About five percent of people in Germany – 4.2 million – reported that they had fallen behind on paying their utility bills in 2024, according to figures from the German Federal Statistical Office Destatis. Tenants fared particularly badly: 6.4 percent of them struggled to pay their electricity or gas bills on time, the Federal Statistical Office said, drawing on a survey of income and living conditions.

Utility bills in Germany rose sharply in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis that came with it. Although the prices of electricity, petrol, fossil gas and heating oil have come down since then, they remain relatively high, notes Destatis. The share of people in Germany who have failed to pay their utility bills is broadly unchanged compared with 2023, at 5.4%.

The shift to the new energy policy places an uneven financial burden on Germany's poorest households, which spend a greater share of their income on energy and water bills. These households need more state support in order to tackle the problem of “energy poverty”, says a recently published report by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). The authors found that low-income households "are unable to respond adequately to rising fossil fuel prices, for example as a result of CO₂ pricing, by investing in energy-efficient renovation or renewable heat".

According to an analysis by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the transition costs associated with heating affect people far more than the equivalent costs in other sectors, such as transport.