Heating costs by German state: what the climate does
Energy prices are much the same across Germany, winters are not. This page shows how far a state’s climate shifts heating costs and where its effect stops.
Worked through by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
Heating cost in your state
Heat pump a year
€1,448
| Gas boiler a year | €2,657 |
| Degree days (DWD) | 3,318 |
| Heat demand | 17,941 kWh |
Efficiency class E, 2026 prices.
A house in a cold German state (Bundesland) needs more heat than in a mild one, because the heating season is longer and outdoor temperatures lower. This is measured with the degree days published by the German Weather Service. Averaged over 2021 to 2025 they range from 2,917 in Hesse to 3,475 in Thuringia, a gap of 19 %. The effect on heating bills is smaller, because hot water, about 19 % of demand, does not depend on the weather. A 140 m² house in efficiency class E costs €2,395 a year with gas in Hesse and €2,759 in Thuringia, 15 % more. With an air-source heat pump it is €1,306 and €1,504. Every extra 100 degree days costs this house about €65 of gas or €36 of electricity a year. The state of the building matters more: an unrenovated class G house in Hesse needs over twice as much as a class C house in Thuringia.
Why the same house does not cost the same everywhere
Heating replaces the heat that escapes through walls, roof and windows. How much that is depends on the difference between indoor and outdoor temperature and on how long it lasts. Both are captured by degree days, which the German Weather Service publishes for its stations under the VDI 3807 standard. The higher the figure, the more heat a house of the same build needs in a year. In the data this page uses, gas and electricity prices do not differ by state: the Federal Statistical Office reports national averages. Every difference in the table below therefore comes from climate alone.
Three reasons some states are colder
First, distance from the Atlantic. The further east a place lies, the colder its winters. Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg are above the average even though they are no further north than Hesse. Second, altitude: Erfurt, Gera and Chemnitz sit higher than the cities on the Rhine, and temperature falls with height. Third, the coast. Winters by the North Sea and the Baltic are mild, but spring and autumn stay cool and windy for a long time. The heating season drags on, and Schleswig-Holstein ends up near the top of the table. If you are moving from the UK or the Netherlands, northern Germany will feel familiar; the east and the uplands have harder winters.
At the other end are the Upper Rhine valley and the Rhine-Main area. Frankfurt, Mannheim, Freiburg and the big cities along the Rhine and the Ruhr are among the warmest places in Germany. Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg therefore have the lowest values, even though they include cold uplands. The weather stations simply stand in the cities.
All 16 states against the average
The table shows each state’s degree days, the gap to the 16-state average of 3,181 and what that means for the gas bill of the 140 m² class E example house, measured against the average of all states, €2,567.
| State | Degree days | vs average | Gas a year vs average | Stations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thuringia | 3,475 | +9 % | +€192 | Erfurt-Weimar, Gera-Leumnitz |
| Saxony | 3,356 | +5 % | +€114 | Dresden-Klotzsche, Leipzig/Halle, Chemnitz |
| Schleswig-Holstein | 3,348 | +5 % | +€109 | Kiel-Holtenau, Luebeck-Blankensee, Schleswig |
| Bavaria | 3,318 | +4 % | +€89 | Muenchen-Stadt, Nuernberg, Augsburg, Wuerzburg |
| Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania | 3,280 | +3 % | +€64 | Schwerin, Rostock-Warnemuende, Greifswald |
| Hamburg | 3,251 | +2 % | +€46 | Hamburg-Fuhlsbuettel |
| Brandenburg | 3,221 | +1 % | +€26 | Potsdam, Cottbus |
| Saarland | 3,192 | +0 % | +€7 | Saarbruecken-Ensheim |
| Bremen | 3,177 | −0 % | −€3 | Bremen |
| Lower Saxony | 3,160 | −1 % | −€14 | Hannover-Langenhagen, Braunschweig |
| Berlin | 3,148 | −1 % | −€22 | Berlin-Tempelhof, Berlin-Dahlem (Met.Inst) |
| Rhineland-Palatinate | 3,081 | −3 % | −€65 | Mainz-Lerchenberg (Zdf), Trier-Petrisberg, Kaiserslautern |
| Saxony-Anhalt | 3,076 | −3 % | −€68 | Magdeburg |
| Baden-Württemberg | 2,968 | −7 % | −€139 | Stuttgart-Echterdingen, Mannheim, Freiburg/Breisgau |
| North Rhine-Westphalia | 2,929 | −8 % | −€164 | Duesseldorf, Koeln/Bonn, Essen-Bredeney, Muenster/Osnabrueck |
| Hesse | 2,917 | −8 % | −€172 | Frankfurt/Main |
Between Hesse and Thuringia the gap is 19 % in degree days but only 15 % in gas costs. The difference is hot water: about 19 % of heat demand goes on it according to the Fraunhofer ISE field study, and that part does not depend on the weather. The calculator therefore scales only space heating by climate.
How sensitive the bill is to climate
For the example house, 100 extra degree days cost about €65 of gas a year. With an air-source heat pump on the heat pump tariff reported by the Federal Network Agency it is about €36, because each extra kWh of heat costs less. A heat pump therefore lowers not just the bill but also its dependence on the weather. A cold winter hits a gas-heated household almost twice as hard. The same applies from year to year: if a winter turns out a few hundred degree days colder than average, the bill rises in the same proportion as between two states.
Your efficiency class
Class
E
| Final energy a year | 18,850 kWh |
| Air heat pump electricity | 4,801 kWh |
Reference climate, not adjusted for your state.
The building matters more
Clear as the differences between states are, they are small next to the effect of the building. An unrenovated class G house of 140 m² in Hesse, the mildest state, pays €3,717 a year for gas. A class C house of the same size in Thuringia, the coldest, pays €1,665. The classes come from Annex 10 of the Building Modernisation Act; the calculator uses the middle of each band, which is a simplification. If you are buying, ask for the energy certificate (Energieausweis), which states the class; more under Building Energy Act.
Limits of these figures
A state’s value here is the average of one to four stations in large cities. Rural areas and uplands are colder, so a house in the Ore Mountains or the Sauerland needs more heat than the table shows for Saxony or North Rhine-Westphalia. The years 2021 to 2025 were also milder than the long-term average, and the Weather Service’s monthly values are provisional. For choosing between two systems this hardly matters, because climate affects both equally. For the absolute size of the bill, your measured consumption is the better starting point. Enter it in the heating cost calculator; a heat pump’s electricity demand is worked out under heat pump electricity use. The comparison of every system per kWh of heat is under heating costs compared, the gas price and its parts under gas price.