📉 Debt and single parents
In brief
Loss of maintenance, lower household income and high fixed costs make single parents particularly vulnerable to over-indebtedness. Debt counselling centres help free of charge with taking stock, with negotiating with creditors and with preparing a personal insolvency.
In a wage attachment, your exempt amount increases with the number of people you are legally obliged to maintain – so your children count and improve your protection from attachment.
Step by step
- Go to a debt counselling centreContact a recognised, usually free debt counselling centre run by your municipality, Caritas, Diakonie or the Verbraucherzentrale (consumer advice centre).
- Get an overviewGet help to systematically record all claims, deadlines and creditors.
- Check protection from attachmentHave your increased exempt amount calculated, taking your dependent children into account, by the local court (Amtsgericht) or by the debt counselling centre.
- Try an out-of-court settlementWith the support of the advice centre, try to reach an out-of-court settlement with creditors before starting insolvency proceedings.
- Consider personal insolvency as a last stepIf the out-of-court settlement fails, consumer insolvency proceedings aimed at discharge of residual debts can be the right way.
Deadlines
- Child maintenance that you collect for your child is legally the child's property and may not be offset against or attached for your own debts.
- If you yourself are a creditor for arrears of child maintenance against the other parent, you can benefit from the privilege under § 850d ZPO when their wages are attached – find out whether this route comes into consideration for you.
- Not every debt counselling centre is free of charge – find out beforehand whether it is a recognised, publicly funded body.
- The exact attachment-exempt amounts change regularly; for the current 2026 table, do not rely on older information but have the amounts applicable to you calculated specifically.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
Increased protection from attachment through dependent children
The table of attachment-exempt amounts under § 850c ZPO grades the exempt basic amount by the number of persons whom the debtor is legally obliged to maintain. With each dependent child this exempt amount increases. The specific euro amounts of the current table of attachment-exempt amounts for 2026 were not checked in this research against an individual official source – have the amounts applicable to you calculated specifically by a debt counselling centre or the enforcement court.
Privileged enforcement of your own maintenance claims (§ 850d ZPO)
If you yourself collect arrears of child maintenance from the other parent, you can have their earned income attached without the usual restrictions of § 850c ZPO; the debtor must only be left with as much as they need for their necessary support and ongoing statutory maintenance obligations.
Debt counselling as a municipal task
Debt counselling in Germany is mostly offered as a municipal task or one funded by the federal states, often by welfare organisations such as Caritas, Diakonie or consumer advice centres (Verbraucherzentralen) – there is no nationwide uniform statutory funding basis in a single provision; the specific arrangement differs from municipality to municipality.
Discharge of residual debts
Since the reform of the Insolvency Code in 2020/2021, discharge of residual debts in consumer insolvency proceedings is regularly possible already after three years (§ 287 InsO), instead of after six years as before – this shortens the way out of over-indebtedness considerably.
A question about your situation that this page does not answer? Write to us or use the contact form – we will tell you which office is responsible and what to bring. Free of charge, without individual legal advice.