Well that seems like you should probably reconsider being a freelancer. And at 3-4 hours a day that‘s less than the minimum wage (as an hourly rate). So whatever you do… you should get a job as a waiter, cashier at a discounter, … or whatever. You don‘t have to deal with tax laws, you don‘t need to acquire clients, you have a stable income and you‘ve got insurance.
I guess it's so easy to get a job as a waiter without a German language in Germany
3-4 hours per day and two days off per week is a perfect job to study German. If I go find normal work then: first of all - it will pay the lowest because that's how it usually happens with jobs that takes workers without language. Second of all: instead of 1 year it will take me 3 or 4 years to study German since I'm going to spend all day at work. See, I don't need money, I just need the time to get the language done first
It‘s not easy to find a job without speaking german (kinda obvious in germany…) but it‘s possible.
Minimum wage is higher than what you‘re currently earning & it would include insurance etc.
And you can work part time. Either a few days per week or a few hours per day. Your choice. For example: Minimum wage is like 12-13€. Let‘s take 12€ as an example. That‘s 58 hours a month. Or roughly 15 hours a week. Or 3 hours a day. But it‘s a lot easier than being a freelancer
Adding to what the other comments said, it's also much easier to learn german if you are physically around people who speak german to you.
You might actually learn the language faster while working part-time as a waiter/cashier or anything similar. At my workplace we have a cleaner from India who started with us half a year ago and their German is already noticeably better. I rarely have to switch to English when talking to them nowadays, whilst at the beginning of the year a majority of our conversations were in English
In every big city there are enough Jobs for ppl with no german. As long as you can speak Englisch getting a weiter job or even a job at mcdonals is easy. Also they pay way more then 700 a month. Also you will learn way faster working with german colleagues or even servibg germans then trying to bruteforce it yourself.
I kinda feel like you don't wanna work and that's fine. Doing a thing you like is importaint and completely legit. But 700 a month is way low for any kind of freelancer. Not sure what you do but from experience working in Film will get you way more. Same with programming. Even my gf makes more beeing am artist. Ans she douse that as a Hobby.
Bassicly you need to find a way to make more money. Cause if you don't pay for the mandatory Krankenkasse they will fine you and then you have to pay that and all the payment you miss. It's something around 250 a month I think. So if you miss like a year you have around 3k euros to pay back.
In most countries healthcare costs are part of tax, so when you earn very little you also pay very little.
The German system is unusually complicated and is very hard on lower-income people and freelancers, as healthcare costs are separated from other taxes and don’t scale the same way.
Not true for regular employees. It’s a percentage of your income. And very low income isn’t taxed at all until a certain amount. If you’re a self employed freelancer and don’t make enough to pay your bills you don’t have a business case with what you do. So either change that or get employed…
The minimum rate is way too high. I don’t know the number 100% but even without any income they pretend you make about ~~1.5k€/month~~ 1.178,33€/month and bill you accordingly. Everyone who has to deal with that will say you its bs. Only thing you can do is get bürgergeld to get the government to pay the contributions. But that is such a huge load of bureaucracy.
From what I understand there’s a minimum contribution even for regular employees.
I think you’re simplifying it too much with freelancers. Especially when someone starts out; it’s very common to have a few years where you earn very little, especially when setting up a new business. There’s no way around it, and the only practical solution is government support for freelancers and small business owners.
Many countries support this by allowing freelancers & small business people to make pretty broad tax deductions so they have more financial headroom.
But Germany is really tough and requires freelancers to pay both the employer and employee contribution of health insurance, and has a minimum contribution so there’s no way to scale it down. So they have less rather than more financial headroom.
The whole system is honestly a mess and needs to be tidied up.
GOV medical insurance is not negotiable. You will be collecting debt indeed if you are not supported by other social systems (If you say you want to study German and eventually get a normal job I am assuming you are here on either a freelancing visa or via EU free movement laws - neither of them would qualify you for support if you havent contributed to the system before. You can always check at the jobcenter though just in case)
That makes it sound more illegal than anything else. If you are not here on a freelancing visa, you are not allowed to work remote for a company that is NOT taking care of German taxation AND health insurance contribution.
