What the self-employed and small businesses contribute

The self-employed

Counted in the microcensus, Germany’s household survey: people who are self-employed in their main job. Anyone self-employed only on the side isn’t included.

3.6m

people in Germany were self-employed in their main job in 2024.^{2Selbstständige, IfM Bonn, nach dem Mikrozensus des Statistischen Bundesamtes, 2024.}

8.4%

of everyone in work was self-employed in 2024. Counted in the microcensus, which finds fewer people in work than the figure above.^{2Selbstständige, IfM Bonn, nach dem Mikrozensus des Statistischen Bundesamtes, 2024.}

50.6%

of the self-employed worked alone in 2024, without employees. That’s 1.8 million solo self-employed people.^{2Selbstständige, IfM Bonn, nach dem Mikrozensus des Statistischen Bundesamtes, 2024.}

49.4%

employed other people in 2024, also around 1.8 million.^{2Selbstständige, IfM Bonn, nach dem Mikrozensus des Statistischen Bundesamtes, 2024.}

38%

of all self-employed people ran a business of 2 to 10 people in 2024, counting themselves. 11 per cent ran a larger one.^{2Selbstständige, IfM Bonn, nach dem Mikrozensus des Statistischen Bundesamtes, 2024.}

1.49m

self-employed people worked in the liberal professions at the start of 2025, as doctors, lawyers, architects or artists, for example. They’re counted by a different method, so they aren’t a subset of the 3.6 million.^{3Freie Berufe, IfM Bonn, nach Berechnungen des Instituts für Freie Berufe Nürnberg, 2025.}

A third

of self-employed people in 2024 were women: 1.2 million, alongside 2.4 million men.^{2Selbstständige, IfM Bonn, nach dem Mikrozensus des Statistischen Bundesamtes, 2024.}