The majority of the property in Germany is owned by natural persons. As of January 1, 2022, 81.3 percent of the economic units of property and 73.6 percent of businesses in agricultural and forestry assets were in sole ownership of individual natural persons or married couples, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Thursday.
There are clear differences between the federal states regarding the ownership structures, especially when considering the sum of the property tax values belonging to each ownership group. The property tax value serves as the assessment basis for the collection of property tax.
Due to a constitutional amendment in the framework of the property tax reform in 2019, the federal states are able to issue their own property tax assessment regulations. Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Hesse, and Lower Saxony have utilized this possibility in the area of property. These states account for a total of 15.8 million economic units and thus slightly more than half of all undeveloped and built-upon plots. In the area of agricultural and forestry assets, however, the federal assessment model is uniformly applied in all federal states.
In the federal states Bavaria, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Schleswig-Holstein, natural persons or married couples with shares above 80 percent are by far the most important ownership group. These states account for approximately half of the property tax values of agricultural and forestry assets, amounting to a total of 83.3 billion euros.
In the eastern German states, this share is significantly lower, with values ranging between 42.4 percent in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and 54.7 percent in Saxony-Anhalt. Here, business-operating legal persons form another important ownership group. Their share of the sum of property tax values ranges between 17.7 percent in Saxony and 24.6 percent in Brandenburg.
Structural differences in the ownership structure also exist in the property between eastern and western German states, as well as peculiarities among the city-states. Since the federal states use different assessment models in some cases, the absolute values are not directly comparable, only the relative shares of the respective state totals.
Corporate entities in Hamburg and Berlin, with shares of 39.4 percent and 39.5 percent, respectively, form the most significant ownership group. Conversely, the share of this group is lowest in Saarland, where individuals or couples constitute the most important ownership group at 77.6 percent compared to the nationwide average. The calculation of these shares includes ground tax values or comparable amounts for undeveloped and built residential and non-residential plots.
Considering only residential plots and states that apply the Federal Valuation Act, Berlin has the lowest share of individuals or couples at 51.2 percent. At the same time, Berlin has the highest share of corporate entities at 31.0 percent concerning the sum of ground tax values. The shares of corporate entities in the other states that use the Federal Valuation Act are more than ten percentage points lower. Among these, Saarland has the lowest share (2.9 percent) and Saxony the second highest (20.5 percent).
