How Pensiqo calculates: method, assumptions and sources
Updated:
Redaktion Pensiqo (editorial team)
This page explains how Pensiqo’s calculators and tables work: data sources, calculation steps, assumptions and limits.
Where the figures come from
Every value Pensiqo uses – from the current pension value to the contribution rates and the income tax tariff – is stored with its legal basis, the date from which it applies, its status (current law, enacted or only proposed) and the date it was last checked. Sources are the statutes on gesetze-im-internet.de, the Deutsche Rentenversicherung and the responsible federal ministries. We update the values when they change: usually on 1 January (contribution rates, tax) and on 1 July (pension adjustment).
From earnings to gross pension
The gross pension follows the pension formula: earnings points × access factor × pension type factor × current pension value. A year at average earnings gives one earnings point; earnings above the contribution ceiling do not count. If you do not know your earnings points from your pension statement, the calculator estimates them from your years of work and your current salary. Until the pension starts, it assumes you keep working at your current salary. The access factor lowers the pension by 0.3% per month before the standard retirement age and raises it by 0.5% per month after it.
From gross to net pension
Deducted are half of the general health insurance rate and of the additional contribution, the full care insurance contribution (with the surcharge without children and the reduction from the second child under 25) and income tax. For tax, the taxable share of the year the pension starts applies; allowances and the health and care insurance contributions are deducted, then the income tax tariff applies – the splitting tariff for married couples – plus the solidarity surcharge and church tax where due.
Why the calculator shows a range
What you do not enter, the calculator assumes and shows the effect as a range: how your past earnings compared with today's, how much pensions will rise in real terms (0 to 1% a year) and – if you leave it open – whether you have children. All amounts are in today's purchasing power. The more figures from your pension statement you enter, the narrower the range.
What Pensiqo does not calculate
Not covered are private health insurance, occupational, private, survivors' and foreign pensions (the calculator points out that the tax may then be higher), disability pensions, the pension for severely disabled people, pension rights adjustment after a divorce and the amount of a basic pension supplement (Grundrente; the calculator only shows whether it may apply). For binding advice, the free counselling of the Deutsche Rentenversicherung is the right place.
How we check
The calculation rules are checked by automated tests, among others against results of the Deutsche Rentenversicherung's retirement date calculator and the Federal Ministry of Finance's income tax calculator, and against the independent tax and transfer model GETTSIM. Figures in texts and tables are not written by hand but recalculated with every update.