EU Blue Card health insurance, compared across three countries

For 2026 the published figures are France €59,373 gross a year, Austria €55,678, and Germany €50,700 — with a reduced German tier at €45,934.20. That is a spread of nearly €14,000 between the highest and the lowest published bar.

Each is calculated differently, which is why they drift apart year on year. France sets 1.5 times a ministerially-fixed reference salary. Austria uses one times the average gross annual salary published by its statistics office. Germany uses a percentage of the pension-insurance contribution ceiling. All three reset annually, so any figure you read without a year attached to it is a guess.

France’s figure also changed character recently: a June 2025 decree de-indexed it from the minimum wage, so older explanations describing it as a SMIC multiple are simply out of date.

This is where the assumption of a single European standard does the most damage.

Germany tests equivalence with its own statutory system — the benefits of §11(1–3) SGB V — and requires an open-ended contract. No figure at all. A policy with a high limit and an expiry clause fails.

Austria tests scope and settlement: all risks, benefits provided in Austria, and claims payable in Austria. Again no figure. Raising a limit buys nothing.

France tests product category and duration: private health insurance covering the full stay, with travel and short-stay Schengen policies not accepted, and consulates commonly refusing a deductible on core cover.

So one card, three tests: a benefits comparison, a scope-and-settlement test, and a product-category test. Meeting all three at once is possible, but it is a deliberate choice rather than something a policy does by accident.

Two things make it worth the higher salary bar.

Speed to permanent residence. Germany must grant a settlement permit after 27 months of Blue Card employment with pension contributions and A1 German, cut to 21 months with B1. France is better still on paper: two years in France holding the card plus three years’ prior lawful residence — and those three years may have been spent in France or elsewhere in the EU, which is broader than most summaries state.

Intra-EU mobility. A Blue Card from another member state lets you work in France for 90 days in any 180 with no further French authorisation, and Austria applies the same 90-in-180 rule for business activity. After twelve months as a holder elsewhere — six if in more than one state — you gain the right to enter, reside and work in France on applying for a French card.

Check the salary bar for the specific country and the specific year, because they move every January and they move independently. Then read that country’s insurance rule rather than assuming the card carries one — it does not. Then check the contract wording, not just the cover amount, because in Germany the expiry clause fails more files than the benefits do.

Our visa finder lists every long-stay route across the ten countries with its published work rule, the income checker shows what each asks you to earn with its official source, and the rules compared puts all eight insurance tests side by side.