The family income gate: what "stable income" actually means in numbers.
Every family-reunion guide tells you the sponsor needs "sufficient" or "stable" income. None of them tell you how the authority calculates it - and the calculation is not a round number you can look up. It is a formula: your household's legal needs, set against your countable net income. Clear the formula and the gate opens. Guess at it, and you find out you were short only after the appointment.
This is the gate that decides most family-reunion cases that aren't decided by the language rule, and it is the one applicants understand worst. The legal basis is §5 (1) no. 1 read with §2 (3) AufenthG: a residence title generally requires that the family's livelihood is secured without recourse to public funds. The word doing the work is "secured" - and the authority measures it against the German benefit system, not against a feeling that your salary seems fine.
The standard is not "do you earn a normal wage." It is "does your countable net income cover what your household would be entitled to claim in benefits." If your income clears that bar, your livelihood is secured. If it doesn't, it isn't - regardless of how stable the job is.
The Regelbedarf formula, in plain terms
The authority builds your household's "need" (Bedarf) from three components, then compares it to your countable net income. The need side is anchored to the Regelbedarf - the standard benefit rates under SGB II - which is why the calculation is precise rather than vague.
Notice what this means: there is no single "magic number" for a couple or a family. The required income rises with your rent and your household size and falls with cheaper, appropriate housing. Two couples in different cities with the same salary can land on opposite sides of the gate purely because of rent.
The benefit rates that feed the formula are fixed by ordinance and adjusted each year. For the current year, the standard rate (Regelbedarfsstufe 1, a single adult) is 563 EUR/month, and each partner in a two-person household counts at 506 EUR/month. Children are set at lower, age-based rates. These figures were left unchanged from the previous year.
One naming change to expect: the benefit system (Bürgergeld) is being restructured and renamed during 2026. The calculation method described above does not change with the name - only the label and the published rates do. Always confirm the rate currently in force.
Why your net salary is not your countable income
The most expensive misunderstanding is treating your full take-home pay as the number that counts. It isn't. The law applies specific deductions before income counts toward the formula, and one of them catches almost everyone.
The employment allowance trap
In the ordinary case, an Erwerbstätigenfreibetrag (employment allowance) is subtracted from earned income before it counts - which lowers your countable income and raises the bar you have to clear. There is an important exception: where reunion falls under the EU Family Reunification Directive, the case law holds that this employment allowance must not be deducted against the applicant. Whether your case runs under the Directive or under the general AufenthG rule changes the math, and it is one of the points generic guides miss entirely.
What does not count against you
Some public money is explicitly harmless. Kindergeld, Kinderzuschlag, Eltern- and Erziehungsgeld, and BAföG do not count as "reliance on public funds" and do not damage the application. Benefits based on contributions - statutory health and pension insurance, and ALG I (contribution-based unemployment) - are likewise not held against you. This matters for student sponsors in particular, where BAföG is in play.
When one income isn't enough
If the sponsor's income alone doesn't close the gap, two routes exist. The joining spouse's expected income can be considered where they will work - and for many tracks that is realistic, because some joining spouses gain immediate labour-market access. A third party can also sign a Verpflichtungserklärung (formal declaration of commitment) to cover the shortfall. Where both spouses commit, both incomes can be counted together, but that needs two declarations.
Stop looking for the magic income number - there isn't one. Build the actual sum: standard rate for each person, plus your appropriate rent and heating, plus health insurance, minus your countable net income after the required deductions. If the result is zero or below, the livelihood is secured. Run it before you sign a lease, because rent is the lever that moves the bar most - and check whether your case runs under the EU Directive, because that decides whether the employment allowance is held against you. The gate is arithmetic, not impression.
The full family-reunion journey, end to end.
Family Access maps the entire path: the income gate with the Regelbedarf calculation worked through for each track, the Visa Matrix across Blue Card, skilled-worker and student-sponsor routes, the housing and insurance thresholds, and documented scenarios for when rent, household size, or a deduction quietly puts you under the bar.
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