More German households receive housing assistance

At the end of 2025, approximately 1.3 million households in Germany received housing assistance, a 7.2 percent increase, around 90,000 households, compared to the previous year.

The German Federal Statistical Office reported this is the highest number since it began collecting data in 2005. 3.2 percent of all private households received the assistance at the end of 2025, up from 3.0 percent a year earlier. The increase in recipients corresponds with a rise in government spending on housing assistance.

Spending rose by 6.4 percent to 4.992 billion euros, the highest value recorded since 2005. Statisticians noted the average monthly housing assistance claim per household increased by 3.1 percent to 296 euros by the end of 2025, due to legal adjustments that link assistance to general price and rent developments. The German government provides housing assistance to low-income households to help them afford suitable housing.

The amount of assistance depends on income, housing costs, and household size, with the federal and state governments each covering half the costs. The largest share of recipients, 51 percent, or 682,000 households, were retirees, with 85 percent of those being single individuals. Young people under 25 lived in over half a million receiving households, while families comprised 39 percent. Regional differences existed, with Schleswig-Holstein experiencing the largest percentage increase in housing assistance recipients at 12.9 percent.

Berlin saw the smallest increase at 1.7 percent. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern had the highest proportion of households receiving assistance at 5.8 percent, more than three times the rate in Bavaria, which had the lowest at 1.9 percent.