Buying Property in Germany as a Foreigner

If you want to buy a house or a flat in Germany, to live in or to rent out, you do not need citizenship, an EU passport, or a residence permit. This page walks through that purchase: the extra costs, the notary steps, how cities differ from the countryside, and the taxes that continue after you own it.

Owning property here does not change your right to live here. There is no residence permit for buying a home, and the purchase does not make a mortgage automatic. EU and non-EU buyers follow the same contract, the same land register, and the same transfer tax. The difference shows up at the bank, which is stricter when you do not live and earn in Germany.

Renting is still the more common way to live. In 2023, 47.3% of households owned real property, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Tenant protections are strong, and buying often adds about 10% to 13% on top of the price when an agent is involved. If you are still comparing a lease, the search itself is covered in Finding an Apartment in Germany: SCHUFA, Deposits, and Scams.

Who can buy, and what a purchase does not give you

Germany does not restrict property ownership by nationality. Someone living in another country can buy, and so can someone here on a work permit or a student visa. The land register records you as owner once the sale is finished. You need a passport. The price is paid by bank transfer, and the notary has to be satisfied about who you are and where the money came from.

An EU passport does not change that right, and it does not by itself get you a loan. Banks look at whether you live here, whether your income is in euros, and whether they can check you through the German credit file (SCHUFA). How that file works, including when you have little German history, is in Getting a SCHUFA Credit Report Without Prior German History. Residents with a job and a credit file are the buyers banks already know how to approve. Non-residents are harder, and buyers who live outside Europe are harder still, because the bank has less it can do if payments stop. Some banks will not lend to non-residents at all. Expect to pay the purchase costs in cash either way. Lenders rarely add them to the loan.

If you are married, say so early. The notary asks which marital property rules apply, and your spouse may have to sign. If you cannot attend, you can authorize someone with a power of attorney (Vollmacht), which itself has to be notarized. Papers that are not in German may need a translation.

People and companies on a sanctions list can be blocked, including at the notary. A non-EU passport does not put you on that list. A purchase still does not lead to a residence permit or citizenship. Work, study, family, and the other usual routes are unchanged. If you still need a basis to live here, start with Which Visa Do You Need in Germany.

Why so many people rent

The ownership figure has practical reasons. A normal lease is hard for a landlord to end, rent increases are limited in many places, and people often change city for work, so renting fits that. Those protections, from the tenant’s side, are in Renting in Germany: Deposits, Rights, and Subletting. If you buy a flat that already has a tenant, you inherit that lease. Wanting the flat for yourself (Eigenbedarf) can be a reason to end it, but notice periods are long, some cities add further protection, and a tenant can object when moving out would cause serious hardship. Do not buy an occupied flat on the assumption that it will be empty by a date you picked.

Posts about flats that “pay for themselves” usually compare the rent with the mortgage and stop there. House charges, repairs, empty months, income tax on the rent, and the cash you paid at the start all sit outside that comparison. A flat can still be a sensible buy once those costs are in the picture.

What you pay on top of the price

The price is the seller’s number. You also pay the state, the notary, the land register, and often an agent. Without an agent, a working budget is roughly 6% to 9% of the price. With a typical shared commission, the total often lands around 10% to 13%, and it can approach 15% where both the tax and the fee are at the high end.

Real estate transfer tax (Grunderwerbsteuer) is the large piece. The state where the property sits sets the rate, from 3.5% to 6.5%. Your own address does not matter. The table below shows the rate in each state. States do change these, and Bremen moved to 5.5% on 1 July 2025, so ask the notary to confirm the rate on your contract.

On a €400,000 purchase, transfer tax alone is €14,000 in Bavaria and €26,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia. The notary reports the contract to the tax office. You receive an assessment, you pay it, and the office issues a clearance certificate (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung). The land register will not record you as owner until that certificate exists.

Notary and land-register fees follow a legal table, so they are not a percentage you negotiate. A working budget is about 2% of the price for the two together. The share is a little lower on very expensive property and a little higher on a cheap one.

Agent commission (Maklerprovision) disappears on a private sale. When the seller hired the agent, and you are a private buyer of a flat or a single-family house, you pay at most half of the commission. In much of the country that half is 3.57% of the price, including VAT, but local custom differs, so use the figure on the listing. Apartment buildings and commercial property can put the whole fee on one side.

A reservation agreement is not the purchase. Some agents charge a fee while you sort out the loan, and you may not get it back if you withdraw. Until the notary appointment is done, the seller can also still sell to someone else.

How the purchase works

The contract is valid only when a notary reads it out and you sign it there. An email, a handshake, or a signed listing does not transfer a house in Germany.

1. You search the large listing sites, through agents, and sometimes through the seller’s bank. The listing has to include an energy certificate (Energieausweis). Read the efficiency class, and ask what heats the building and who would pay to replace it. An old oil or night-storage system can turn into a five-figure replacement, so get a plain answer on the heating before you agree a price.

2. You get a land-register extract (Grundbuchauszug). It names the owner, the mortgages, and rights such as a path a neighbour is allowed to use. For a flat, also read the division deed (Teilungserklärung), the minutes of recent owners’ meetings, the monthly house charge (Hausgeld), and the balance of the repair reserve.

3. You line up the loan, or you confirm you can pay in cash. If you need a mortgage, the notarised contract should say the deal depends on the bank approving it (Finanzierungsvorbehalt). Without that clause, a rejected application does not cancel the price.

4. The notary sends a draft in German. Read it with enough time to ask questions, and bring an interpreter to the appointment if you need one. You pay the interpreter. The notary reads the contract aloud and is neutral, working for the transaction rather than for the seller.

