Internship, apprenticeship, student job: what’s tax-exempt (and up to how much)
Internship pay, apprentice salary, student jobs: the exact exemption caps for 2025 income in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Germany — and the prefilled-amount trap.
France: three caps to know (2025 income)
Internship pay: exempt from income tax up to €21,622 for 2025 (the annual minimum wage). Only the portion above that is declared, like an ordinary salary.
Apprentice salary: same €21,622 cap. The March 2025 reform you may have heard about only concerns social contributions on new contracts (CSG above 50% of the minimum wage) — the income tax exemption cap hasn’t changed.
Student job: if you were under 26 on January 1, 2025, your wages are exempt up to €5,405 (three monthly minimum wages). This exemption can be combined with an internship or apprenticeship exemption in the same year, and also applies if you’re attached to your parents’ tax household.
Bonus: overtime is exempt up to €7,500 per year (dedicated box 1GH, not 1AJ), and civic service allowances are fully exempt — they don’t even have to be declared.
The trap: the prefilled amount
This is THE point that costs money every year: the tax authority prefills the return with wages reported by the employer — including the exempt portion. For student jobs, the exemption is optional: if you don’t correct the prefilled amount yourself (subtracting up to €5,405), you pay tax on money that should escape it.
For internships and apprenticeships, check too: depending on how the employer reported, the exempt portion may appear in the prefilled figures. Only declare the excess above the cap.
Luxembourg: student jobs can be tax-free
For a pupil or student aged 15 to 27 hired during school holidays (2 months or 346 hours maximum per calendar year, all contracts combined), the employer can ask the RTS office for an exemption from wage tax withholding — granted if pay doesn’t exceed €16 per hour.
In practice: you receive the full salary, nothing to do tax-wise. If pay exceeds €16/h or the employer didn’t apply, withholding applies normally.
Belgium: 650 hours and two caps to watch
The student-work quota with reduced social contributions (2.71% instead of ordinary contributions) is 650 hours per year since January 1, 2025 — track your counter on studentatwork.be.
Tax-wise, two separate caps: your annual net resources must not exceed €12,000 (2025 income) to remain a tax dependent of your parents — beyond that, they lose the tax advantage; and as long as your taxable income stays under the exempt threshold (€10,910 for 2025 income), you pay no tax yourself.
Germany: the Minijob, exempt by design
The German Minijob is capped at €556 per month in 2025, rising to €603 per month in 2026 (the cap automatically tracks the minimum wage, €13.90/h in 2026). Within that limit, the employee pays neither tax nor contributions — useful for cross-border students or frontier workers’ children working on the German side.
Frequently asked questions
My apprentice child is attached to our household: where do we declare their salary?
In the dependent’s boxes (1CJ/1DJ), for the portion above €21,622 only. If they earned less, there’s nothing to declare at all for that salary — check that the prefilled figures don’t include part of it.
I had an internship AND a student job in 2025: do both exemptions stack?
Yes: internship pay is exempt up to €21,622 and, separately, student-job wages up to €5,405 (if you were under 26 on January 1). Each exemption applies to its own type of income.
Does a professionalization contract get the apprentice exemption?
No — a classic trap: the €21,622 exemption is reserved for APPRENTICESHIP contracts. Pay from a professionalization contract is taxable from the first euro, like an ordinary salary.