Millions of households in Germany have to spend an above-average proportion of their income on renting their homes. At least 40 percent of the income of 3.1 million households is spent on rent, as calculated by the Federal Statistical Office for 2022. According to the Wiesbaden authority on Friday, 16 percent of the 19.9 million tenant households in Germany belong to this group.

On average, the rental burden last year was 27.8 percent of the household net income. For the approximately 6.6 million households that rented their home in 2019 or later, the rent burden ratio was 29.5 percent, 2.7 percentage points higher than for the approximately 2.7 million households that signed their rental agreement before 1999 have (26.8 percent).

The rental burden ratio indicates the share of gross rent in net household income. The gross cold rent consists of the basic rent and ancillary costs to be paid to the landlord, such as the monthly operating costs for house and street cleaning, garbage disposal, caretaker services, chimney cleaning and cable connection.