If you passed a course, you are already qualified to tutor it. Not in the abstract sense, but in the only sense that matters to the student sitting in that lecture hall right now: you know the script, the tutorial sheets, the professor and the exam.
Publishing an offer on AskYourClass takes about five minutes, costs nothing, and there is no commission on what you earn. Start at askyourclass.io/tutors/become.
TL;DR:
- One profile, then one offer per course you want to tutor
- You set the rate, the format, the languages and whether you take groups
- Requests arrive by email and in your AskYourClass inbox. You accept or decline each one
- No fees, no commission, no payment handling. You get paid directly
- Vacation mode exists, so your own exam period does not turn into a stream of messages you cannot answer
The setup, step by step
Create the profile. Name, headline, a short bio, your study program, degree level and current semester. The university is not a field you type. It comes from the verified university on your account, which is also what produces the verified badge on your listing.
Add a photo. Optional, and it happens as a second step because the photo needs a profile to attach to. Worth doing anyway. Profiles with a face on them get noticeably more replies than profiles without one.
Publish an offer per course. This is the part that makes the whole thing work. Search the real course catalog, pick the course you passed, then set an hourly rate, a format (online, in person, or both), the languages you teach in, whether group sessions are allowed, and a description. You can attach materials too: a summary you wrote, a formula sheet, an annotated past paper. A listing with a real artefact attached reads very differently from one without.
Wait for moderation. New profiles and new photos go through a review queue before they appear publicly. Your dashboard shows the status the whole time.
Write the description for someone who is currently stuck. "I took this with Prof. Weber in WS 24/25, got a 1.3, and the thing that finally made the Fourier chapter click for me was working the 2023 past paper line by line. That is usually how I run the first session." is a better advertisement than a list of adjectives about yourself.
What you actually keep
Everything. AskYourClass does not take a percentage, does not process payments and does not hold your money. The platform introduces you to a student who is taking your course and stops there. The rate on your listing is indicative, and the two of you agree on the real terms and the payment method between yourselves.
That decision has a trade off worth knowing about. Because there is no escrow, there is also no platform guarantee if somebody does not pay. In practice this rarely goes wrong with a small number of local sessions, but it is a reason to keep the first session short and settle after each one until you know the person.
What to charge
Independent student tutoring in Germany generally runs from about 15 to 30 euros an hour, with the higher end going to graduate level courses, scarce subjects and cities with expensive rents. As an anchor for the floor: the statutory minimum wage rose to 13.90 euros per hour on 1 January 2026, and it rises again to 14.60 euros in 2027. Tutoring a specialised university course for less than a supermarket shift pays is not a reasonable starting point.
Group sessions are the quiet lever here. Three students at 10 euros each is 30 euros an hour for you and a cheaper session for all three of them. Turn the group option on for at least one offer and see what happens. We wrote a fuller breakdown of tutoring rates if you want the numbers with more context.
The tax and insurance part nobody explains
This is the section people search for and rarely find a straight answer to. What follows is orientation, not tax advice. For anything binding, ask a Steuerberater, your Krankenkasse or the student advisory service at your university.
Independent tutoring is usually self-employed income, not a Minijob. A Minijob is employment: an employer, a contract, payroll. If you find your own students, set your own price and organise your own sessions, you are working independently, and the 603 euro monthly Minijob threshold that applies from 2026 is not the rule that governs you. It is worth knowing anyway, because it is the number every student job article quotes and it causes constant confusion.
The basic tax-free allowance is the number that matters most. For 2026 the Grundfreibetrag is 12,348 euros per year. Total annual income below that generally produces no income tax. Most students tutoring a few hours a week are nowhere near it.
VAT is unlikely to apply at student volumes. Under the Kleinunternehmerregelung in section 19 UStG, the thresholds since 2025 are 25,000 euros of turnover in the previous year and 100,000 euros in the current year. A few hundred euros a semester sits far below that.
Health insurance and BAföG have their own limits. Family insurance, student health insurance and BAföG each have their own income rules, and they are not the same rules as the tax ones. If you are tutoring seriously rather than occasionally, check those specifically before your income grows.
Keep a simple record from day one. Date, student, hours, amount. A spreadsheet is enough. It takes seconds per session and saves an unpleasant afternoon later.
Managing it once requests start arriving
Your dashboard at /tutors/dashboard has three tabs: your offers, your incoming requests, and your settings.
Requests show up there with pending ones sorted to the top, and you also get an email and an in-app notification for each one. The student tells you how they want to be reached, so you might be replying by email, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Instagram, Discord or phone. Accepting a request opens a message thread on the platform, which means the conversation still exists in one place even after you move to another app.
Two settings are worth knowing before you need them:
- Hide an offer when you no longer want students for one specific course, without deleting the listing or its history.
- Vacation mode when your own exam period arrives. It unpublishes your whole profile and stops new requests. Switch it back on afterwards. This is much better than letting requests pile up unanswered, because your listing publicly shows your median response time.
You can also delete your profile entirely, behind a typed confirmation, and that removes your data.
Is this worth the time?
Four hours a month at 25 euros is 100 euros for work you are doing on material you already know, on your own schedule, from your own room. That is not a career. It is a good version of a student side job, and the second time you teach a topic it takes almost no preparation.
The less obvious return is that teaching a course is the most efficient revision anyone has ever found for it. If you are heading into a Master's programme that builds on the same material, tutoring the Bachelor's version of it is not a distraction from your own studying.
Frequently asked questions
How do I become a tutor on AskYourClass?
Go to askyourclass.io/tutors/become while signed in, fill in your profile, optionally add a photo, then publish one offer per course you want to tutor. Your profile goes through moderation before it appears in the public directory.
Do I need to have finished my degree to tutor?
No. Most tutors on the platform are still studying. What matters is that you passed the specific course you are offering to tutor, ideally recently enough that the material and the exam format have not changed.
Does AskYourClass take a commission from tutors?
No. There is no commission, no listing fee and no payment processing. You keep the full rate you agree with the student.
How much should I charge as a student tutor in Germany?
Most student tutors charge between 15 and 30 euros an hour depending on subject, level and city. Start near the middle of that range for an undergraduate course, and treat the 2026 minimum wage of 13.90 euros an hour as an absolute floor rather than a target.
Do I have to pay tax on tutoring income?
It depends on your total annual income. The 2026 basic tax-free allowance is 12,348 euros, and income below that generally attracts no income tax. Independent tutoring counts as self-employed income rather than a Minijob, so the Minijob threshold is not the relevant limit. Ask a tax adviser if your income is significant.
Do I need to register a business for private tutoring?
Private tutoring is normally treated as a freelance activity rather than a trade, which means no Gewerbeanmeldung in most cases, though you may need to notify your local tax office. Rules vary by municipality and by situation, so confirm your own case before assuming.
Can I tutor courses at more than one university?
Yes. Your account has one verified university membership, and you can add further universities yourself. Offers are filtered by the university that teaches the course, so an offer appears under the right one.
What happens during my own exam period?
Turn on vacation mode in your dashboard settings. Your profile is unpublished and stops receiving requests until you switch it back on. Your offers, reviews and history are preserved.
How do students find my offer?
Through the tutor directory, through your university's tutor page, and through a direct link on the course page for the course you tutor. That last one is the strongest, because it reaches students exactly where they are already researching the course.
The gap between "I remember this" and "I no longer remember this" is about two semesters wide. That window is when your knowledge of a course is worth the most to somebody else.
Publish your first offer at askyourclass.io/tutors/become.