What income counts for a WBS in Berlin?

The gross income the household expects over the next twelve months, which the office can also take from the last twelve months. Kindergeld does not count. From that gross figure it deducts the Werbungskosten allowance, which for anyone on a payslip is the 1,230 euro employee lump sum and is claimed once per earner, then up to three separate ten percent deductions: one for income tax, one for compulsory health and care insurance, and one for compulsory pension contributions. Someone on a normal German contract pays all three, so thirty percent of the remainder comes off. Only after that do any Freibetraege apply.

How much can you earn and still get a WBS in Berlin?

More than most people think. A single employee clears the WBS 100 on about 18,370 euro gross a year, the WBS 140 on about 25,230 euro, the WBS 160 on about 28,660 euro, the WBS 180 on about 32,090 euro and the WBS 220 on about 38,940 euro. Two adults both on payslips with no children clear the WBS 180 on roughly 48,750 euro between them, and two adults with two children clear it on about 72,400 euro. These are gross figures for the standard employee case; a freelancer or a pensioner loses fewer of the ten percent deductions and therefore has a lower gross ceiling.

What is the difference between WBS 100, 140, 160, 180 and 220?

They are the same federal income limit raised by different amounts. WBS 100 is the limit exactly as section 9 of the Wohnraumfoerderungsgesetz writes it: 12,000 euro for a single household, 18,000 for two people, 4,100 for each further person and 500 more per child. Berlin is allowed to raise that by up to 80 percent, so WBS 140 adds 40 percent, WBS 160 adds 60 percent, WBS 180 adds 80 percent and a narrow WBS 220 adds 120 percent for a small slice of newer flats. Almost every social flat in Berlin asks for a WBS 100 or a WBS 140; the higher bands cover newer subsidised blocks and buying a share in a housing cooperative.

Can a flatshare apply for a WBS together?

No. A joint application is only possible for people who are related or who sign a Partnerschaftserklaerung, and several individual certificates cannot be combined into one. If three friends want one large flat, each of them is treated as a one person household with a one person income limit and a one person size entitlement. This is the rule that quietly ends the most searches in Berlin, and it is worth knowing before anyone signs a viewing list.

How big a flat does a WBS allow?

One room per person is the basic rule, so a couple with three children may take a flat with five rooms. Since May 2018 a single person may also take a one and a half or two room flat with a total floor area of up to 50 square metres. Someone over 65 who gives up a three room flat in Berlin can be issued a certificate for a two room one. Extra space beyond that is possible in individual cases, for a disability, a serious health need, or work that genuinely requires a separate room.

How long does a WBS last and what does it cost?

It is free, there is no fee in any district, and it is normally valid for one year. That makes applying long before you intend to move pointless, because the certificate will expire while you are still searching. Once issued it is valid across the whole of Berlin, whichever district processed it, so you can apply to any landlord in the city with it.

Where do you apply for a WBS in Berlin?

At the Buergeramt or Wohnungsamt of the district where you are registered, by post or online. If you are moving to Berlin from elsewhere you may send the application to any Berlin housing office you choose. The two documents that hold applications up are both about money: the Einkommenserklaerung, which every adult in the household fills in and signs separately, and the Einkommensbescheinigung, which your employer completes and signs. Request the employer form first, because that is the one that waits in somebody's inbox.

Does a WBS actually get you a flat?

No. It is permission to apply, not an allocation and not a place on a waiting list. Berlin counted about 95,000 social rental flats at the start of 2019 and the Senate's own projection puts the stock at roughly 59,000 by the start of 2028 as old subsidy agreements expire, with new construction meant to hold the line. The certificate costs nothing and takes twenty minutes, so the sensible order is to get it first and then search, instead of filtering out every listing marked WBS erforderlich on an assumption about your own income.

WBS Berlin: The Income Limit Is Not Your Salary

Yusuf Ucuz

Sep 14

7 min read

Try to check whether you qualify for a Wohnberechtigungsschein today and the city's own page tells you it cannot help. The Senate's WBS calculator has been taken down for rebuilding, and the page now sends you off to the calculators run by Gewobag and degewo instead. Checked on 14 September 2026, that notice is still sitting at the top of the official WBS service page.

