Getting an energy performance certificate online: process, details and how to recognise reputable providers

You need an energy performance certificate, type “get one online” into the search box — and pause. Can a document be official if nobody sets foot in your house for it? This article is written for owners of a residential building who are facing exactly this question. The short answer: the law does not know the word “online” at all. It knows requirements for the person who signs and for the data used in the calculation.

The article answers six questions in this order: what happens on the online route technically and what legally, whether anyone looks at the building at all, which details you should have ready beforehand, how the order proceeds, how to recognise a disreputable provider — and in which cases the online route does not work.

#What “getting it online” means legally

An energy performance certificate (Energieausweis) ordered online is not a document of its own. It carries the same mandatory details as any other, the same registration number and the same period of validity of ten years from issue.1 The governing law is the Building Modernisation Act (Gebäudemodernisierungsgesetz, GModG) — the name the Building Energy Act has carried since 29 July 2026; the provisions on the energy performance certificate continue to apply unchanged, the next stage takes effect on 1 January 2027.10 What you do online is the data collection: you enter the details the law requires instead of dictating them to someone at the kitchen table. The certificate is then issued by a human being. How the subject fits together as a whole — certificate types, occasions, deadlines — is set out in the overview of the energy performance certificate.

This division of labour is expressly provided for in the law. § 83 (1) GModG allows the issuer either to determine the data themselves or to use the data provided by the owner.3 That second variant is exactly the online route. It is not a loophole but the normal case — with one condition that appears two subsections later: under § 83 (3) GModG the issuer must check your details carefully and may not base their calculations on them if there are doubts about their accuracy.

So the software calculates, but it does not issue anything. It can form the key figure, apply the weather adjustment and assign the efficiency class — but a person authorised under § 88 GModG must sign,6 and their name, address and professional title appear in the certificate.5 Anyone who issues without this authorisation risks a fine of up to 10,000 euros under § 108 (1) no. 22 GModG.9 Who acquires the authorisation and how is covered in detail under who is allowed to issue an energy performance certificate.

#Does anyone actually look at my house?

There is no energy performance certificate entirely without an inspection. § 84 (1) GModG obliges the issuer to inspect an existing building on site or to have suitable photographs of the building provided for an assessment of its energy characteristics.4 The two are equivalent — but one of them is required. That is precisely the difference between an online certificate and a certificate without any look at the building: the online route replaces the appointment with photos, it does not replace it with nothing.

That is why every proper online form asks for photos, and why a request for a better picture is not a sign of fussiness but of compliance. “Suitable” means: the pictures must show what the certificate makes a statement about — façade, windows, roof, the heat generator in the basement. A close-up of the front door is not enough for that.

And it is checked. The control body responsible under state law draws a sample from all energy performance certificates newly issued in a calendar year and checks the building data entered against the result; for this it may request a copy of the certificate and the documents used from the issuer.8 That is exactly why every issuer must keep both for two years. As long as the federal states have not taken over this task themselves, the German Institute for Building Technology (DIBt) performs it provisionally, for no more than five years (§ 114 GModG).16 The registration numbers are also allocated there.14

#Which details to gather beforehand

The most common reason for an interrupted order is not the form but a missing folder. What you need depends on the certificate type; which one is permitted for your building is clarified in the comparison consumption or demand certificate.

These requirements are not in a provider’s small print but in § 82 (4) GModG.2 Three things about them are regularly underestimated.

The period must be continuous. A gap in the middle makes it unusable — the calculation then uses a different, gap-free window; nothing is filled in. Under the official federal interpretation it is expressly not permitted to estimate missing or excess consumption shares for a residential building and add or subtract them.11

Vacancy is a calculation variable, not a box to tick on a form. Longer vacancy exists from a vacancy factor of 0.05; the official procedure for taking it into account can only be applied up to a factor of 0.3, and the factor itself must be determined with a tolerance of no more than ± 10 per cent.12 If a house stood completely empty for years, the old statements can no longer support a consumption certificate.

The climate factor comes from the German Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD), not from the provider. The DWD provides more than 8,200 location-based values for every delivery postcode free of charge, calculated for rolling twelve-month periods and, since May 2014, relative to the reference location Potsdam.13 It removes a cold winter from your consumption so that two buildings from different years remain comparable.

For the demand certificate the list is a different one: what counts there is not how the house was heated but how it is built.

One quantity stands out because it is not the one you have in mind: the calculation does not use the living space (Wohnfläche) but the usable floor area (Gebäudenutzfläche).

#How the order proceeds and how long it takes

The process is the same with every reputable provider, because the law maps it out: first data, then a check by a human being, then the registration number, then the certificate.

The right-hand column describes your effort, not the processing time: the lion’s share of your time goes into gathering the documents; the form itself is then completed in one go. How long the check takes depends on whether queries are necessary — and they almost always arise from incomplete documents, not from the ordering route. A certificate that is ready in minutes without a single query has probably not gone through the check under § 83 (3) GModG.

What the certificate costs and how the price is made up is set out in detail under energy performance certificate costs. For orientation: at Energieausweis Portal the consumption certificate for a residential building costs 69.90 €, the demand certificate 119.90 €.

#How to recognise a disreputable provider

There are three fields on the finished certificate that you can check without specialist knowledge — and together they answer the question of whether the document holds up.

The fact that the second field exists at all is the strongest indication that the legislator knows and permits the online route: the certificate itself states who supplied the data. The division of responsibility in § 83 GModG is thus not concealed but printed.

A second route leads via the energy efficiency expert list (Energieeffizienz-Expertenliste), the nationwide directory that the German Energy Agency (dena) maintains on behalf of federal ministries, BAFA and KfW and in which the qualifications of those listed are verified. The search is public and can be sorted by postcode. Anyone listed there may also submit applications in the federal funding programmes — an indication of verified qualification, not a prerequisite for the energy performance certificate.17

#When the online route does not work

In six situations the form does not lead to the goal. That is not down to the technology but to the fact that the law requires a different certificate type, a site inspection or even two certificates.

Two of these rows change on 1 January 2027. The demand certificate requirement for small older buildings is dropped: for purely residential buildings there is then free choice between the certificate types. Conversely, it becomes stricter for non-residential buildings — for them a certificate based on an energy balance calculation must be issued in future, so a consumption certificate is no longer permitted.10

For the consumption certificate itself, several things shift as well: the recording period falls from 36 months to two years, the flat rate for decentralised hot water preparation from 20 to 16 kilowatt-hours per square metre and year, and normalisation is to the conditions of use under DIN/TS 18599-10.10 Both changes are in the wording of the amending Act of 28 July 2026; they only take effect at the turn of the year.

#Conclusion: it is not the ordering route that matters, but who checks

An energy performance certificate issued online is the same official certificate — with the same registration number, the same mandatory details and the same ten years of validity. What carries it is not the interface but the person behind it: an issuer authorised under § 88 GModG who has seen the building or received photographs and has checked your details. So gather the documents before filling in the form, and afterwards check the three fields on the document. If a provider never asks a question, that is not service but a warning sign.