionary additional benefit, separate from any pending salary review.

In the founder-team payrolls I look at, the most common mistake is also the cleanest to avoid: set up the Entlastungsprämie in your next clean payroll cycle after BGBl-Verkündung (Bundesrat next scheduled 8 May 2026; the vote date for the StBerÄndG carrier may shift). For 5 to 30 employees, that means EUR 5,000 to EUR 30,000 landing net in your team's pockets. But only if it sits beside, not inside, the existing wage.