What the model assumes about Germany

This page collects every Germany-specific number the model starts from: when the state pension begins and how it behaves, what healthcare and long-term care cost, what a retired household spends, and how tax is worked out. The planner prefills each of them, and you can change any of them during setup. Amounts are in EUR at today's prices, and the same data files drive the simulation itself, so a figure you read here is the figure your plan runs on.

The state pension

Starts at 67. The planner uses this both as your default retirement age and as the start age of your state pension.

Source: Bundesministerium der Justiz (Gesetze im Internet) (2025). See it.

With inflation, plus 0.2 points a year. German state pensions follow wages, not prices: each July they move with the previous year's pay growth, damped by a sustainability factor. Over the last twenty years that meant rises of about a quarter of a point above inflation a year.

Source: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis) (2026). See it.

What a surviving partner keeps: 55% of the deceased's pension. The surviving spouse receives 55% of the deceased partner's pension on top of their own, or 60% under older rules for marriages from before 2002. The survivor's own income above an allowance reduces this payment.

Source: Deutsche Rentenversicherung (2026). See it.

How the simulation pays and raises pensions: the income section of the technical reference. What changes at the first death: the couples section.

Healthcare

€523 a year for each person, at 65. Health spending outside long-term care: visits, medicines, glasses, dental work and any premiums you pay yourself. The planner starts from this figure and moves it as you age. The source published €350. The published figure averages all adult ages, so we scaled it up to what someone at 65 spends.

Source: Eurostat / OECD-Eurostat-WHO System of Health Accounts (2026). See it.

How the model ages this figure: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Long-term care

€40,368 a year out of your own pocket if you need residential care. Public care insurance pays a fixed amount by care level. You pay the rest.

Source: Verband der Ersatzkassen e. V. (vdek) (2026). See it.

The model does not add the whole charge on top of your budget: the groceries, and for renters the housing, that a care home replaces are credited back. How the care model works.

What a retired household spends

€935 + €319/mo for one person, €1,403 + €479/mo (derived) for a couple. Essential spending plus everything-else spending, each month, excluding housing and healthcare, which the planner asks about separately. The prefills come from EVS 2023 (Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe), Konsumausgaben privater Haushalte, soziale Stellung der Haupteinkommensperson: 'Nichterwerbstaetige: im Ruhestand' (retiree households, all household sizes). The couple figure applies a documented factor of about one and a half to the single budget, because no couple budget is published.

Source: EVS 2023 (Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe), Konsumausgaben privater Haushalte, soziale Stellung der Haupteinkommensperson: 'Nichterwerbstaetige: im Ruhestand' (retiree households, all household sizes) (2026). See it.

What each budget covers and how spending changes with age: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Tax

The model recalculates your tax bill for every simulated year, using Germany's own scales, allowances and thresholds for the 2026 tax year, last read on 2026-07-27. The answers are checked against their calculator. Couples are assessed together where the rules allow it.

How Germany taxes a retirement plan lists every figure, the tax office page each one came from, and everything the model does not do there.

Everything we read

Every publication behind the pension, care, healthcare and budget figures above. The tax page carries its own references, one per figure.