The joy of many house builders only lasted a few hours: the state development bank KfW had barely accepted applications for new buildings according to the Efficiency House 40 standard on Wednesday when it had to stop the program again.

The 1 billion euros provided by the federal government was exhausted within a very short time.

And this despite the fact that the Ministry of Economics had already halved the subsidy rates compared to the previous program in order to be able to fulfill as many applications as possible.

If you still want state subsidies for a new building in the future, you will have to meet stricter requirements with regard to energy efficiency.

Julia Loehr

Business correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

The drama about KfW building subsidies is thus entering another round.

At the end of January, the federal government stopped all programs at short notice after a flood of applications.

This applied to new buildings based on the KfW Efficiency House 55 standard – popular among house builders because it is not so expensive – but also to the even more economical Efficiency House 40 and refurbishments.

The background was that 5 billion euros were planned for the KfW building programs for 2022 as part of the preliminary budget management.

By the time applications were stopped on January 26, 3.2 billion euros were already there, but at that point there were still 24,000 applications for more than 7.2 billion euros

After urgent crisis meetings, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) provided a further 5 billion euros in order to at least be able to fulfill all the applications submitted.

At the same time, Habeck made it clear that in future there should only be funding for efficiency houses 40 - and only up to a total of 1 billion euros and with lower funding rates.

April 20th was set as the start date.

It was hoped in Berlin that the money would be enough for a few weeks.

But again there was a rush for funding and servers from KfW.

Funding should not be increased again

The pot of 1 billion euros will not be increased again, said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

However, the funding for new construction is not (yet) to come to an end.

A modified KfW program is to take effect from this Thursday.

This is also based on the Efficiency House 40 standard.

However, there is only money if the planned building meets the “sustainable building” quality seal.

There is a longer manual for that.

Criteria are, for example, whether the floor plan is efficiently planned, drinking water is saved, whether the building materials can be recycled, whether the house is barrier-free and much more.

Since the house has to be certified accordingly, the planning effort for the builder increases in any case.

"The seal as a funding condition will be an obstacle for many people who want to build," criticized Felix Pakleppa, general manager of the Central Association of the German Construction Industry.

The new program is limited to the end of the year.

How many billions should be made available for this is currently being negotiated within the federal government.

According to Habeck, a fundamentally new funding system is to replace the previous programs from 2023 onwards.

That should still be discussed within the government.

While Habeck, as economics and climate protection minister, wants to channel state subsidies primarily into the renovation of old buildings, Construction Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) is interested in attractive conditions for the new building.

Associations of housing companies had already warned after the Efficient House 55 subsidy was stopped that this could put a number of construction projects on hold - or only the minimum legal standards could be met. New buildings may currently still require 75 percent of the energy of a so-called reference house.

However, Habeck wants to stipulate by law that from 2023 onwards the recently promoted efficiency houses 55 will be the minimum standard.