In recent days, numerous media have reported on the reactivation of the EH55 new construction subsidy announced for December 2025, based on information from the German Press Agency (dpa). On 7 November 2025, Handelsblatt wrote that the federal government wanted to accelerate housing construction and was reactivating a very popular new construction subsidy that had been abolished years ago. The Federal Ministry of Construction had stated on request that a total of €800 million would be made available for the EH55 subsidy. The date given for the resumption of the subsidy was 15 December 2025; the subsidy would be provided in the form of low-interest loans from KfW.
The “traffic light coalition” had discontinued EH55 funding in 2022 on the grounds that the subsidised energy standard had already become established on the market, which is why subsidies would only be available for the more expensive and stricter Energy Efficiency House 40 standard in future. As a result, numerous investors had halted their EH55 standard projects. According to Federal Minister of Construction Verena Hubertz, the black-red coalition government now wants these already planned houses to be built. To reduce this construction backlog, 800 million euros will be invested. However, approval from the budget committee and the Bundestag is still pending.
According to a report published by Haufe on the same day, Iris Schöberl, President of the German Property Federation (ZIA), said: “If the Budget Committee releases the funds, these flats can finally be built. That would be a real boost for the industry. The fact that the funding is set to start in December is particularly welcome. Speed is now crucial to regain confidence and willingness to invest.” Jan-Marco Luczak, construction policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, emphasised that this would send a ’clear and powerful signal’ to the construction industry. This could result in tens of thousands of new apartments being built. Axel Gedaschko, President of the GdW Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies, expects that the subsidy programme could result in 17,000 to 20,000 homes being built in the short term by GdW member companies alone. In addition to meeting the criteria of the EH55 standard, another prerequisite for funding is that only renewable energies are used for heat generation, for example by means of heat pumps, district heating or biogas; funding for houses heated with gas or oil is excluded. In addition, a building permit must already be available at the time of application.
“The discontinuation of EH55 funding led to considerable uncertainty and a loss of confidence at the time, which noticeably paralysed new housing construction in Germany. In this respect, the revival of this proven subsidy instrument could actually provide important impetus for stimulating new construction if it is implemented quickly and unbureaucratically,” says Jacopo Mingazzini, CEO of The Grounds. “Above all, however, reliable framework conditions are needed for this. If there were to be further erratic changes to the subsidy landscape, this would again be expected to have far-reaching negative effects on construction activity.”