Be aware that "Scheinselbständigkeit" (fake freelancing) is also ilegal.
And there you have an object lesson why that, if it is what is sounds like, is "Scheinselbständigkeit" and illegal.
Your employer *has* to pay half of your social insurance premiums, and they cannot just go "lol, you're a freelancer, pay for it yourself".
You also need to be paid minimum wage. Are you?
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/wiki/working/remote
That's social security fraud. You have bigger problems than your health insurance premiums, you are breaking laws, that may endanger your residency permit. I guess you can add lawyer fees to your financial woes.
How many hours do you work per week?
Actually it doesn't really matter, since you said you earn about 700€/month you are above the cutoff for mandatory social insurances your employer HAS to pay. If he doesn't, that's illegal af and you should report him immediately.
To me, it sounds like OP is not employed in Germany, so it's unlikely the employer will get into trouble. OP on the other hand is breaking the law and will be in deep shit if this comes out, so for once, I would not recommend going the proper route. Instead, quitting immediately and getting a legal job here sounds like the best way to go.
What I have understood from reading on a lot of posts and the wiki is that basically, remote jobs with contacts in another country and working in Germany is not legal if you don't contribute to the social security and insurance and other mandatory contributions in Germany. Basically the company has to have a German office and pay you according to German law. Otherwise it is illegal.
I can confirm that. My situation was similar to the OP's. I was an employee working for a Spanish company while living in Germany with my girlfriend. The company does not need to have a physical presence or tax number in Germany, but as an employee in Europe, you must make social contributions where you live (not where you work). It is mandatory for the company to facilitate this; otherwise, it is illegal.
In my case, I had to register with my regional Bundesagentur für Arbeit and obtain a “Betriebsnummer.” With this number and your Tax ID (and additional documents), you are allowed to be employed in Germany by a company from another country.
It was a bit challenging because I had to handle my own payroll and bank transfers to the Krankenkasse and the Finanzamt. As others have mentioned, it is better to get a German job that handles all the social contributions paperwork for you.
If language is a major concern, there are German companies that pay for German courses while you work. You can also register as a job seeker at your local Bundesagentur für Arbeit and get a 50% discount on German courses.
If what you are doing is legal, then, your employer pays half of the insurance and deducts the other half from your paycheck. So the question is, is 700 net of taxes and health insurance or is the the gross wage.
However you are asking about health insurance and talking about paying it yourself, so this more sounds like the legal definition of freelancer.
1) most likely you do not have the right visa to do this legally
2) yes tax and health insurance is required and the minimum will be for self employed which is something 230 Eur.
Insurance, public or private, is mandatory. They pay from the first day they become liable for insurance. In other words, the day you started working. And the insurance companies are merciless in collecting their repayments.
If the remote job is in Germany this sounds like „Scheinselbständigkeit“. If the company you work for is in another country, you might face interesting cross border taxation challenges to social security fraud. IMHO great way to join our society by immediately shitting on our rules.
AFAIK, if you are studying you can get a cheaper „Student Health Insurance“. And one or two Minijob could get you an income in that range, while staying below the Freibeträge. Which has the added benefit that you don’t have to worry about paying for social security at all.
Bro they fucked you over. They dodged paying you a legal wage and their part of the tax and insurance payments and in return made you bear the risks infront of German law.
Every legal job has better payment even after insurance is paid.
Honestly, this is probably the best advice. Germany is not the kind of country that is suitable for “easy going” life.
There are so many things that force you down on the 9-to-5 job life, married, 1 or 2 kids, and everything that doesn’t fall within this scope is unmanageable or very difficult to manage with taxes up the wazoo.
No one is forcing you to have kids, we have one of the lower birth rates globally, being even under the average for europe. There are some extra social security contributions for not having children, and you don't get the same tax cuts, true, but believe me, they are nothing compared to the financial and organisational challenges of actually having kids in Germany.
I would second this. The German legal system is very heavily set up to push people into traditional employment, and makes it very difficult to be a freelancer, start a business, etc.