5. After signing, the notary files a priority notice (Auflassungsvormerkung) in the land register. That blocks the seller from selling the same place again, or from taking a new mortgage over it, while the transfer is still open.

6. You pay the transfer tax. The notary arranges for the seller’s old mortgages to be cleared, and you then get a formal payment request. Pay only as that request instructs. Keys are often handed over against this payment, with a short protocol of meters and defects. You can already be living there while the register still shows the seller.

7. Once the tax is cleared and the price is paid, the notary files the change of owner. The register often takes weeks, and sometimes a few months. You are the legal owner when that entry is made.

Flats, houses, and the countryside

A flat means you own your unit plus a share of the stairs, the roof, and the land. The owners’ association (Wohnungseigentümergemeinschaft) decides on shared repairs. The monthly house charge covers running costs and a payment into the reserve. A special levy (Sonderumlage) can still be voted through for a roof, a facade, or new heating, and you pay your share even if you voted no. A low house charge next to an empty reserve usually means a large repair has not been saved for yet. In large cities, also check whether the district limits short-term lets. A flat you hoped to list by the night may not be allowed to operate that way.

A house means the plot and the building are yours, so the roof, the pipes, and the building insurance sit with you. The land register can also show building limits, notes on contaminated land, or a ground lease (Erbbaurecht). A ground lease is not ownership of the land. You buy a long right to use it, you pay a ground rent on top, and banks are often stricter about lending against it.

Prices in Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Stuttgart sit far above many smaller towns, especially in the east and in rural areas. Rents are higher in those cities too, but usually not by the same gap, so a rental investment has less monthly margin where the purchase price is highest, and it depends more on the flat staying easy to let. A cheaper house outside the city moves the risk rather than removing it: fewer tenants, a longer wait if you need to sell, and buildings that need money for heating, windows, and the roof. Village life also assumes a car. If you might leave Germany within a few years, a place with many possible buyers is an easier exit than a low price with nobody behind it.

Taxes after you own it

Transfer tax is paid once, at purchase. Property tax (Grundsteuer) is yearly. The municipality sets a multiplier, and the valuation rules changed from 2025, so there is no useful national “typical bill.” You pay it as the owner. If you rent the place out, the lease often lets you pass property tax on through the service-charge settlement. Payslips, the annual return, and the shorter note on these two taxes are in Taxes in Germany: Income Tax, VAT, and Everyday Tax Basics.

What you can deduct depends on whether you live there. A home you occupy does not give you a German deduction for the mortgage interest, and you cannot write the building off against your salary. A place you rent out is different. The rent is taxable. Against it you can usually set the interest on the loan for that property, allowable running costs, and depreciation of the building. The land is not depreciated. Residential buildings finished after 2022 are generally written off at 3% of the building’s value each year. Older ones are usually 2% if they were finished after 1924, and 2.5% if they are older than that. A tax adviser should split the price between land and building, and check whether a faster write-off applies to a new build.

If you do not live in Germany, rent from German property is still taxable here. Your other country may tax it as well. Treaties usually leave Germany the right to tax income from property located here, with relief at home, but the forms are specific to your two countries. That is a job for a tax adviser (Steuerberater), not a comment thread. Share portfolios and brokerage accounts are a separate set of rules, covered in Investing in Germany: Capital Gains Tax and Broker Traps.

When you sell, private owners look at a 10-year period. Profit on a rented property sold inside those 10 years is taxed as income, at your income-tax rate, not as its own flat fee. Sell after 10 years and that private gain is usually tax-free. If you lived in the home yourself in the year of sale and in the two previous calendar years, the gain is usually tax-free even sooner. Buying and selling so often that you look like a trader can pull the activity into business tax. One sale of a former home does not do that.

Gifts and inheritances of German property can be taxed too, and a house here can pull a cross-border estate into German procedure. If that is likely, tell the notary before the place is bought in one person’s name only.

Common questions

Can foreigners buy property in Germany?

Yes. EU and non-EU citizens can buy a house or a flat, including if they live abroad. The notary, the land register, and the transfer tax are the same. The purchase does not give you a visa or a residence permit.

Do EU citizens get a better mortgage in Germany?

The law does not give EU citizens a cheaper loan. Banks prefer buyers who live in Germany, earn in euros, and already have a German credit file. Non-residents, especially people living outside Europe, are more often asked for a larger cash share, and some banks will not lend to them.

How much are the extra costs when buying property in Germany?

Without an agent, budget roughly 6% to 9% on top of the price. Transfer tax is 3.5% to 6.5% depending on the state, and notary plus land-register fees are often about 2% together. With an agent, a private buyer of a flat or a single-family house often pays half of the commission, commonly 3.57% including VAT.

Do I pay tax when I sell a property in Germany?

Profit on a rented place sold within 10 years is usually taxed as income. After 10 years, a private seller usually pays nothing on that gain. A home you lived in during the year of sale and the two calendar years before is usually tax-free even sooner. Rent you collect is taxable whether you sell or not.

Does buying a home in Germany help me get residence?

No. Germany has no residence permit and no citizenship route based on buying property. Your right to live here still depends on EU free movement or an ordinary permit, such as work, study, or family.

Useful links

• Find a notary through the German Notaries’ association.
• Property tax reform: questions and answers from the Federal Ministry of Finance (German).
• Standard land values (BORIS) for the plot values used in property tax and local price checks.
• Taxation of real estate from Germany Trade & Invest, including the state transfer-tax rates in English.