BEG grants for building efficiency measures
Grants for owners and other eligible investors improving insulation, building systems, existing heating or small shared heat networks in Germany.
Esta oportunidad está disponible actualmente en inglés.
The Bundesförderung für effiziente Gebäude – Einzelmaßnahmen (BEG EM) supports individual improvements to existing residential and non-residential buildings. Through BAFA you can fund wall, roof, floor and ceiling insulation; windows and external doors; external summer shading; ventilation with heat or cooling recovery; digital energy controls in homes; and building automation or room-cooling equipment in non-residential buildings. Interior lighting is no longer supported as a standalone measure. Replacement heating generators and ordinary district-heat connections use KfW's separate route; BAFA also handles the small shared-building-network work described below.
Insulation, other non-heating building systems and heating-efficiency optimisation receive a base grant of 15% of eligible costs. For residential measures included in an eligible individual renovation roadmap (iSFP), an adviser-prepared plan funded through the residential energy-advice programme, an extra five percentage points apply only to spending above the ordinary eligible-cost ceiling. The plan must exist when you apply, the measure must be implemented within 15 years, and the advice grant must have been finally approved and paid before you submit proof of the work. BAFA-funded advice reports from July 2017–December 2020 can also qualify under the same conditions.
For insulation, non-heating systems and heating optimisation, the eligible-cost ceiling adds €30,000 for the first dwelling, €15,000 each for dwellings two to six, and €8,000 for each further dwelling. Where the iSFP bonus applies, or the owner is ineligible for the iSFP advice subsidy under its applicant rules, these bands become €60,000, €30,000 and €15,000 respectively. A €30,000 minimum including VAT for one dwelling must be reached in one application to claim the iSFP bonus; spending in separate applications is not added together. For several dwellings the ordinary graduated ceiling sets the threshold; three dwellings require at least €60,000 in that application. For example, €40,000 including VAT of eligible investment for one dwelling earns the 15% base grant, with the extra 5% only on €10,000. Non-residential eligible costs are capped at €500 per square metre of the relevant heated or cooled net floor area. The efficiency and planning ceilings apply per building and calendar year regardless of the number of applications. Costs include VAT unless you can deduct it, in which case only net costs count. These figures cap costs used to calculate the grant, rather than the grant itself; partial-building work uses the affected share. For residential work the building allowance is divided equally among all dwellings, with only the affected dwellings counted.
Heating optimisation can cover balancing heat distribution, replacing pumps, lowering system temperatures or insulating heating pipes. The 15% efficiency grant is limited to buildings with at most five dwellings, or non-residential buildings with at most 1,000 m² of heated area. Existing heating must be older than two years; fossil-fuel heating must also be no older than 20 years. For water-based systems, a contractor must confirm hydraulic balancing of the whole heating system using procedure B or a recognized equivalent; balancing only one flat is insufficient. Air-heating systems require adjustment of air flows. Replacing the heating generator itself is excluded from optimisation. A different 50% grant covers dust-emission reduction for solid-biomass systems rated at least 4 kW and older than two years, excluding individual room heaters. Dust must fall by at least 80%, with the specified prior and subsequent statutory emission limits met; this branch has no iSFP bonus.
Energy planning and supervision directly related to the supported work receive 50% where an independent energy-efficiency expert provides or checks the services. Eligible planning costs are capped at €5,000 for one- and two-family houses; for buildings with at least three dwellings, €2,000 per dwelling and €20,000 overall; and for non-residential buildings, €5/m² and €20,000 overall. A non-independent expert must disclose the relationship before work starts: their services use the measure's rate within its cost ceiling instead of the separate planning grant.
