Reform planned: Rent subsidy from the state: In some cases, you can get hundreds of euros a month
The energy crisis affects all areas of life. For many citizens, even the rental and ancillary costs are becoming a challenge. That is why the housing allowance will be reformed from 2023, so that more households are entitled to the subsidy – the official online calculator will tell you more.
The housing benefit is intended to help families with low incomes to cover the costs of rent or owner-occupied housing. According to Statista, around 618,000 households in Germany were recipients of these state aid payments totaling 1.3 billion euros in 2020.
In view of rising energy prices and ever higher rental costs, the group of recipients of the housing allowance is to be expanded from January 2023, according to an announcement by Chancellor Scholz – for example by including heating costs in the calculations.
How much each individual household gets is calculated using a formula:
Housing benefit reform: Much still unclear
What exactly the new regulations will look like from January 2023 is still unclear at the moment. Therefore, the housing benefit calculator is currently not helping you to find out whether you will be eligible.
However, you can deal with it now. The following fields must be filled out in the online calculator:
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Number of household members:
Enter all persons in the household as a number. -
Number of household members to consider:
This includes spouses, life partners, parents and children, family members of a household member. Household members who already receive various grants are excluded – an overview can be found in this PDF. -
Total Monthly Income:
How much do all members earn in total in gross? You must be able to prove this when you apply for housing benefit. -
Monthly gross cold rent:
Here you enter the burden of the rent or, in the case of owner-occupied residential property, the monthly burden, for example a loan installment. -
Rent level:
Which rental level does your district or city belong to? This is important because you can rent significantly more living space in a small town for 1,000 euros than in Munich or Hamburg. You can find out which level your region belongs to in the official PDF of the Federal Ministry.
Once you have filled out all the points, click on the “Calculate” button. Then you can see whether and how much housing benefit you would probably receive.
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