The coalition has scrapped the planned cut to Wohngeld, Germany’s housing benefit. Conservatives and Social Democrats agreed on Wednesday evening, 11 November, and the result fed into the Bundestag budget committee’s final session overnight into Thursday. For the roughly 1.3 million households that receive Wohngeld, the message is simple: if you are entitled today, you stay entitled. Only the increase due in January is cancelled.
“To be clear: no household that is entitled to Wohngeld today will receive less next year,” Construction Minister Verena Hubertz (SPD) told t-online. Three cuts from the July government draft are gone. The heating component would have halved from €96 to €48 for a single person (from €172 to €86 for four), the formula would have cut payments faster as income rises, and the minimum payment would have risen from €10 to €15. According to the ministry, up to 400,000 households could have lost their entitlement; Berliner Zeitung puts it at 381,000, about a third of all recipients.
What still doesn’t happen
The regular adjustment, due every two years under the Wohngeld law and worth about €30 a month when it last took effect on 1 January 2025, is suspended for a year. The German Tenants’ Association speaks of a “creeping loss of purchasing power”: rents keep rising while the benefit stays at its 2025 level. At the end of 2025 an average household received about €296 a month.
One caveat for planning: this is not yet law. The Bundestag still has to pass the Wohngeld reform and the Bundesrat is involved. The Bundesrat criticised the cuts in September, so resistance to the reversal looks unlikely. Our assessment, with moderate confidence: the reversal will most likely hold, but the roughly €1 billion of planned savings must be found elsewhere, which could bring the issue back in 2028.
What you can do now
Wohngeld is a rent subsidy for people who earn their own income, but a small one: families, single parents, pensioners, low earners. Anyone receiving Bürgergeld, social assistance or asylum-seeker benefits generally gets no Wohngeld; it is one or the other. Ukrainians with protection status under Section 24 may qualify if they work and their income sits just above the basic-support level. The local Wohngeld office or a migration advice centre can check your case.
Three things matter. First, Wohngeld is paid “as a rule only from the start of the month in which the application” arrives, with essentially nothing for past months, so don’t wait. Second, approval usually lasts 12 months; after that you need a continuation application, ideally two to three months before expiry because processing is slower with so many claims. Third, the number of Wohngeld households has almost doubled since 2022, from about 652,000 to 1.24 million at the end of 2024.
In Munich the Amt für Wohnen und Migration is responsible (Werinherstraße 87, 81541 Munich, tel. 089 233-49250). In-person visits are by appointment only; forms are available at the information desks, the Sozialbürgerhäuser and the Rathaus. Bring your rental contract, proof of income for every household member and your residence permit.
Had the cut gone ahead, families on low incomes would have been hit hardest. According to an analysis for the Paritätischer welfare federation, about 69 per cent of people in Wohngeld households live with at least one child. That makes the coalition’s U-turn above all good news for families.
Sources: t-online, Berliner Zeitung, ad-hoc-news, Bundestag (Drs. 21/6534), City of Munich