BAFA's network branch supports creating, upgrading or enlarging a shared heat network, and connections made as part of that work. The network must serve two to 16 buildings and no more than 100 dwellings. Larger schemes can use two separate networks with separate generators and distribution pipes; the generators may share a plant room. At least 65% of heat must come from the eligible renewable technologies and/or unavoidable waste heat. Biogas and combined heat and power do not count as renewable energy for this test; energy consumption and heat output must be metered and an efficiency display provided. New buildings may connect, but their costs and dwellings do not establish subsidy entitlement. If ineligible buildings are supplied, the heating-generation costs are allocated by heat load. Each existing building needing funding or a transferred cost allowance needs its own application. KfW handles district-heat connections and replacing a transfer station on an existing building-network connection.
The network base grant is 30%, with one overall eligible-cost ceiling per building regardless of application year or number of applications. For applications in the current period through January 2027, residential eligible-cost bands are €28,000 for the first dwelling, €15,000 for dwellings two to six and €8,000 thereafter. The first band falls by €750 every February and August from February 2027, reaching €22,000 in August 2030. Non-residential networks use €28,000 up to 150 m²; above that, graduated bands of €197/m² for the first 400 m², €118/m² for the next 600 m² and €79/m² thereafter. From February 2027 those bands fall every six months by €3, €2 and €1/m² respectively, while the up-to-150 m² cap follows the residential first band. Work affecting only part of a building uses its proportional allowance.
Owner-occupiers can receive network bonuses only for their own main or sole residence. An income bonus adds 40 percentage points for taxable household income up to €30,000; 30 points above €30,000 up to €40,000; and 10 points above €40,000 up to €50,000. Having at least one resident child under 18 reduces the income used in this test by €10,000 once. Income is the average taxable income from the second and third years before the main grant application, including resident owner-occupiers and their resident spouses or partners. A speed bonus adds 16 points through January 2027 for replacing working oil, coal, gas boilers serving individual flats or night-storage heating of any age, or working gas or biomass heating at least 20 years old, with professional dismantling and disposal. Served dwellings may no longer use fossil or gas heating, except the specified fuel-cell and hydrogen-ready systems. The speed bonus falls to 12, 8 and 4 points in the next three six-month periods and ends in August 2028. Total rates are capped at 80% for taxable household income up to €30,000, or €40,000 with the family adjustment, and 70% above that. Costs transferred from a connection application to the network application receive only the 30% base rate, without bonuses.
Eligibility
- The investor may be a homeowner, condominium owners' association, contractor, company, nonprofit or municipality. City-states and their bodies or companies, and bodies or companies of other federal states, qualify when the measure fulfils municipal functions. A non-owner investor must have an eligible owner, inform them of the subsidy and maximum amount before applying, and obtain confirmation of the owner's use, sale-transfer and inspection obligations. Private non-owners cannot apply for a building-network connection, although they are not excluded from the network creation/upgrading branch on that basis.
- Federal and state authorities are excluded subject to the municipal-function exceptions, as are political parties, applicants with requested or opened insolvency proceedings, and those subject to the specified sworn declaration or asset-information restrictions.
- The project must be in Germany. The completed building's construction application or notice must be at least five years old when you apply, and the building must fall within the Building Energy Act (GEG) after the work. Each measure must meet the directive's technical minimum requirements, checked and confirmed by the responsible registered energy expert or qualified contractor. Investment measures require at least €300 including VAT.
- Use a listed energy-efficiency expert for insulation, non-heating systems, creating/upgrading/enlarging a building network, planning supervision and any iSFP-bonus application. If one measure in a combined application needs an expert, the expert covers the whole application. Heating optimisation can instead use a qualified heating contractor. Monument-specific experts are required for monument renovations or the relaxed insulation requirements for specially protected building substance.
- Non-heating building equipment cannot be self-built, a prototype with fewer than four units used, or used equipment, including equipment with substantial used components.
- Keep the supported installation or improved building part in its intended use for at least ten years. On sale, transfer the relevant obligations to the buyer and inform them of the funding; changes of use, abandonment or demolition must be reported and can trigger proportional repayment.
- BEG EM cannot be combined with BEG whole-building renovation funding (BEG WG/NWG). Under the rules for applications from 21 July 2026, wait three years from submission of completion proof for one route before applying under the other. The separation applies when both approvals use the new rules; prior-rule approvals retain their earlier permitted combinations.
