Despite the recent rise in building permit numbers, the German Property Federation (ZIA) sees a need for further action in the political arena and, in this context, advocates following certain provisions of the Infrastructure Future Act (InfZuG) recently passed by the German government. This was the industry association’s response to the data on building permits published by the Federal Statistical Office on December 18, 2025, which showed a continuation of the positive trend of recent months.
With a total of 19,900 newly approved apartments, October saw an increase of 6.8 percent compared to the same month last year. According to the Federal Statistical Office, a total of 159,200 apartments in new buildings were approved between January and October 2025, representing an increase of 19,600 apartments or 14 percent compared to the previous year. The ZIA highlights as positive that 104,100 of these apartments were in multi-family houses, which also represents a significant increase of 12,100 units or 13.2 percent compared to the same period last year in this particularly relevant housing market segment.
ZIA managing director Aygül Özkan said: “The current figures are a good sign for the industry. Following the construction boom and the resumption of EH55 subsidies, it is now important to continue the reform course consistently.” In order to further facilitate residential construction, the ZIA believes that a swift amendment to the Building Code (BauGB) and a clear political decision in favor of building type E are necessary. This must be established as a basic standard and the “new normal” for residential construction, as this would enable affordable housing to be created quickly and reliably.
With the Infrastructure Future Act (InfZuG) recently passed by the cabinet, the federal government has taken an important step toward modernizing planning and approval procedures for transportation projects. Many of the approaches enshrined in the act are also urgently needed for housing construction. In addition to streamlining court proceedings through the preclusion rule and the elimination of suspensive effect, these include reducing environmental impact assessments to the minimum required under European law, making compensation regulations more flexible, and completely digitizing administrative procedures according to the “digital only” principle. Özkan emphasized that the measures provided for in the Infrastructure Future Act address key demands of the ZIA, such as less bureaucracy, faster procedures, and greater planning security. These regulations should not only apply to transport infrastructure, but also to new housing construction, as the same planning and approval obstacles often exist here.
Jacopo Mingazzini, CEO of The Grounds, comments on the proposals: “Until now, Germany has often tended to transfer bureaucratic regulations from one area to another. It is time to take the opposite approach. Measures that streamline and accelerate planning and approval procedures in the infrastructure sector should, where possible, also be implemented in construction.”