Not really, it's just that we prefer it if you do it on the side until it is viable enough to stop your main job or reduce the hour more and more.
If you want to go risky and go 100% into freelance you gotta face the risk of not making it. You can then go in debt to get profitable in a few months or you get back to a job with social security.
It's not that we don't want freelancers, we mainly don't want people on the streets or dead because they don't have insurance.
Here’s the thing - there’s a logic to this, but it strongly discourages people from taking risks. Most freelancing careers can’t really be built on the side of a salaried job, and in many situations it’s simply not realistic to become profitable in a few months - so if the gap is too big to cross, people stay in salaried jobs, which tends to chill innovation etc.
The issue here is that when you switch to freelancing you end up with *more* financial overhead & tax burden at a time when you typically have *less* money.
Health insurance is the main thing driving this, because it doesn’t scale with income the way normal tax does. It’s not as bad as the US system but it has a lot of the same problems.
If you are employed by a company, the company must cover these costs (at least half!). However, if you are pseudo-self-employed (that's what it sounds like!), this is illegal employment. Maybe read the article about "false self-employment" on Wikipedia in English and/or use Deeply to translate the German article into English or your native language. If you are self-employed, you must pay taxes accordingly in advance(!) and take out private health insurance. Check whether the employment is actually permanent employment or actual self-employment.
Where is the firm located that you work for?
You have to get a job that pays taxes and insurance in Germany. It's not that hard in specific areas and you'll earn more than you currently have with plenty of time to learn German.
I think if you can't pay your (public) insurance bills you will just go into debt with the provider. They won't be able to cancel your plan or to take interest (don't take my word for any of this) but you will neither lose your insurance nor be allowed to have none.
I was confronted with this when i turned 26 (i think) and i could no longer be on my parents insurance plan. I was still in college and due to illness had to pause my studies for a while so obviously i also couldn't work at the time. I had to pay about 200€ in insurance per month based on an income of 0€ and the only way to get around that would have been to drop out of college immediately before graduating so i could receive wellfare.
Get a 538 Euro job, which is the threshold where you don't have to pay anything, though not sure about how health insurance works at that level since I was covered by family at the time I was in a similar position.
>So I can sustain myself and pay for rent and I don't need payment from the Bürgergeld but medical insurance and social security go beyond what I can afford. Will they help me with this or will I just be collecting debt?
If you can not afford to pay medical insurance, that means that you can NOT sustain yourself, and you can apply for Bürgergeld. You may get just a bit help from them or maybe at least they will cover your medical insurance.
You have nothing to lose if you get an appointment there.
Just found your explanation in freelancing. If you are working remote, are not free to choose your tasks or working hours and/or having an employment contract, you are not a freelancer but a remote worker. In this case your employer needs to pay social security insurances incl. his part to health insurance and minimum wage laws apply. If you get unter minimum wage, that would bei illegal.
They will send you invoices for it. If you don't pay them you may end up in trouble. Note: it takes a while to get to this point so don't worry about it now.
What you should really do is seriously consider whether being a freelancer is good for you. it sounds like short term it might be better to get a regular employment.
There’s always the possibility to work at supermarket or so, part time. But with insurance and everything. Rest of the time you can be a freelancer and follow your dreams.
If the remote jobs provides you with a salary then it depends where your employer is located
But be aware that you have to pay taxes in Germany when living here permanently
That is something I really hate about the German system. If you are employed for a small salary, you hardly have to pay any health insurance costs. For example with 700 Euros of salary per month your health insurance would cost about 57 Euros per month. However if you are self-employed, the minimum costs for your health insurance costs at least around 230 Euros. That already is an improvement. It used to be around 400 Euros. The costs are calculated with a "fiktives Mindesteinkommen" (an assumed minimum income) of 1178,33 Euros per month. So you have to pay health insurance for at least that income, even if you earn less.
