In 2025, almost four million people in Germany lived in households that were in arrears on utility bills. As energy prices continue to explode, the number of arrears is likely to rise significantly this year.

In 2025, 3.8 million people in Germany lived in households that were in arrears with their utility payments, the Federal Statistical Office said in a statement on MondayPress releasewith. The information is based on self-assessments by households and was collected by the European Statistics Authority as part of the “European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions”.

These statistics show that last year 4.6 percent of the total German population had payment arrears, for example with electricity or gas providers. Compared to 2024, this is a slight decrease of 0.4 percentage points, but still at a high level.

There is a particular difference between rented households and owner-occupied households. Among renters, an above-average number of households (5.8 percent) are in arrears, while among owners, only 3.3 percent are affected by such payment difficulties.

Additional residential costs remain at a high level

The reasons for the high number of households, some of which can no longer pay their monthly utility bills, lie in both the high additional housing costs and the rising energy prices.

The statistics from the Federal Statistical Office calculate the percentage development of both price curves starting from January 2020. It shows that additional housing costs have increased by more than 45 percent from the reference month to August 2026. The price peaked in January 2023 at around 57 percent above the initial value.

Since then, average costs have stabilized and even declined slightly. Nevertheless, it should not be ignored that the additional costs have increased by almost half compared to 2020. The reasons for this are rising municipal fees and higher wage costs. For example, the fees fordrinking waterandSewageyearly.

Gas prices are rising, inflation is increasing – but we are not paying for their crisis!

Energy prices are continually rising

Added to this are the energy prices that have been rising steadily since 2020. Significant price increases have been noticeable, especially since the energy price shock in 2022 as a result of the Russian attack on Ukraine, as cheap gas deliveries from Russia failed to materialize.

But the gas price is not the only parameter for energy costs. Electricity, heating oil, district heating or solid fuels such as wood and coal also influence household energy prices. Compared to January 2020, the energy price has increased by 22.7 percent.

Over the past six years, there have been repeated attempts to counteract the price increase. But various measures - for example the December emergency aid for natural gas 2022 or a temporary VAT reduction - only ensured price stabilization for a short time. Over the last five and a half years, energy prices have continued to rise despite attempted measures.

Huge price increases due to the Iran war

The Iran war in particular is currently causing further price explosions. Since this only began at the beginning of this year due to an American-Israeli attack, the resulting price increases are not included in this survey. Since energy price increases have accelerated again in the wake of the war, an even higher number of households can be expected to default on payments.

Gas storage only half full: cost explosion possible

Especially since the stress test is just around the corner. Most people in Germany rely on gas or heating oil, especially in winter. Accordingly, it is worrying that German gas storage reserves are only just increasing53 percentare filled, which represents a historic low. This is also partly due to the Iran war: Normally, the gas storage operators gamble on low gas prices in the summer in order to then profit in the winter.

The low storage levels in turn contribute to an explosion in gas prices. Within the last three weeks there has been an increase in prices of up to40 percenta. These huge increases also have another worrying side effect. The inflation rate increased by 0.6 percentage points to 2.9 percent in August this year compared to the previous month. Such dire developments will hit people directly in their household budgets.

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