Overview
- The Federal Statistical Office’s June 10, 2026 release reports that 73.6% of the roughly 58,900 residential buildings completed in 2025 used heat pumps as their main heating source.
- Building permits filed in 2025 show the trend will continue because 83.0% of approved new residential projects planned to install heat pumps as the primary heater.
- Heat pump adoption is strongest in single‑ and two‑family houses, where about 78% of new units used them in 2025, while multiunit buildings with three or more apartments recorded roughly 52.7% usage.
- The existing German housing stock remains largely fossil-fueled, with Zensus 2022 data showing 53.9% of homes heated by natural gas and 24.7% by oil, which limits near-term emissions cuts from the building sector.
- Lawmakers changed the Heizungsgesetz in May 2026 to remove earlier minimum renewable‑share rules, a move that could slow mandated fuel switching and put more weight on market forces and retrofit policy to cut emissions and affect homeowners’ costs.