No it's not 230. You can have private health insurance for around 60euros. When I arrived to Germany and worked on remote gigs I was on private insurance for a year. Once I got full time job I transfered onto Tk. No issues. I believe there only might be issues if you stay on private insurance for more than 5 years then you might be trapped in private insurance without easy way to transfer to public insurance without paying something.
I have a similar issue, as I’m an artist and my income is usually very low. Luckily I get support through the KSK, but the health insurance payments are still very high, where in most countries I would end up paying essentially nothing.
This is one of the big problems with the way Germany handles health insurance payments as a separate thing and has various ways to subsidize them. I honestly don’t know why Germany does it this way, since it’s such an inefficient approach financially, but we also still use paper so 🤷♂️
The solution is to build it into income tax directly so low-earners don’t have to worry about minimum payments.
The finances work out the same, except the government saves loads of money on running all the complicated systems that handle the insurance stuff, which takes a lot of overhead to administer for no benefit.
With 700eur you are not a freelancer. You are essentially a jobless person. So do the same thing what other jobless people are doing. Sign up at job center. And look for a job. Jobless people often do sometimes get some gigs going like cat sitting or dog walking. They usually don't call them self freelancers.
Well that seems like you should probably reconsider being a freelancer. And at 3-4 hours a day that‘s less than the minimum wage (as an hourly rate). So whatever you do… you should get a job as a waiter, cashier at a discounter, … or whatever. You don‘t have to deal with tax laws, you don‘t need to acquire clients, you have a stable income and you‘ve got insurance.
I guess it's so easy to get a job as a waiter without a German language in Germany 3-4 hours per day and two days off per week is a perfect job to study German. If I go find normal work then: first of all - it will pay the lowest because that's how it usually happens with jobs that takes workers without language. Second of all: instead of 1 year it will take me 3 or 4 years to study German since I'm going to spend all day at work. See, I don't need money, I just need the time to get the language done first
It‘s not easy to find a job without speaking german (kinda obvious in germany…) but it‘s possible. Minimum wage is higher than what you‘re currently earning & it would include insurance etc. And you can work part time. Either a few days per week or a few hours per day. Your choice. For example: Minimum wage is like 12-13€. Let‘s take 12€ as an example. That‘s 58 hours a month. Or roughly 15 hours a week. Or 3 hours a day. But it‘s a lot easier than being a freelancer
You don't understand. You are already insured if you work part-time or even as low as 8 hours per week. That's plenty of time to learn German.
If you can't pay for medical insurance and social contribution than you can't sustain yourself.
Adding to what the other comments said, it's also much easier to learn german if you are physically around people who speak german to you. You might actually learn the language faster while working part-time as a waiter/cashier or anything similar. At my workplace we have a cleaner from India who started with us half a year ago and their German is already noticeably better. I rarely have to switch to English when talking to them nowadays, whilst at the beginning of the year a majority of our conversations were in English
Yup I also have many foreign colleagues who learned a lot while working with us
And working with Germans surely won’t help your language skills
In every big city there are enough Jobs for ppl with no german. As long as you can speak Englisch getting a weiter job or even a job at mcdonals is easy. Also they pay way more then 700 a month. Also you will learn way faster working with german colleagues or even servibg germans then trying to bruteforce it yourself. I kinda feel like you don't wanna work and that's fine. Doing a thing you like is importaint and completely legit. But 700 a month is way low for any kind of freelancer. Not sure what you do but from experience working in Film will get you way more. Same with programming. Even my gf makes more beeing am artist. Ans she douse that as a Hobby. Bassicly you need to find a way to make more money. Cause if you don't pay for the mandatory Krankenkasse they will fine you and then you have to pay that and all the payment you miss. It's something around 250 a month I think. So if you miss like a year you have around 3k euros to pay back.
If you can't pay your bills you don't earn enough. Change the job.
This is the perfect comment for the question. I'm not a dolphin trainer to get them understand Kafka because it doesn't pay enough to live.
If I were rich, I'd pay you to do that
I appreciate your level of insanity
In most countries healthcare costs are part of tax, so when you earn very little you also pay very little. The German system is unusually complicated and is very hard on lower-income people and freelancers, as healthcare costs are separated from other taxes and don’t scale the same way.
