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state: 14.8.2026, reading time approx. 2 min
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Doctors' pay secured even without Approbation
A resident doctor working under a provisional licence – not yet fully licensed – was denied pay under the doctors' collective agreement. Germany’s Federal Labour Court confirmed: the tariff applies regardless. The hospital must pay the agreed rate.
Rechtsanwalt Thomas Meier-Bading
License type doesn’t change pay rate
Image: AI, Prompt: Thomas Meier-Bading
On May 20, 2026 (4 AZR 98/25), Germany’s Federal Labor Court decided that doctors with temporary, limited medical licenses must be paid the same as fully licensed doctors under the TV-Ärzte/VKA collective agreement. This means hospitals can’t pay less just because a doctor’s license has restrictions.
The TV-Ärzte/VKA collective agreement didn’t clearly say whether doctors with temporary licenses qualified for full pay. The hospital argued that only fully licensed doctors should get the higher pay rate, while the doctor said his limited license still counted.
What happened in this case
A doctor worked at a hospital from December 2021 to September 2022 with a temporary license that only allowed him to work under supervision. The hospital paid him €4,000 per month until he got his full license in February 2022. He then demanded the difference between what he was paid and what fully licensed doctors earned for that period.