Which is a shame, because the number that decides everything is not one most people can work out in their head. It is not your salary.

The paperwork is free, it takes about twenty minutes, and the certificate is valid for a year. The reason people skip it is almost always the same: they looked up an income limit, saw 12,000 euro for one person, compared it with their payslip and closed the tab.

That comparison is wrong, and it is wrong by a lot.

What a WBS in Berlin is, and what it is not

A Wohnberechtigungsschein is a certificate saying your household is allowed to rent a subsidised flat. It is not a flat, it is not a waiting-list place, and it gives you no automatic claim to anything. It is the key that lets you knock.

Three things about it are worth fixing in your head before anything else.

It costs nothing. There is no fee, in any district.
It normally runs for one year, so applying two years before a move achieves nothing.
Once issued it is valid across all twelve districts, whichever Bürgeramt or Wohnungsamt processed it.

You need to be 18, to hold German or EU citizenship or a residence permit valid for at least a year, and to be staying in Berlin for something more than a visit. The office reads that last one as roughly eleven months.

An aerial view of the Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin-Britz, the horseshoe-shaped white housing block curving around a green courtyard and a small pond, with rows of red-roofed terraced houses beyond

The Hufeisensiedlung in Britz, built by Bruno Taut from 1925. Berlin has been building flats for people on ordinary incomes for a hundred years, and the certificate that lets you into them reaches further up the income scale than almost anyone assumes.

The income the Wohnungsamt tests is not your salary

Here is the part that changes the answer.

The office starts with the gross income the household expects over the next twelve months, and Kindergeld does not count as income at all. Then it takes things off, in this order:

The Werbungskosten allowance. For anyone on a payslip that is the employee lump sum of 1,230 euro a year, set by section 9a of the income tax act, and each earner gets it.
Up to three separate ten percent deductions, for income tax, for compulsory health and care contributions, and for compulsory pension contributions. Someone on a normal German payslip pays all three, so thirty percent of the remainder disappears before anyone compares anything.
Then the Freibeträge: 600 euro per child under twelve for a working single parent, 4,000 euro for a couple married within the last five calendar years where neither has turned 40, 4,500 euro where a household member has a recognised degree of disability of 100, and maintenance you are legally obliged to pay.

Run a single person on 32,000 euro gross through that and the office measures 21,539 euro. That is the number it puts against the line.

A long line of white 1960s tower blocks at the Märkisches Viertel in Berlin-Reinickendorf, seen across a wide flat green field under a pale sky

The Märkisches Viertel in Reinickendorf, about 17,000 flats built from 1963. Most of Berlin's social housing stock is this generation, and most of it asks for the two lowest certificate bands.

Five lines, not one limit

The federal figures in section 9 of the Wohnraumförderungsgesetz are 12,000 euro for one person, 18,000 for two, 4,100 for each further household member and 500 more per child. Berlin then raises them, by law, by up to 80 percent. So the city issues five certificates, not one:

WBS 100, the federal line as written: 12,000 euro for a single household.
WBS 140, raised by 40 percent: 16,800 euro.
WBS 160, raised by 60 percent: 19,200 euro.
WBS 180, raised by 80 percent: 21,600 euro, and this band also covers buying a share in a housing cooperative.
WBS 220, a narrow band for a small slice of newer flats: 26,400 euro.

Now put the deductions back in and read the gross figures, because those are the ones you can check against your own contract. A single employee in Berlin clears:

WBS 100 up to about 18,370 euro gross a year.
WBS 140 up to about 25,230 euro.
WBS 180 up to about 32,090 euro, which is 2,670 euro a month before tax.
WBS 220 up to about 38,940 euro.

Two adults both on payslips, no children, clear a WBS 180 on roughly 48,750 euro between them. Two adults with two children clear the same band on about 72,400 euro. That is a household income a lot of people in this city would describe as comfortable, and it still sits inside the certificate.

Work out which band your household lands in

The WBS income ladder above does the subtraction in front of you. Tell it who is in the household, roughly what the household earns before tax and how that money arrives, and it draws your gross year as a single column, strips off the allowance and the percentages in visible layers, and marks where the remainder lands against all five Berlin lines.

The point of the picture is the gap between the top of the column and the dark part at the bottom. That gap is the reason so many people rule themselves out on a number that was never the test.

