Housing Benefit in Germany Reached 1.3 Million Households at the End of 2025

Germany paid housing benefit to 1.3 million households at the end of 2025, 7.2% more than a year earlier, and the state bill rose to 4,992 million euros.

Around 1.3 million households in Germany were drawing Wohngeld, the country's income-tested housing benefit, at the end of 2025 — 7.2% or roughly 90,000 households more than a year earlier. The federal statistical office, which released the annual count on 25 September 2026, puts the share of all private households receiving the benefit at 3.2%, against 3.0% at the end of 2024.

The release is unusual in one respect worth stating plainly: it carries a correction notice. The statistical office says the version circulated on 25 September 2026 had to be corrected because of errors in its second paragraph. Every figure quoted here is taken from the corrected text.

Half of all recipient households are headed by a pensioner

In 51% of housing benefit households, or 682,000 of them, the main income earner was a pensioner. Of those, 85%, or 581,000 households, were people living alone. A further 39%, or 519,000 households, were households with children under 25. The two groups the statistics office singles out are therefore pensioners and families with children — not the working-age single tenants who dominate the demand side of most big-city rental markets.

The state bill rose to 4,992 million euros

Spending on housing benefit climbed from around 4,689 million euros to 4,992 million euros, an increase of 6.4%. The average monthly entitlement per household rose 3.1% to 296 euros at the end of 2025. The statistical office notes that an individual entitlement depends on income, housing costs and the number of people in the household, so this average moves with all three at once. It is not a rent index and cannot be read as one.

Most recipients rent, but not all of them

At the end of 2025, 82% of recipients — 1.1 million people — were main tenants. Another 10%, or 131,000, lived in institutional accommodation. The remaining 7%, 92,000, lived in property they own and received a Lastenzuschuss, the owner-occupier form of the benefit, instead of a rent subsidy. That owner-occupier slice is small, but it is the part of the statistic that touches ownership rather than tenancy, and it is also the part the correction notice concerned.

How this sits beside German price and rent levels

Glopra's German row, snapshot dated 22 September 2026 and rated High confidence, puts the national average asking price for existing apartments at 2,645 euros per square metre and the national average asking rent for the same segment at 8.97 euros per square metre a month. Both come from ImmoScout24's quarterly WohnBarometer for the second quarter of 2026 — the same publisher, the same geography, the same segment and the same quarter — and that pairing gives a gross yield of 4.07%. Over twelve months the price level is up 1.4% in euro terms and down 1.3% in dollar terms, and our bubble score for Germany stands at 51, in the moderate band.

These two sets of figures are not in conflict, and it is worth saying why. The housing benefit number is a transfer payment measured per household per month; ours is an asking rent measured per square metre per month, drawn from listings rather than from signed contracts. They answer different questions: one is how much public money flows to households that cannot cover their housing costs, the other is what a landlord is asking. Neither substitutes for the other, and nothing here is advice on whether to buy or let in Germany.

Sources: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), KORREKTUR 1,3 Millionen Wohngeldhaushalte im Jahr 2025, Pressemitteilung Nr. 339, 25 September 2026 https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2026/09/PD26_339_22311.html; Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), dated press release listing https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/_inhalt_2.html?nn=238640

Market data: Germany