2026 bargaining round: IG Metall demands 5 % – what it would mean for your pay

The pay agreements of the metal and electrical industry are expiring, and the 2026 bargaining round is starting. IG Metall has adopted its demand (Forderung): 5 % more pay. This article explains what exactly is demanded, when negotiations take place and what the demand would mean in euros – and it shows how far apart demand and result were in recent rounds. A demand is the start of a negotiation, not its outcome.

The demand package

IG Metall enters the negotiations with four points:

• 5 % more pay on the pay tables.
• A better position for the lower Entgeltgruppen – a social component that has not been quantified yet.
• Collectively agreed safeguards for the future and for jobs at company level.
• Collectively agreed profit sharing in companies that are doing particularly well.

The background is how differently the industry is faring: the automotive industry and mechanical engineering are in crisis, while shipbuilding, rail vehicles, medical technology, aerospace and the defence industry are booming. Profit sharing is meant to reflect exactly that spread.

Just as important is what the demand does not say: it names no duration – how many months the 5 % should cover – and no separate amount for apprentices.

Source: IG Metall – Tarifrunde Metall und Elektro 2026: Wir wollen 5 Prozent mehr Geld, sichere Jobs und Gewinnbeteiligung

Timeline of the round

1. 23 September 2026 Bargaining commissions recommend, the executive board adopts the demand
2. 7 October 2026 Regional negotiations start
3. 31 October 2026 Pay agreements expire, the peace obligation ends at midnight
4. 1 November 2026 Warning strikes possible from this day

A metal-industry round usually ends with a pilot agreement in one Tarifgebiet, which the other districts then largely adopt. All past agreements and their tables are listed under bargaining rounds.

What 5 % would mean in euros

The tables below apply the demand to today’s pay table – with exactly the values the salary calculator uses in its “demand” scenario. First, monthly pay per Entgeltgruppe in the reference region, plus apprentice pay:

Each Tarifgebiet has its own table. Here is the Eckentgelt in all 15 of them – and the annual gross including all special payments, since T-Zug, holiday pay and Christmas bonus are tied to monthly pay and rise with it:

Gross is not net, though. For the reference employee – Eckentgelt plus Leistungszulage – the next table shows what would remain of the gross gain after tax and social contributions:

Net pay rises by a smaller percentage than gross, because the extra earnings are taxed at the higher marginal rate – bracket creep (kalte Progression), explained in detail in What is left after tax?. Both sides are computed with the current year’s tax parameters. Most of a raise would only take effect next year, though, whose basic allowance and tax brackets would change the result slightly.

Demand vs. result: what past rounds delivered

To put the demand into context, look at the last rounds. The table sets each demand against its result. Demands are made for twelve months, but agreements run longer and bring the increase in stages, so the “per year” column converts the result to a yearly figure:

The 2021 round is left out on purpose: it was a Covid and transformation round without a table increase – it introduced the transformation payment (T-Zug T) instead. It cannot be compared with a percentage demand.

In the last two rounds, the table increase per year was well below the demand; one-off payments and other components were added instead. That describes the past; it is not a forecast for 2026.

5 % and inflation

IG Metall also justifies the demand with higher prices. This is how the demand compares with inflation:

A single year is only a snapshot. Over the long run, the pay table has been down in real terms since 2018, because it was frozen through the 2022/2023 inflation peak – worked out in the article Pay rises vs. inflation.

Frequently asked questions about the demand