What the certificate will not do for you

This is where honesty earns its keep, because a WBS solves less than the internet suggests.

A flatshare cannot apply together. Three friends looking for one big flat cannot file a joint application, and separate certificates cannot be pooled. A joint application needs people who are related or who sign a Partnerschaftserklärung. For a city this full of shared flats, that single rule quietly closes the door on a lot of searches.

The flat has to fit. One room per person is the rule. A single person may take a one and a half or two room flat up to 50 square metres, and anyone over 65 who gives up a three room flat can get a certificate for a two room one. Beyond that you are arguing a hardship case.

The high bands open fewer doors. Almost every social flat in Berlin asks for a WBS 100 or a WBS 140. The 160, 180 and 220 bands belong to the newer subsidised blocks and to cooperative shares. Qualifying easily and qualifying usefully are two different things.

A courtyard between white residential blocks at the Gewobag Wohnpark in Berlin-Mariendorf, young trees and a paved path between five and eight storey buildings under a cloudy sky

Newer subsidised blocks like this Gewobag estate in Mariendorf are where the higher certificate bands actually get used. They are a thin slice of the stock, not the bulk of it.

And the pool is shrinking. The Senate's own social housing page still works from the last full count it published: about 95,000 social rental flats at the start of 2019, with a projection down to roughly 59,000 by the start of 2028 as old subsidy agreements expire. New construction is meant to hold the line. It has not yet reversed it.

How to apply, and the two things that hold it up

Send the application to the Bürgeramt or Wohnungsamt of the district where you are registered, or file it online. Moving to Berlin from elsewhere, pick any Berlin housing office you like.

What actually slows applications down is paperwork about money, not paperwork about you:

The Einkommenserklärung has to be filled in and signed by every adult in the household, one form each.
The Einkommensbescheinigung has to be completed and signed by your employer. That is the one that sits in somebody's inbox for two weeks, so ask for it first, not last.

Everything else is copies: identity documents for everyone named, birth certificates for children, a semester certificate if you study, the disability pass if one applies.

The curved pale facade of the Bürgeramt building on Hohenzollerndamm in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, seven storeys of rows of windows above a gravel forecourt

The Bürgeramt on Hohenzollerndamm in Wilmersdorf, one of the offices that issues the certificate. The application itself is free and the queue is for the form, not for the flat.

My advice

Apply, even if you are fairly sure you are above the line. The check takes twenty minutes, the certificate costs nothing, and the worst outcome is a letter telling you a number you did not know.

I have watched people spend a year on Immobilienscout filtering out every listing marked WBS erforderlich because they assumed those flats were not for them, on an income that would have cleared a WBS 140. Berlin rents rose around them the whole time.

Get the certificate first, then search. And if the band comes back as 160 or 180, treat the housing cooperatives as the real prize rather than the social listings: that band is what lets you buy in.

A row of terraced houses in the Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin-Britz painted deep red, with clipped hedges, a wisteria in flower and a bench in the front garden

The red row on the edge of the Britz horseshoe. These were built as affordable rented housing and still are, which is the whole argument for keeping the certificate system alive.

Once you have the certificate, the rest of the tenancy rules matter more than most people expect. Two worth knowing before you sign: what a landlord can legally do to your rent after you move in, and which lines on the annual service charge bill you are allowed to argue with.

A brown brick 1970s residential block on Hermannstrasse in the Rollbergsiedlung, Berlin-Neukölln, with shops and a supermarket sign along the ground floor and parked cars in front

The Rollbergsiedlung on Hermannstrasse in Neukölln. Ordinary, occupied, and exactly the kind of address the certificate was written for.

Image credits

Source and licence details for the 6 photographs used in this article.

An aerial view of the Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin-Britz: A.Savin, Wikipedia, Free Art License 1.3, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Märkisches Viertel seen across a field in Berlin-Reinickendorf: Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The courtyard of the Gewobag Wohnpark in Berlin-Mariendorf: Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Bürgeramt building on Hohenzollerndamm in Berlin-Wilmersdorf: Sebastian Rittau, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A red terraced row in the Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin-Britz: Neuköllner, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A Rollbergsiedlung block on Hermannstrasse in Berlin-Neukölln: Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.