Oil heating ban in Germany: rules for old and new oil boilers
No oil boiler has to go because of its age, and a new one is allowed again. What remains is the CO₂ price, a few duties when you buy a house and a grant that shrinks every six months.
Worked through by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How we calculate
Keep the oil boiler or switch
Grant if you switch now
€12,880
| CO₂ a year at €65/t | €455 |
| Oil a year (12-month average) | €2,611 |
Running it is allowed: the 30-year replacement duty ended on 29 July 2026.
Since 29 July 2026 an oil boiler in Germany no longer has to be replaced because of its age. The Building Modernisation Act deleted section 72, which forced constant-temperature oil and gas boilers out of service after 30 years, and with it the end date for fossil fuels on 31 December 2044. A new oil boiler may be installed again, but from 2029 it must use a rising share of bio-oil. Carrying on gets dearer through the CO₂ price: a 150 m² house in class F in Bavaria burns about 2,743 litres a year, which at €65 per tonne means €568 of CO₂ cost, against €218 in 2021. If you live in the house and switch now to a €36,000 heat pump, you receive €12,880 on an income of €75,000, because the climate speed bonus applies to oil whatever the boiler’s age. Applying from August 2028 would give only €7,500.
What has been deleted
Until 28 July 2026 the Building Energy Act contained two rules that affected many oil boilers. Section 72 banned the operation of older oil and gas boilers after 30 years, with exceptions including low-temperature and condensing boilers. Subsection 4 set an end date for fossil fuels in boilers on 31 December 2044 (GEG 2024). The act of 23 July 2026 deleted sections 71 to 73 entirely. The current text now just reads "weggefallen" (repealed) under section 72.
The exemption for owners who already lived in their house on 1 February 2002 goes with it: there is no replacement duty left to be exempt from. Guides still saying "oil boilers must go after 30 years" or "oil heating ban from 2026" describe law that no longer applies. That matters to buyers from abroad, who often meet these claims in sales talks.
What applies when you buy
Buying a house with oil heating does not bring a duty to replace it, but two older retrofit duties survive in the GModG. Both fall on the new owner of a one or two-family house, with two years from the transfer of ownership.
| Duty | Section | What exactly |
|---|---|---|
| Insulate the top floor ceiling | 35(1) and (3) | if it falls short of minimum thermal protection, to no more than 0.24 W/(m²K); met if the roof above is insulated instead |
| Insulate pipes | 69(2) to (4) | previously uninsulated, accessible heating and hot water pipes outside heated rooms |
| Replace the boiler | old 72 | deleted since 29 July 2026 |
If a retrofit would not pay for itself through savings within a reasonable period, the owner of a building with no more than two homes, one of which they live in, need not carry it out. The energy performance certificate (Energieausweis) the seller must show gives the efficiency class and so a rough idea of oil use (efficiency classes).
Carrying on: what the oil costs
For the example house of 150 m² in class F in Bavaria, the calculator assumes 2,743 litres a year. At the heating oil price from the EU Weekly Oil Bulletin, averaged over twelve months, that costs €3,255. Of this, €568 is CO₂ cost at €65 per tonne. How that share has moved since 2021 and what has been passed for 2027 is under CO₂ price for heating oil.
CO₂ surcharge on your heating oil
CO₂ cost a year
€414
| Per litre incl. VAT | 20.7 ct |
| Per 1,000 litres | €207 |
The same heat from an air source heat pump with a field-measured seasonal performance factor of 3.4 needs about 7,018 kWh of electricity, €1,926 a year on a heat pump tariff. The gap of €1,329 is not a promise: it depends on the radiators, the flow temperature and prices in the years ahead.
A new oil boiler
If you want to stay with oil, section 42 allows it. For boilers installed after 29 July 2026, section 43 requires a minimum share of bio-oil or an equivalent fuel: 10 % from 2029, 15 % from 2030, 30 % from 2035, 60 % from 2040. A grant from programme 458 is ruled out for an oil boiler. Landlords pay half the CO₂ cost of such a new system from 2028. The same rules apply to gas, see gas boiler ban.
Conditions of the bonus when leaving oil
The climate speed bonus is only paid if the oil boiler still works when you apply. If you wait until it fails for good, you lose it, and the application must still come before the order. The old system must be professionally removed and disposed of. Afterwards the homes it served may no longer be heated by a fossil system in or next to the building, so keeping an oil boiler as back-up beside the heat pump rules the bonus out (guideline no. 8.4.4). The bonus applies only to the home the owner lives in as main residence. An oil tank left empty after the change is a separate matter, governed by water law rather than the GModG.
Why the grant is pressing for oil households
When a working oil boiler is replaced, the climate speed bonus applies whatever its age; for gas only from 20 years (KfW 458). The bonus drops from 16 % to 12 % for applications from 1 February 2027 and ends from 1 August 2028, while the cap on eligible costs falls in parallel. In the example the difference is €5,380. The grant calculator shows the curve for your case, and the bonus is explained under climate speed bonus.