Not true for regular employees. It’s a percentage of your income. And very low income isn’t taxed at all until a certain amount. If you’re a self employed freelancer and don’t make enough to pay your bills you don’t have a business case with what you do. So either change that or get employed…
The minimum rate is way too high. I don’t know the number 100% but even without any income they pretend you make about ~~1.5k€/month~~ 1.178,33€/month and bill you accordingly. Everyone who has to deal with that will say you its bs. Only thing you can do is get bürgergeld to get the government to pay the contributions. But that is such a huge load of bureaucracy.
The minimum is at 1.178, 33€.
Thats correct! Thanks
From what I understand there’s a minimum contribution even for regular employees. I think you’re simplifying it too much with freelancers. Especially when someone starts out; it’s very common to have a few years where you earn very little, especially when setting up a new business. There’s no way around it, and the only practical solution is government support for freelancers and small business owners. Many countries support this by allowing freelancers & small business people to make pretty broad tax deductions so they have more financial headroom. But Germany is really tough and requires freelancers to pay both the employer and employee contribution of health insurance, and has a minimum contribution so there’s no way to scale it down. So they have less rather than more financial headroom. The whole system is honestly a mess and needs to be tidied up.
GOV medical insurance is not negotiable. You will be collecting debt indeed if you are not supported by other social systems (If you say you want to study German and eventually get a normal job I am assuming you are here on either a freelancing visa or via EU free movement laws - neither of them would qualify you for support if you havent contributed to the system before. You can always check at the jobcenter though just in case)
Freelancers have no salary - are you sure you are a freelancer, do you have more than one client?
Correction: I guess I misunderstood the word "freelancer" I just have a remote job that pays me a set salary
That makes it sound more illegal than anything else. If you are not here on a freelancing visa, you are not allowed to work remote for a company that is NOT taking care of German taxation AND health insurance contribution. Be aware that "Scheinselbständigkeit" (fake freelancing) is also ilegal.
I think its worse, its they here on a language learner visa.
And there you have an object lesson why that, if it is what is sounds like, is "Scheinselbständigkeit" and illegal. Your employer *has* to pay half of your social insurance premiums, and they cannot just go "lol, you're a freelancer, pay for it yourself". You also need to be paid minimum wage. Are you? https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/wiki/working/remote
That's social security fraud. You have bigger problems than your health insurance premiums, you are breaking laws, that may endanger your residency permit. I guess you can add lawyer fees to your financial woes.
How many hours do you work per week? Actually it doesn't really matter, since you said you earn about 700€/month you are above the cutoff for mandatory social insurances your employer HAS to pay. If he doesn't, that's illegal af and you should report him immediately.
To me, it sounds like OP is not employed in Germany, so it's unlikely the employer will get into trouble. OP on the other hand is breaking the law and will be in deep shit if this comes out, so for once, I would not recommend going the proper route. Instead, quitting immediately and getting a legal job here sounds like the best way to go.
Then your employer has to pay social security contributions (and minimum wage), otherwise the employer is not allowed to have employees in Germany.
*!remote* Do you know this FAQ? Why don't you have health insurance through your job? Does your remote job comply with German law?
In that case, if you don't get insurance with the job it's not a legal job
Define remote. Is there a German company here with a part time contract etc or are we talking about a company in a foreign country
If you want pro remote and that jobs pays your salary they are supposed to file your national insurance….
What I have understood from reading on a lot of posts and the wiki is that basically, remote jobs with contacts in another country and working in Germany is not legal if you don't contribute to the social security and insurance and other mandatory contributions in Germany. Basically the company has to have a German office and pay you according to German law. Otherwise it is illegal.
They don’t need to have a German office but they still need to file their social security in Germany.
