Some 4.6% of Germany‘s population, or 3.8 million people, lived in households with outstanding utility bills as of last year, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
This is a slight decline on the 5.0% of households with outstanding utility bills in 2024, the data, which was taken from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey, revealed.
‘Tenants in particular were unable to pay their bills,’ Destatis noted. ‘While 3.3% of people from owner-occupied households were in arrears with utility companies last year, the proportion was higher for tenant households at 5.8%.’
Utility costs
The cost of utility bills is a growing issue for many households, the data showed. Prices for housing-related ancillary costs, including water supply, waste collection, building cleaning, lift maintenance and similar services, were 3.1% higher in August 2026 compared to a year earlier. Overall consumer prices increased by 2.9% over the same period.
Household energy prices, however, were lower than a year earlier. Electricity, gas, heating oil, district heating and solid fuels such as wood and coal were 0.7% cheaper in August 2026 compared with August 2025.
‘However, in the wake of the energy crisis, household energy prices rose sharply, particularly in 2022, and remain at a high level,’ Destatis added.
The data on payment arrears are based on households’ own assessments and form one of the measures used to assess material and social deprivation. EU-SILC is the main official source for measuring income and living conditions across Germany and the EU. In Germany, the survey has been incorporated as a subsample of the microcensus since 2020. Read more here.