- For the same eligible costs, simultaneous support through the federal municipal climate scheme, cooling/climate scheme, CHP law, Renewable Energy Act, federal heat-network schemes, the listed predecessor building programmes or the fuel-cell grant is excluded. Tax relief under §§35a/35c is excluded for the same measure. Other permitted public funding is normally capped in total at 60% of subsidised investment costs, or 90% for municipal applicants; excess BEG funding must be reduced or repaid. Do not submit the same costs to both BAFA and KfW; a KfW supplementary loan can accompany the grant. Different measures may have separate applications within the shared cost ceilings.
How to apply
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- Apply before starting the project; funding depends on federal budget availability.[^c18][^c36]
First commission the registered energy-efficiency expert, or the qualified heating contractor where allowed, to prepare the technical project description (TPB). Its ID is valid for two months. Before applying, have a delivery or service contract whose validity depends on BAFA's funding approval and which gives the expected implementation date within the 36-month approval period. Planning and advice may take place beforehand. Apply online through the BAFA portal using “+ NEUER ANTRAG”, before the project starts. Beginning after application but before approval is at your own risk; network projects must wait for the application receipt confirmation and make no advance payments between signing the contract and applying.
For a building network, include a site plan showing connected buildings and pipes, and allocate costs to the appropriate building and cost category. Heating-generator, plant-room and biomass-store costs normally cannot be split among building applications. An exception applies to a cold-heat or source network: buildings share a heat source, such as geothermal boreholes or groundwater, supplying a central heat pump or separate heat pumps in the buildings. For this cost-sharing route, each affected existing building needs its own application for network creation, upgrading or enlargement. Include the heat pump in every application, have the energy-efficiency expert document the allocation of heat-pump costs, and assign work inside each building to that building’s application. This distributes costs rather than transferring an unused connection allowance; those two options cannot be combined.
To transfer a connection's unused cost allowance instead, upload the transfer form to every affected application and send it to wnet@bafa.bund.de. Each connection must still document at least €300 of its own eligible work; all linked completion proofs must be activated before BAFA can calculate and pay. Planning allowances cannot be transferred. When costs are transferred to a contractor, the owner cannot submit a connection application at the same investment site as that contractor.
At completion, provide proof of hydraulic balancing for every existing building served by the network. This means adjusting water-based heat distribution, and the requirement applies to each building even when no separate heating-optimisation grant is requested.
Complete the work within 36 months after receiving approval; this period cannot be extended. Obtain the technical project evidence (TPN) from the expert or contractor, then submit its two-month-valid ID, invoices and payment evidence through the portal. Invoices must name the applicant, describe the work and investment address, be in German and be paid without cash. Self-performed work qualifies only for materials, with the expert or contractor confirming correct execution and material costs. Ordinary payments must be made between application and the end of the approval period. Under the general payment rules, an invoice-linked instalment agreement is permitted after at least one cashless instalment has been paid; remaining payments can extend up to the ten-year use period. For building networks, complete the work and pay the invoices without cash before activating the completion proof. Submit the complete proof package no later than six months after the approval period ends. BAFA pays after checking it successfully.
Contractors must upload a declaration jointly signed with the customer that a draft contracting agreement identifies the parties, covers the funded work and runs for at least three years. If you abandon an approval, wait six months after BAFA receives the withdrawal before reapplying for identical measures at the same building.
For an owner-occupied flat within a condominium association, the network income bonus uses a supplementary application after the main grant. The number of owner-occupied dwellings must already be declared in the initial network or connection application. The supplementary application must arrive from six weeks to six months after the payment notice was issued. Provide residence confirmation, a land-register extract and income-tax assessments for the second and third years before submission of the main grant application, covering every household member who contributes to the taxable household income; add extended residence confirmation for a minor child. Grants depend on available federal funds and are not a legal entitlement.