Working Conditions in Germany

Permits

Germany is part of the EU. No special permits for EU members (including the Swiss) needed. Non-EU (f. e. US) collaborators need permits.

Union agreement

There is a union agreement between the „Allianz Deutscher Produzenten – Film & Fernsehen e.V.” and “Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft – ver.di”. The union agreement is not binding for all productions, but is the base for following info, as most of the filmmakers refer to the agreement.

Working Hours

The actual collective agreement stipulates that two consecutive days of rest must be granted at least twice per month during shooting periods, and three consecutive days of rest must be granted from the second month onwards for longer productions with more than 40 days of shooting. After a night shoot into the weekend, a rest period of 48 hours and a further eleven hours must follow at least twice per month after the end of the shooting day. For work at weekends, a general surcharge of 25% will apply from September. The existing Sunday supplement will be increased from 50% to 75%.

Overtime, NEW regulation from 2025 onwards according to new Union agreement (12. Oct 2024)

Following public holidays must be paid (even when not worked on this day). If worked on those days another day off must be paid as compensation on the normal fee on that day.

Easter Monday, Pentecost Monday, Labor Day (May 1st), October 3rd (Day of German Reunion) Christmas 24th, 25th, 26th of December, New Years Eve.

In some regions of Germany some additional Christian holidays might apply depending on the regions.

Social Insurances/FRINGES

These figures depend on two variables: the actual salary (with a cap per week or day) and the length of employment. These are the 2019 rough caps for:

  1. Health: per month € 4,537.50
  2. Pension: per month € 7,550.00

These apply to crew and cast. Fringes are roughly split 50/50 between employer and employee (for health / long term care insurances, only employees have to pay additionally 0.9% / 0.25%). These are the current employer’s shares (varying slightly from year to year):

  1. pension insurance 9.3% (under 70 social insured days in the year 7,8%)
  2. health insurance 8.1%
  3. compulsory long term care insurance 1.525 %
  4. unemployment insurance 1.3%
  5. employer’s liability insurance association 2.92% (cap 75,000)
  6. employer’s insolvency fund 0.06%
  7. contribution to continuation of payments to sick employees and pregnancy 1.3%
  8. holiday entitlement 10% (half a day per week)

Total fringes to be paid by the employer amount an average of approx. 23% plus the additional 10% holiday entitlement (on this holiday entitlement again 23 % of fringes must be budgeted). 23% plus the additional 10% holiday entitlement (on this holiday entitlement again 23 % of fringes must get budgeted). For budget purposes this average is not very precise but convenient — due to the cap, the highest percentages apply to the lowest salaries, while much lower percentages apply to the highest salaries. The average therefore depends on the numeric relation between low paid and high paid crew members.

‘Creative’ crew members (such as production designers, conceptional artists etc.) are entitled to issue invoices for their activities. They are subject to Künstlersozialkasse KSK (artist’s social insurance) contributions: 4,2 % in 2021 (their invoiced rented equipment is subject to 4,2 % KSK as well).

Cast must be insured not only for shooting days, but also for additional preparation days as follows:

Actors working below one week per month (minimum 7 shoot days) must be paid the entire month in social security (pension and healthcare, but not unemployment fringes), which leads to much higher payments in social security for the actors. This regulation is called  "disrupted engagement" and was created to give the actors bigger pensions. So, if an actor is engaged on 2 shooting days in i.e. January and 1 day in February the full insurance for two months must get paid.

The maximum pay of social fringes for cast is 85 Euros/Day, so counting a 20-day month can come up to 1700 Euros for a cast member, even when only shooting for 2 days a month.

Crew Rates

Please refer to the crew rates, applicable from April 2021.

A salary increase of 2.5% each for May 2025 and January 2026 is mandatory. The collective wage agreement (see attached chart where each year 2,5 % needs to be added to the fees) runs until the end of 2026 and is to be renegotiated from September of this year so that the next increase can take effect from the beginning of 2027.

These are absolute minimum rates which are usually applied to TV productions for max. 50 hours per week. For theatrical movies, they can increase by 50% or even more, depending on experience, reputation and track record.