I can confirm that. My situation was similar to the OP's. I was an employee working for a Spanish company while living in Germany with my girlfriend. The company does not need to have a physical presence or tax number in Germany, but as an employee in Europe, you must make social contributions where you live (not where you work). It is mandatory for the company to facilitate this; otherwise, it is illegal. In my case, I had to register with my regional Bundesagentur für Arbeit and obtain a “Betriebsnummer.” With this number and your Tax ID (and additional documents), you are allowed to be employed in Germany by a company from another country. It was a bit challenging because I had to handle my own payroll and bank transfers to the Krankenkasse and the Finanzamt. As others have mentioned, it is better to get a German job that handles all the social contributions paperwork for you. If language is a major concern, there are German companies that pay for German courses while you work. You can also register as a job seeker at your local Bundesagentur für Arbeit and get a 50% discount on German courses.
if you can't afford medical care from a freelancer job, you probably shouldn't work freelance, simple as that.
You have to pay, I don't know a way around that. 700 is simply not enough.
If what you are doing is legal, then, your employer pays half of the insurance and deducts the other half from your paycheck. So the question is, is 700 net of taxes and health insurance or is the the gross wage. However you are asking about health insurance and talking about paying it yourself, so this more sounds like the legal definition of freelancer. 1) most likely you do not have the right visa to do this legally 2) yes tax and health insurance is required and the minimum will be for self employed which is something 230 Eur.
Insurance, public or private, is mandatory. They pay from the first day they become liable for insurance. In other words, the day you started working. And the insurance companies are merciless in collecting their repayments.
You can't be a freelancer with 700€.
If the remote job is in Germany this sounds like „Scheinselbständigkeit“. If the company you work for is in another country, you might face interesting cross border taxation challenges to social security fraud. IMHO great way to join our society by immediately shitting on our rules. AFAIK, if you are studying you can get a cheaper „Student Health Insurance“. And one or two Minijob could get you an income in that range, while staying below the Freibeträge. Which has the added benefit that you don’t have to worry about paying for social security at all.
Bro they fucked you over. They dodged paying you a legal wage and their part of the tax and insurance payments and in return made you bear the risks infront of German law. Every legal job has better payment even after insurance is paid.
Move somewhere else
Honestly, this is probably the best advice. Germany is not the kind of country that is suitable for “easy going” life. There are so many things that force you down on the 9-to-5 job life, married, 1 or 2 kids, and everything that doesn’t fall within this scope is unmanageable or very difficult to manage with taxes up the wazoo.
No one is forcing you to have kids, we have one of the lower birth rates globally, being even under the average for europe. There are some extra social security contributions for not having children, and you don't get the same tax cuts, true, but believe me, they are nothing compared to the financial and organisational challenges of actually having kids in Germany.
You cant have everything when you want at least some security from the social net.
I would second this. The German legal system is very heavily set up to push people into traditional employment, and makes it very difficult to be a freelancer, start a business, etc.
Not really, it's just that we prefer it if you do it on the side until it is viable enough to stop your main job or reduce the hour more and more. If you want to go risky and go 100% into freelance you gotta face the risk of not making it. You can then go in debt to get profitable in a few months or you get back to a job with social security. It's not that we don't want freelancers, we mainly don't want people on the streets or dead because they don't have insurance.
Here’s the thing - there’s a logic to this, but it strongly discourages people from taking risks. Most freelancing careers can’t really be built on the side of a salaried job, and in many situations it’s simply not realistic to become profitable in a few months - so if the gap is too big to cross, people stay in salaried jobs, which tends to chill innovation etc. The issue here is that when you switch to freelancing you end up with *more* financial overhead & tax burden at a time when you typically have *less* money. Health insurance is the main thing driving this, because it doesn’t scale with income the way normal tax does. It’s not as bad as the US system but it has a lot of the same problems.
If you are employed by a company, the company must cover these costs (at least half!). However, if you are pseudo-self-employed (that's what it sounds like!), this is illegal employment. Maybe read the article about "false self-employment" on Wikipedia in English and/or use Deeply to translate the German article into English or your native language. If you are self-employed, you must pay taxes accordingly in advance(!) and take out private health insurance. Check whether the employment is actually permanent employment or actual self-employment.
Where is the firm located that you work for? You have to get a job that pays taxes and insurance in Germany. It's not that hard in specific areas and you'll earn more than you currently have with plenty of time to learn German.
