The long-term care insurance ("Pflegeversicherung"), which is directly linked to and automatically taken out together with the health insurance cover, is part of the statutory social security contributions. The pertinent legislation can be found in Book XI of the German Social Code ("Sozialgesetzbuch"). Long-term care insurance helps people who are in need of care and dependent on other people's assistance. It covers domestic and in-patient care.
Contributions to the long-term care insurance are deducted automatically from the employee's gross salary. Pursuant to § 55 para. 1 of SGB XI, they amount to 3.4% of the employee's income (as of January 2024). As a rule, the employer pays half the contributions for the long-term care insurance (currently 1.7%), the employee the other half.
Childless employees from the age of 23 pay a surcharge of 0.6% (as of January 2024) of their gross salary on top of this (§ 55 para. 3 SGB XI). The employer registers the employee with the respective health insurance provider who then automatically forwards the registration to all the other social security providers.