Electricians and grips are not yet included in union agreements: the usual (10 hrs) rate for a gaffer is about € 360 (in reality, because 10 hrs are rarely sufficient, between 450 — 500 per day, for a key / dolly grip about € 340,- (400 — 450), for a lighting technician about € 320,- (360).

It is not allowed to substitute a regular job with a trainee/intern!

Trainees/ interns fall under the minimum wage law since Jan 2015. Exceptions are obligatory internships during studies or internships for job orientation (up to 3 months and only one internship in a specific professional area is allowed).

The compulsory minimum wage in 2024 amounts to € 12,42 / hour. From 1st of January 2025 this raises to € 12,84 / hour.

For precise details, look at the union agreements, linked HERE

Actors' Rates

Beginners are paid € 1050/day according to the Union agreement dated October 2024. A good actor will be paid between € 2,500 - € 5,000 per day, a German ‘star’ up to € 10,000 – 25,000 per day. Depending on the amount of shooting days, flat deals, reducing the ‘normal’ daily fee, are customary.

Extras' Rates

125 Euros per day of 10 hours+ 45 min lunch unpaid (excluding fringes). Markups are being paid for interviews, fittings, Corona-tests etc. (€ 20 per fitting). From the 11th hour Overtime at + 25% applies, from the 13th hours + 50 %. Featured extras plus 20 Euros on top of fee.

Extras will be mostly casted and represented by Agencies who will charge for their services a costumary amount of 10 % on top of the fee of the extra + a weekly fee for the casting services (I.e. 600 Euros / week)

Accounting fees of 8 % on top of the fees must be budgeted, as there are accounting companies specialized in the Extras payroll (that can be rather complicated due to short engagements etc.).

Children with accompanying parents will cost 200 Euro/10 HOURS

Stand-Ins without acting 170 Euro/ with acting 280 Euros

Extras with lines / with Acting 280 Euros

Night compensation 20 Euros mark up

Sunday / Holiday Compensation 20 up to 30 Euros on top of fee

E-Casting fee 25 Euros per casting

Own Costumes 2 x included, plus 15 Euros when 3 outfits

Wranglers: 235 Euro / Day + overtime + night additional

Allowances

Per diems are € 30 per day (24 hours) for domestic journeys, minus 20% if breakfast is provided, minus 40% if lunch is provided, minus 40% if dinner is provided.

For absence from home for less than 24 hours but more than 14 hours the amount is reduced to € 15.

These amounts are tax free for the employee — higher per diems can be negotiated (and often are for name actors for example) but are subject to taxation then.

Mileage allowances for the use of a car owned by the employee usually amount to € 0.38 / km from the 21st Km on (sometimes daily or weekly flat amounts are being negotiated).

Public Funding

There are local funding institutions in every state of Germany like Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB), Leipzig / Dresden (MDM), Hamburg, Bavaria and Frankfurt regions (Hessen). This is a complex funding scheme mostly only to be accessed by local producers, therefore companies sometimes have offices in three or more states / cities to comply with the rules. The local funding institutions mostly ask for an “effect”, meaning how much funds are spent in a region, i.e. the local effect for a VFX funding in the Berlin region is 400%, so on a 250'000 euro funding a spent of 1 million Euro has to be proven to auditors. All those regional funds are unconditional LOANS, that must be returned to the institutions in case of a successful production.

FFA - Federal Film Board also funds films and does not ask for a spending effect (mostly for commercial and international productions) www.ffa.de

This funding is not related to the Tax or Cash rebates given by the DFFF and the GMPF that come as a GRANT, that has not to be recouped or returned.

The German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) is an initiative by the Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) to strengthen film production in Germany. It is administered by the German Federal Film Board (FFA). If you produce your feature, documentary or animated film in Germany and spend at least 25% of your budget here, you can obtain a grant of up to 20% of the approved costs, depending on your German spent even up to 25% of the approved costs. For feature films not all costs are eligible, and the production must run a cultural test to become eligible at all.

Here you find downloadable PDF files for the German Cash Rebate:

Other sources of Information