Applications and consultations are made according to the first letter of the applicant's surname

• Please note that housing benefit is only paid from the month in which the application is submitted to the relevant office
• Further information, advice and current information on housing benefit as well as the housing benefit tables can be found on the website of theFederal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development and in the information sheets.

Sample calculation for housing benefit

Housing benefit is only granted on application from the first of the month in which it is applied for. If the legal requirements are met, there is usually a legal entitlement for a period of 12 months. If no changes are expected, the housing benefit authority can grant the benefit for up to 24 months. If there are significant changes in income or rent within this period, a recalculation will be carried out.

Those entitled to apply include wage and salary earners, jobseekers (ALG I recipients), self-employed persons, freelancers, pensioners, trainees, students and recipients of parental allowance (this list is not exhaustive).

However, recipients of transfer payments where the costs of accommodation and heating are already covered are excluded from housing benefit. These include unemployment benefit II or social benefit according to SGB II, basic income support according to SGB XII, assistance with living expenses according to SGB XI or benefits according to the AsylbLG.

Furthermore, housing benefit cannot be granted if the household exceeds the income limits or has too little income to cover its own living costs. Trainees or students who are entitled to BAB or BAföG or persons who are not tenants or owners of the living space for which housing benefit is applied for and who do not pay rent are also not entitled to housing benefit.

The basis for calculating housing benefit as a rent subsidy is the gross cold rent, which is made up of the net cold rent and the cold operating costs. A permanent heating cost component will be introduced as a supplement to the rent to be taken into account in order to take into account the considerable additional burdens caused by the sharp rise in heating costs. There will also be a climate component that will cushion structural rent increases due to energy-related measures in the building sector on a flat-rate basis. The heating costs and climate components are deliberately designed as lump sums in order to provide incentives to save energy.

The following examples are intended to give an impression of the housing benefit amounts in selected cases:

1) A single person in a 50 m² apartment with EUR 450 total rent (of which EUR 80 is heating costs), EUR 17.97 cable charges and a pension of EUR 1,100 net receives around EUR 150 housing benefit.

2) A single parent with a net income of around EUR 1,500.00, a maintenance payment of EUR 250 for one child and a total rent of EUR 620 (including heating costs of EUR 120) is entitled to approximately EUR 210 housing benefit.

3) For a 4-person household in which parent A earns around EUR 2,000 net, parent B receives EUR 750 unemployment benefit and the total rent is EUR 840 (of which EUR 190 is heating costs), this is likely to result in a housing benefit entitlement of EUR 180.