Hubertz says the Bau-Turbo is working after one year as housing groups and the Left question the figures

Germany's federal building minister, Verena Hubertz of the Social Democrats (SPD), said on Tuesday that the "Bau-Turbo," a law meant to speed up housing construction, is working, one year after it took effect. Her ministry reported that 393 municipalities taking part in a voluntary survey approved 7,892 homes under the new rules between January and June 2026. "Municipalities in Germany can now approve building projects up to 20 times faster," Hubertz said, according to Handelsblatt, citing the dpa news agency.

The ministry's own figures come with caveats. The survey covers only 393 of Germany's roughly 11,000 municipalities and, in the ministry's words, is "not representative for the whole country." A municipal approval under the Bau-Turbo is not yet a building permit. The ministry has not published figures on how much time the law has saved. Housing associations, landlords and the Left party all questioned on Tuesday how much the law has done to ease the country's housing shortage. New construction has fallen for two years in a row.

Quotations from German-language sources in this article are 567politics translations.

What the Bau-Turbo does

The "Law to Accelerate Housing Construction and Secure Housing" took effect on October 30, 2025, according to the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB). Its core is an experimental clause, Section 246e of the Federal Building Code. It lets municipalities approve housing projects that depart from planning rules without first drawing up or changing a local development plan, a process that can take years. The clause expires on December 31, 2030.

Two other changes make it easier to add homes inside areas that already have a plan, for example by adding floors, building extensions or building "in the second row" behind existing houses. They also allow new homes in built-up areas without a plan even where they do not fit the surrounding buildings. In every case the project must be compatible with public interests, taking neighbors into account, and the municipality must agree. A municipality may consult the public first but is not required to. Deutschlandfunk reported that the law also allows departures from noise protection rules in justified cases.

What the ministry's figures show

The ministry ran its monitoring from January to June 2026. Of the 7,892 approved homes, 2,107 were in Munich, 345 in Stuttgart and 255 in Frankfurt am Main. Rural communities and small towns accounted for about 30% of the applications recorded, and mid-sized towns for about 30%. Large cities, with about 18%, were "underrepresented," the ministry said.

Nearly nine in ten of the approved homes are to be built on land already in use, such as residential, commercial or vacant sites and brownfields, the ministry said. Only 12% are on former green space or farmland. Most applicants were private individuals. Of the applications, 73% were for new buildings, 12% for adding floors and 5% for conversions. Single-family homes made up 49% of applications and multi-family buildings 43%. But about 84% of the approved homes are in multi-family buildings.

According to Bild, the ministry said in reply to the paper's questions that only 36% of the reported Bau-Turbo approvals had a building permit by the end of June. The ministry did not say how many of the homes were under construction or finished, Bild reported. Bild also said Bau-Turbo applications had been handled in 72% of the 393 municipalities in the survey.

Asked by Bild at the press conference whether she could really be satisfied, Hubertz said the nearly 8,000 homes would not have come so quickly without the law. "The direction is right and more will follow," she said, as quoted by Bild. She described a shift away from rigid rules "toward more freedom and bold design," according to Handelsblatt.

The ministry says the survey data will feed into an evaluation of Section 246e that the law requires by December 31, 2029. It is also working with eight model municipalities, including the rural district of Nienburg/Weser, which is building procedures for 36 communities. A further reform, which the ministry calls the "Building Code upgrade," is due to take effect on January 1, 2027.

The wider picture: fewer homes completed

The law arrived during a long slump in construction. Germany completed 206,600 homes in 2025, 18% fewer than in 2024, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). That was the lowest figure since 2012. Completions had been about 294,000 a year from 2021 to 2023. The chart below shows completions for the years Destatis cites in its release.

2009

159,000

2012

200,500

2020

306,400

2024

252,000

2025

206,600

Source: Destatis, press release of May 2026

Show the numbers

Year	Homes completed
2009	159,000
2012	200,500
2020	306,400
2024	252,000
2025	206,600

Destatis also reported that the average time from a building permit to completion of a residential building had grown to 27 months in 2025, up from 20 months in 2020. At the end of 2025 there were 760,700 homes that had been approved but not yet completed, of which 307,200 were under construction. In 2025, 35,700 building permits expired unused, the highest number since 2002.

Permits are now rising. Germany approved 169,400 homes from January to August 2026, 12.1% more than a year earlier, Destatis reported in October. Destatis does not break out how many of those permits used the Bau-Turbo. Bild cited a forecast by the Ifo institute of 185,000 completions in 2026. The previous government, a coalition of the SPD, Greens and Free Democrats, had promised 400,000 new homes a year, but fewer than 300,000 were built in each of its building minister's three years in office, Bild noted. Bild also reported that the current coalition of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU/CSU and the SPD has not named a specific target.

