Employees: Free or reduced-price meals 2026

If the employer provides its employees with free or reduced-price meals, it must recognize this non-cash benefit as wages at the values specified in the Social Security Remuneration Ordinance. The nationwide values for free food, whose respective remuneration in kind value is determined annually by the Federal Ministry of Labor in the Social Security Remuneration Ordinance, are as follows for 2026 for 

According to Section 8 (1) EStG, all goods that employees receive as part of their employment are considered wages and are therefore subject to income tax. This applies regardless of the type of benefit, i.e. regardless of whether cash or non-cash benefits are granted. If the employee does not have to make an additional payment for the meals provided by the employer, the value of the remuneration in kind is subject to income tax and social security contributions in full. If the employee makes an additional payment, only the difference between the non-cash benefit value and the amount paid is to be recognized. This means that what the employee pays for their own meals is offset against the respective non-cash benefit value.

Practical example:
An innkeeper provides his waiter with dinner. The waiter pays € 4.57 per meal for this. The additional payment corresponds exactly to the official remuneration in kind value for 2026, so that no remuneration subject to tax and social security contributions arises in this respect.

Mini-jobbers and marginally employed persons
If the employer provides his employees with free or reduced-price meals, he must be particularly careful with his mini-jobbers to ensure that the remuneration limit is not exceeded. This is because the values of the Social Security Remuneration Ordinance also apply to mini-jobbers, as they are part of taxable wages.

Practical example:
A restaurant owner employs a waitress on the basis of a mini-job in 2026. The waitress receives € 550 per month. If she regularly receives free dinners, her total remuneration amounts to € 687 (€ 550 salary plus € 137 benefit in kind for the dinners). The € 603 limit is therefore exceeded by € 84 per month.

The application of the values is mandatory: This applies even if the values of the Social Security Remuneration Ordinance are not considered appropriate. In the case of free or reduced-price meals, at least the non-cash remuneration values must always be applied. This applies even if the employment contract specifies a different value on the basis of a company agreement or collective agreement.

Note: In principle, even marginally employed persons Entitlement to all benefits that full-time employees receive. This means that mini-jobbers may not be arbitrarily excluded from discounted meals simply in order not to exceed the remuneration limit. A deviating regulation is therefore a violation of the prohibition of discrimination under Section 4 of the Part-Time and Fixed-Term Employment Act. As a result, the exclusion of mini-jobbers from discounted meals is invalid.