According to a recent survey from the Ifo Institute, 21 percent of self-employed individuals in Germany plan to increase their investments this year. This figure contrasts with the data from November 2025, when only 18.2 percent of respondents expected to invest more in 2026. Ifo expert Katrin Demmelhuber noted that while the willingness to invest shows a slight uptrend, self-employed people require stable and predictable frameworks for a lasting economic recovery.
Nearly half of sole self-employed individuals and small businesses (47.1 percent) anticipate investing the same amount this year as in the previous year. Meanwhile, the percentage planning to cut their 2026 investments dropped from 36.3 percent to 31.9 percent. However, Demmelhuber observed that even with this slight improvement, the investment plans of the self-employed remain behind the rest of the German economy, where 28.4 percent of businesses currently plan to expand their investment activities.
A different picture emerges when looking at the business climate, despite the improvement in investment expectations. Unlike their investment forecasts, the business expectations of the self-employed dropped sharply in March, falling from -15.1 to -26.0 points. This led to a deterioration of the overall business climate, with the “Jimdo-Ifo Business Climate Index” falling from -16.5 points in February to -20.8 points in March. On a more positive note, dissatisfaction with current business operations saw a slight decrease. Conversely, uncertainty among sole self-employed individuals and small businesses increased: currently, 36.4 percent find it difficult to assess their future business development, an increase from 32 percent the previous month.
Access to financing is a critical requirement for planned investments to materialize. In this area, the rate of reporting difficulties has noticeably declined for the self-employed compared to the previous quarter (falling from 47.6 percent to 34.6 percent). This reduction was also seen across the overall economy (from 35.2 percent to 31.7 percent). Furthermore, the proportion of respondents who are even engaged in credit negotiations remains low for the self-employed at 10.5 percent, which is significantly lower than the 26.4 percent reported within the total economy.