The housing industry: faster, but not cheaper

The GdW, a federation of about 3,000 municipal, cooperative, church-owned, private and state-owned housing companies, called the result mixed. In a statement on Tuesday, it said only about 8% of the socially oriented housing companies it surveyed in September 2026 said the Bau-Turbo had been used in a concrete permit procedure for one of their projects. Where it was used, permits took three months on average, and companies estimated it had saved them 13 months on average. About 31% said they intend to use it for other projects.

"A building permit does not yet give anyone a home," said GdW president Axel Gedaschko. "The Bau-Turbo can save valuable time. But as long as affordable homes cannot be built affordably, its promise remains unfulfilled." The GdW called for lasting low interest rates on subsidized loans, simpler building standards including a legally secure "Building Type E" for cheaper construction, and a binding "fast lane" for affordable housing.

Landlords and the Left

Kai Warnecke, president of Haus & Grund, the association of private property owners, told Bild that the Bau-Turbo was "an instrument by bureaucrats for bureaucrats, but not for people who actually want to create housing." He said: "If the building minister does not want to leave the field to the populists, she must now take effective measures, for more rental housing and more home ownership."

From the left, Katalin Gennburg, housing spokeswoman for the Left party's group in the Bundestag, called the ministry's figures "number voodoo that allows no reliable conclusions," in a press release. She said there were no comparison figures and no clarity on which municipalities took part. The share of homes on green or farmland "says nothing about actual soil sealing," she said, because it matters whether they are apartment blocks or single-family houses. "The really relevant question, how many homes were built on how much land, remains unanswered." She said Hubertz had been silent on land speculation, which she called a main driver of building costs and rents, and repeated the Left's call for a cap on land prices.

The clause had drawn opposition before it became law. In January 2024, when the previous government first proposed Section 246e, the German Tenants' Association published an appeal on behalf of what it called a broad alliance of civil society groups. The appeal said the clause would sideline democratic participation in planning, open the door to "land speculation on a large scale" and create the wrong incentives for climate and land protection, including building on green space. That 2024 draft limited the clause to tight housing markets and projects of more than six homes.

Next steps for the law

The ministry plans to keep collecting data and to expand the monitoring. The Building Code upgrade is scheduled for January 2027. The formal evaluation of the experimental clause is due by the end of 2029, a year before it expires.

The Bau-Turbo is one of several housing measures before the coalition. 567politics has covered Merz's bill to block Berlin's plan to socialize large housing companies. Background on the parties is on our Germany elections page, which includes profiles of SPD leader Lars Klingbeil and Left parliamentary group co-leader Heidi Reichinnek.

How we reported this

567politics read the ministry's one-year report, the Destatis releases on completions and permits, the GdW statement and the Left group's press release in full. Hubertz's remarks come from Handelsblatt, citing dpa, and from Bild, which also reported the ministry's answers to its questions and Haus & Grund's comments. The ministry's figures come from a voluntary, non-representative survey; we have not independently verified them. See our methodology for how we source and check stories.

Differing perspectives

What should Germany do next to get more homes built after one year of the Bau-Turbo?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Cut building and financing costs so affordable projects add up

  Who holds it: GdW federation of housing companies

  The GdW says the Bau-Turbo can save more than a year on a project, but only 8% of the companies it surveyed have used it. A permit is not a home. It wants lasting low interest rates on subsidized loans, simpler building standards including Building Type E, and a binding fast lane so homes for people on normal incomes can be built.

  In their words: GdW ↗

• Do more for private builders, renters and homeowners

  Who holds it: Haus & Grund property owners' association (president Kai Warnecke)

  Warnecke told Bild that the Bau-Turbo is an instrument made by officials for officials, not for the people who actually want to create housing. He says the building minister must now take measures that work, for more rental housing and more home ownership, if she does not want to leave the field to populists.

  In their words: Bild ↗

• Keep the Bau-Turbo and build on early results

  Who holds it: Federal building minister Verena Hubertz and her ministry (SPD)

  The ministry says the law lets municipalities approve homes without first drawing up or changing a development plan. The 393 towns in its survey approved 7,892 homes in six months, nearly nine in ten on land already in use. It plans more monitoring, model projects and a further Building Code reform in January 2027 before a formal evaluation.

  In their words: Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building ↗

• Publish better data and cap land prices

  Who holds it: The Left party's Bundestag group (housing spokeswoman Katalin Gennburg)

  Gennburg says the ministry's figures allow no reliable conclusions because they lack comparison data and do not show how many homes were built on how much land. She says land speculation is a main driver of building costs and rents, and that the minister has ignored it. The Left wants a cap on land prices.

  In their words: Die Linke im Bundestag ↗