As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, the public total budget was indebted for 2,661.5 billion euros in the non-public sector. According to preliminary figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Thursday, public debt increased by 1.9 percent, or 50.8 billion euros, compared to the third quarter of 2025. Furthermore, compared to the end of the year 2024, the public debt level at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025 rose by 6.0 percent, totaling 151.0 billion euros.
The public total budget encompasses the finances of the federal government, states, municipalities, and municipal associations, as well as social insurance, including all extra budgets. The non-public sector includes credit institutions, alongside other domestic and foreign sectors, such as private companies both at home and abroad.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, federal debt increased by 1.8 percent, or 32.2 billion euros, compared to the previous quarter, reaching 1,840.6 billion euros. This increase was mainly due to growing debt in special assets: the “Bundeswehr Special Fund” increased its debt by 9.8 billion euros, or 29.4 percent, compared to the prior quarter, reaching 43.0 billion euros. Additionally, the “Infrastructure and Climate Neutrality Special Fund” (SVIK), which was newly established retroactively to January 1, 2025, took on debt for the first time in October 2025, with its debt standing at 24.3 billion euros by the end of the fourth quarter.
States were indebted for 624.6 billion euros by the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase of 8.7 billion euros (1.4 percent) from the previous quarter. Hamburg showed the largest percentage increase in debt at +7.8 percent, followed by Bremen (+3.9 percent) and Bavaria (+3.2 percent). In Hamburg, the rise in debt is primarily attributable to the integration of liabilities from certain other funds, institutions, and enterprises (sFEU) into the debt structure following the creation of the enterprise financing extra budget “FinanzServiceAgentur Hamburg” (FSA); previously, these entities funded themselves in the financial markets. In Bremen, the increase in cash loans was due to providing cash guarantees for investments. The rise in Bavaria is linked to refinancing loans that had previously expired.
Only three states saw a decrease in debt compared to the previous quarter. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern experienced the largest percentage drop in debt (-3.9 percent), while Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt saw minor decreases (each of -0.1 percent).
Municipalities and municipal associations also increased their debt by 9.8 billion euros, reaching 196.3 billion euros by the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. This represented the largest percentage increase among the individual components of the public total budget (+5.3 percent).
The largest percentage increase in debt compared to the previous quarter was seen by municipalities and municipal associations in Lower Saxony (+9.3 percent), followed by municipalities in Baden-Württemberg (+9.2 percent) and Saxony (+8.8 percent). These increases are mainly due to the fact that local reserves were largely depleted, necessitating that municipalities acquire new debt to carry out their assigned tasks.
A reduction in municipal debt was recorded in Thuringia (-1.7 percent), as in all other quarters of the year, and for the first time in 2025, in Saarland (-0.9 percent). For the municipalities in Saarland, this was partly due to the state taking over the debt of the municipalities and municipal associations again as part of the “Saarland Pact”.
Debt for social insurance decreased by 2.5 percent, or 0.2 million euros, compared to the previous quarter in the fourth quarter of 2025, falling to 9.4 million euros.