Sick days from mental illness: the documented figures for 2024

Four sources, four reference populations

Figures on mental-illness absence come from different data sources with different populations, so two values from two sources are not directly comparable. BAuA projects onto all employees in Germany; insurer reports cover only their own members.

• BAuA, all employees in Germany, data year 2024: 881.5m sick days in total, of which 147.3m in diagnosis group F00 to F99, that is 16.7 % of all sick days
• DAK, employed DAK members, data year 2024: 342 sick days per 100 employees, prior year 341. This measures days per 100 insured, not a share of all sick days
• BARMER, 3.61m insured persons in work aged 15 to 64, data year 2024: 480 sick days per 100 insurance years from mental and behavioural disorders, up 7.2 % on 2023
• TK, working TK members, data year 2024: 328 sick days per 100 insurance years under a mental-disorder diagnosis
• BKK, employed BKK members, data year 2023: 16.7 % of all sick days and 5.1 % of all cases. Mental diagnoses are rare but produce long absences

The trend persists, but the ten-year comparison has a methodological break

For the ten-year comparison DAK reports a 52 % rise in sick days from 2013 to 2023, from 213 to 323 days per 100 insured. From data year 2024 DAK calculates by lead diagnosis and has recalculated the 2023 value from 323 to 341. In the Psychreport 2025 DAK states explicitly that the report therefore contains no long time series, and it withdrew one of its own releases that had compared new with old methodology. Values before 2023 must not be set against the 342 days reported for 2024.

What drives the rise

• Higher awareness and diagnostic rates, mental load is no longer hidden
• Shift from somatic to psychosocial diagnoses for long-term absence
• Structural drivers: workload density, shift work, always-on culture
• These explanations are common in the professional debate; their individual share of the rise is not quantified