The real inflow of orders in manufacturing fell 11.1 percent in January 2026 compared with December 2025 after both seasonal and calendar adjustments, according to preliminary figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Monday. When the influence of large orders is excluded, the decline was 0.4 percent.
December 2025 had displayed an unusually high level of orders-its highest since February 2022-largely driven by a wave of big contracts. Over the less volatile three‑month period from November 2025 through January 2026, the order inflow was 7.4 percent higher than in the preceding quarter; without the large orders the increase was 1.5 percent. In Saarland, final data were not ready in time for the January 2026 national calculation, so estimates were used instead. The revised December‑2025 figure rose 6.4 percent on the provisional result, which had shown a 7.8 percent gain.
After the surge of large orders in December 2025, January 2026 saw a return to normal levels across several manufacturing sectors. New orders for metal product manufacturing dropped 39.4 percent on a seasonally and calendar‑adjusted basis, whereas December 2025 had seen a 29.7 percent rise. Declines are also evident in machine building (-13.5 percent) and metal production and processing (-15.1 percent), again reflecting the lower volume of big contracts. Positive momentum, however, came from the automotive industry (+10.4 percent) and from other vehicle manufacturing-airplanes, ships, trains, and military vehicles (+9.2 percent).
Order inflows for investment goods were down 14.1 percent from the previous month, while those for intermediate goods fell 7.9 percent; consumer goods showed a marginal increase of 0.1 percent.
Foreign orders declined 7.1 percent in January 2026, with euro‑zone orders falling 7.3 percent and non‑euro‑zone orders 7.1 percent. Domestic orders were lower by 16.2 percent.
Real sales in the manufacturing sector rose 1.5 percent in January 2026 on a seasonally and calendar‑adjusted basis, and were 1.3 percent higher than in January 2025 when seasonally adjusted. The revised December 2025 figure shows a 0.4 percent decline versus November 2025, after the provisional result had indicated a 1.4 percent drop.