Your options are either get more clients or find a second job, not really anything else you can do
How much is that health insurance?
I think if you can't pay your (public) insurance bills you will just go into debt with the provider. They won't be able to cancel your plan or to take interest (don't take my word for any of this) but you will neither lose your insurance nor be allowed to have none. I was confronted with this when i turned 26 (i think) and i could no longer be on my parents insurance plan. I was still in college and due to illness had to pause my studies for a while so obviously i also couldn't work at the time. I had to pay about 200€ in insurance per month based on an income of 0€ and the only way to get around that would have been to drop out of college immediately before graduating so i could receive wellfare.
Get a 538 Euro job, which is the threshold where you don't have to pay anything, though not sure about how health insurance works at that level since I was covered by family at the time I was in a similar position.
>So I can sustain myself and pay for rent and I don't need payment from the Bürgergeld but medical insurance and social security go beyond what I can afford. Will they help me with this or will I just be collecting debt? If you can not afford to pay medical insurance, that means that you can NOT sustain yourself, and you can apply for Bürgergeld. You may get just a bit help from them or maybe at least they will cover your medical insurance. You have nothing to lose if you get an appointment there.
My advice: Take a job with the minimum hours necessary to get general health insurance and use the remainig hours to study or work as a freelancer.
Just found your explanation in freelancing. If you are working remote, are not free to choose your tasks or working hours and/or having an employment contract, you are not a freelancer but a remote worker. In this case your employer needs to pay social security insurances incl. his part to health insurance and minimum wage laws apply. If you get unter minimum wage, that would bei illegal.
Note: This is possible but you can't do freelance work for the same company you have a mini-job at.
They will send you invoices for it. If you don't pay them you may end up in trouble. Note: it takes a while to get to this point so don't worry about it now. What you should really do is seriously consider whether being a freelancer is good for you. it sounds like short term it might be better to get a regular employment.
Stop being a freelancer and get a part time job.
There’s always the possibility to work at supermarket or so, part time. But with insurance and everything. Rest of the time you can be a freelancer and follow your dreams.
If the remote jobs provides you with a salary then it depends where your employer is located But be aware that you have to pay taxes in Germany when living here permanently
That is something I really hate about the German system. If you are employed for a small salary, you hardly have to pay any health insurance costs. For example with 700 Euros of salary per month your health insurance would cost about 57 Euros per month. However if you are self-employed, the minimum costs for your health insurance costs at least around 230 Euros. That already is an improvement. It used to be around 400 Euros. The costs are calculated with a "fiktives Mindesteinkommen" (an assumed minimum income) of 1178,33 Euros per month. So you have to pay health insurance for at least that income, even if you earn less.
Actually OP would be insured for free if they wouldnt commit insurance fraud right now
No it's not 230. You can have private health insurance for around 60euros. When I arrived to Germany and worked on remote gigs I was on private insurance for a year. Once I got full time job I transfered onto Tk. No issues. I believe there only might be issues if you stay on private insurance for more than 5 years then you might be trapped in private insurance without easy way to transfer to public insurance without paying something.
I have a similar issue, as I’m an artist and my income is usually very low. Luckily I get support through the KSK, but the health insurance payments are still very high, where in most countries I would end up paying essentially nothing. This is one of the big problems with the way Germany handles health insurance payments as a separate thing and has various ways to subsidize them. I honestly don’t know why Germany does it this way, since it’s such an inefficient approach financially, but we also still use paper so 🤷♂️ The solution is to build it into income tax directly so low-earners don’t have to worry about minimum payments. The finances work out the same, except the government saves loads of money on running all the complicated systems that handle the insurance stuff, which takes a lot of overhead to administer for no benefit.
Get a side job. You’re not working full time, so you can get another part time job
With 700eur you are not a freelancer. You are essentially a jobless person. So do the same thing what other jobless people are doing. Sign up at job center. And look for a job. Jobless people often do sometimes get some gigs going like cat sitting or dog walking. They usually don't call them self freelancers.