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. That term survived the July 2026 reform unchanged, so a Regelbedarf figure quoted from before the reform is still the right kind of number, even where the name of the benefit around it is not.
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 reviewed each year. For 2026 they were left unchanged from the previous year. The standard rate (Regelbedarfsstufe 1, a single adult) is 563 EUR per month. Each partner in a two-person household counts at 506 EUR per month, so 1,012 EUR for a couple before rent and insurance. Children are set at lower, age-based rates ranging from roughly 357 to 471 EUR, and the exact band depends on the child's age.
The rates were not adjusted when the reformed system took effect on 1 July 2026 either, so the same figures carried across the change of name.
What the July 2026 reform changed, and what it didn't
Buergergeld ended on 30 June 2026. From 1 July 2026 the benefit for employable claimants is called Grundsicherungsgeld, under a reformed Grundsicherung fuer Arbeitsuchende. The legal basis is the 13th act amending SGB II, passed in March 2026 and promulgated in April. If you are reading a guide that still says Buergergeld, that is your signal to check the date on everything else it tells you.
For this calculation, most of it is noise. The comparison method is unchanged, Regelbedarf is still the anchor, and the rates are the same numbers as before. The reform tightened obligations, sanctions and the treatment of savings, none of which enters the residence-permit formula.
The one change that touches this formula
The Karenzzeit on housing costs was abolished. Under the old rules, actual housing costs were covered for an initial period regardless of whether they were appropriate for the household. That grace period is gone, and appropriateness is assessed from the start. For the residence-permit calculation this does not move the bar, because the authority was already comparing against appropriate housing costs rather than whatever rent you happen to pay. What it removes is an argument: nobody can now point at the grace period to suggest that a high rent should count in full. Rent above the local appropriateness threshold was always the weakest part of a borderline file, and it is now unambiguously so.
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 Erwerbstaetigenfreibetrag (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 BAfoeG do not count as "reliance on public funds" and do not damage the application. Benefits based on contributions, meaning statutory health and pension insurance and ALG I, are likewise not held against you. This matters for student sponsors in particular, where BAfoeG 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 Verpflichtungserklaerung (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, because 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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