Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt has presented a draft bill for new civil servant pay. This is his response to a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG), in which it found that the salaries of civil servants in Berlin had been too low for years and were therefore unconstitutional (Ref.: 2 BvL 5/18 of 17 September 2025). In the course of this decision, the BVerfG established new principles and called for a reform of civil servant salaries. In future, the minimum salary should be based on the Median equivalent income which is regarded as the precariousness threshold.

The draft bill from the Federal Ministry of the Interior now provides for salaries to be more closely aligned with the general cost of living and wage trends in the private sector. In addition to a linear adjustment, key changes include higher starting salaries and a reorganisation of family allowances, which are based on a dual-earner model for the minimum salary. The draft bill also provides for additional payments to compensate for the underfunding of previous years. The reform proposal will cause considerable additional costs. For this year alone, the additional expenditure is estimated at 3.39 billion euros.