Around one in every fifteen households (6.3%) in Germany were unable to keep their home adequately warm last year due to financial reasons.
This is a decrease from 8.2% the previous year, and equates to around 5.3 million people, the data, from Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), showed.
At a European level, some 9.2% of the population were unable to adequately heat their homes last year, down from 10.6% in 2023. Bulgaria and Greece reported the highest shares, with around one in five (19%) people affected, followed by Lithuania at 18%.
The lowest shares were recorded in Finland at 2.7%, Slovenia (3.3%) and Poland (3.3%).
Household energy prices
As Destatis noted, household energy prices are largely lower at this time of year – the start of the heating season – than they were last year.
In September 2025, prices were 1.9% lower than in the same month the previous year, while overall consumer prices increased by 2.4% in the same period.
This compares to a 50.3% surge in energy prices between 2020 and 2024, compared with an overall consumer price increase of 19.3%. This included a 89.9% increase in the price of natural gas, the most commonly used heating fuel, and a near doubling (+99.3%) of the price of light heating oil. Electricity prices were up 27.4% over the same period, a more modest increase.
At the same time, households are still affected by price developments to a certain degree based on which type of heating system they operate. Natural gas, the most commonly used heating fuel, saw prices increase 0.7% in September 2025, compared to the previous year. Light heating oil was up 0.1%, its first price increase since July 2024.
At the same time, district heating prices were 2.2% lower, while firewood, wood pellets, and other solid fuels (-1.8%), and electricity (-1.6%) were also down.
Destatis’ data is based on the EU-SILC survey on income and living conditions. Read more here.
