Employers register and pay income tax

The ELStAM are initially generated directly from the registration data stored by the local registration authorities. This applies in particular to the tax class, which depends in particular on whether the employee is single or married/partnered, the number of child allowances and the religious characteristic.

At the employee's request, the tax office can add certain other individual tax bases (e.g. allowances for income-related expenses) or change them (e.g. change of tax class for spouses/partners working on both sides, tax class combinations IV/IV and III/V). The employee will be informed by the employer in their payslip about the ELStAM taken into account by the employer when deducting income tax. In the event of discrepancies or questions about the stored ELStAM, employees should contact their local tax office.

Please contact the tax office responsible for you.

• Tax office search at the Federal Central Tax Office

For ELStAM, employers need an organization certificate from "My ELSTER" and a payroll program that supports ELStAM.

• ELSTER

Your local tax office will inform you about the documents required in individual cases.

To add a new employee to the system, the following information is required from the employee:

• Date of birth
• Tax identification number
• Type of employment relationship (main employment relationship: tax class 1 to 5 or secondary employment relationship: tax class 6).

Changes to the ELStAM with effect for the following calendar year can be taken into account from November 1 and changes for the current calendar year can be taken into account until November 30.

• §§ Sections 38 - 39e of the Income Tax Act (EStG)

The analog wage tax card was finally replaced by the "Electronic Wage TaxDeduction Characteristics" database in 2013.

30.01.2025