Tenants are hit the hardest: housing costs overburden every tenth German

Anyone in Germany who spends more than 40 percent of their income on housing is considered overburdened. According to the Federal Statistical Office, almost eleven percent of Germans suffered from excessive housing costs last year. Tenants were hit even harder.

In Germany, housing costs are a heavy burden for a good tenth of the people. If households spend more than 40 percent of their disposable income on housing each month, they are considered overburdened. According to the Federal Statistical Office, this applied to 10.7 percent of the population in 2021. On average, households had to spend 23.3 percent of their income on housing costs. In most cases, expenses for living and especially rents are monthly fixed costs with little or no potential for savings.

If you live for rent, it hits you harder. In 2021, around 12.8 percent of the population in tenant households were considered overburdened. On average, this group had to spend 27.6 percent of their income on housing. Against the background of the currently high inflation and the burdens on people from the gas crisis, the situation for many households could deteriorate significantly. The traffic light coalition is already working on a third relief package.

Anyone living in a one-person household for rent in 2021 had the highest housing cost burden – and had to spend an average of more than a third of their disposable income (35.4 percent) on housing costs. Almost one or one in four people living alone even had to spend more than 40 percent of their income and was therefore considered to be overburdened.

Single tenants with at least one child also had an above-average burden of just under 31 percent. On the other hand, two adults with or without children who live as tenants spent on average the lowest proportion of their income on housing – around 24 percent each. Furthermore, the pollution in cities was greater than in the countryside.

Many people in Germany are affected by rising rents, since every second person (50.5 percent) lived here for rent in 2021. According to the statistics office, Germany has had a very high proportion of tenants in the total population in recent years in an EU comparison. There are only a few countries with similar values: Austria (45.8 percent) and Denmark (40.8 percent).