Energy performance certificate in Germany: when you need one and what happens without it

As long as you live in your house and have no plans for it, you do not need an energy performance certificate (Energieausweis). This article is written for owners for whom that is just changing: a sale is coming up, a flat is becoming vacant, a new building is finished. From that moment the certificate is no longer a document for the files but a duty to present it, with a deadline.

The article answers four questions in this order: when exactly does the duty arise, when do you have to show and hand over the certificate, which buildings are exempt, and what happens if it is missing.

#These occasions trigger the duty

It is not ownership that creates the duty but the occasion. § 80 (3) of the Building Modernisation Act (Gebäudemodernisierungsgesetz, GModG) lists them;4 three of them cover the vast majority of cases:

Treated like a sale is a case hardly any overview mentions: the creation or transfer of a heritable building right (Erbbaurecht) on a developed plot. § 80 (3) sentence 1 lists it on an equal footing with sale and letting.

Another case is not an occasion within the meaning of the Act: anyone applying for subsidies for a renovation needs the calculated proof that the funding programmes require. The renovation on its own does not yet create a certificate duty. It only arises when two things come together: alterations within the meaning of § 36 GModG and calculations for the whole building under § 38 (3). Then a demand certificate must be issued under § 80 (2) GModG — and the previous one loses its validity.

One distinction matters more in practice than its brevity suggests: the duty applies to a new tenancy, not during a running one. A long-standing tenant has no claim to the certificate; a new one has it from the first viewing.

Which certificate type is permitted in your case is decided independently of this — the criteria are in the comparison consumption or demand certificate.

There is one occasion independent of sale and letting: the duty to display. It is set out in two subsections with different thresholds. For public-authority use it applies from more than 250 square metres of usable floor area with heavy public traffic (§ 80 (6) GModG). Without public-authority use it only applies from 500 square metres — and even then only once a certificate exists at all (§ 80 (7) GModG). Anyone below that need not display anything, however much public traffic there is.

#When you present and when you hand over

The Act distinguishes two actions that are easily confused. Presenting means showing, handing over means delivering. § 80 (4) GModG regulates both sentence by sentence; subsection 5 declares sentences 1 to 5 applicable accordingly to letting, leasing and leasing arrangements.

In practice this means: the certificate must be ready before the first viewing appointment, not before the notary appointment. Anyone who only orders it once the purchase contract is taking shape is too late.

Two sentences are regularly misread here. Sentence 4 is the latest deadline, not the precondition: you do not wait for someone to ask. And sentence 2 is equivalent — a printout lying visibly at the viewing fulfils the duty just as well as handing it across. When selling a residential building with no more than two flats, sentence 6 is added: if an informational advisory meeting is offered free of charge, the buyer is to hold it after the handover. This does not apply to letting — subsection 5 refers only to sentences 1 to 5.

Also watch the validity: a certificate is valid for ten years under § 79 (3) GModG but can become invalid early if the whole building is recalculated (§ 80 (2)). A certificate that expires during marketing no longer fulfils the duty — a look at the date of issue therefore belongs at the start of every marketing effort, not at the end.

#What belongs in every property advertisement

As soon as an energy performance certificate exists, § 87 (1) GModG applies in addition:6 every property advertisement in a commercial medium must contain five details from the certificate.

The qualifier on the last two lines is in the Act itself: § 87 (1) expressly requires year of construction and efficiency class only for residential buildings.

Which list applies depends not on the date of the advertisement but on the date of issue of the certificate. For certificates up to 31 December 2026 the list above continues to apply, even if you advertise with it in 2028 (§ 112 (3) GModG).9 Anyone who has a certificate issued from 2027 additionally states the date of issue in the advertisement, gives the annual primary energy demand instead of final energy, and the restriction to residential buildings for year of construction and efficiency class falls away.

If they are missing, it is not only a regulatory offence. Incomplete advertisements are additionally a risk under competition law — warning letters from competitors or associations are the more common way in which the breach becomes expensive here.

Conversely, the duty to state details applies only if a certificate exists: you do not have to have one prepared just to advertise — but as soon as one exists, all the details belong in the advertisement. So give the agent the complete certificate, not just the efficiency class.

#Three cases that come up regularly

The flat. An energy performance certificate is never issued for an individual flat but always for the building (§ 79 (2) GModG). Anyone selling a flat therefore needs the certificate of the owners’ association and requests it from the property manager instead of ordering one themselves. The manager is not the one under the duty — you have to present it. So request the certificate as soon as the sale is decided, and not only once the first viewing appointment is set; if none yet exists for the building, the owners’ association has to resolve on it and pay for it, and that takes until the next meeting.

Inheritance and gift. § 80 (3) sentence 1 lists what triggers the duty: sale, letting, leasing, leasing arrangements and the heritable building right. Inheritance is not among them — heirs step into the legal position of the deceased without anything being sold. A gift is not a sale either. In both cases you do not need a certificate at first. But as soon as the inherited or gifted property is sold or newly let, the normal duty applies — and then, experience shows, the documents from which the building could be described are missing.

Furnished short-term lets and holiday lets. A tenancy remains a tenancy even if it is short: anyone letting furnished for a limited period triggers the duty with every new tenancy. The exemption in § 2 (2) no. 8 GModG only helps if the building itself is intended for use of less than four months a year — not if it is used all year round and merely let for short periods.

#These buildings are exempt

Not every building falls under the duty. The exemptions are scattered across the Act; these are the practically important ones:

Two rows of the table deliberately stand without a section number: demolition and forced sale are not statutory exemptions but interpretation — to be found in the frequently asked questions of the federal GModG portal.10 Anyone relying on them should know that. Owner-occupation, in turn, is not a property of the building but a snapshot: it ends as soon as you put the house on the market.

For listed buildings a look at the calendar is worthwhile. Until 31 December 2026, § 79 (4) sentence 2 exempts them from issuing, presenting, handing over and displaying. On 1 January 2027 this exemption is abolished without replacement — the new § 79 (4) names only buildings for national and alliance defence and small buildings.11 § 105 GModG does not help here: it allows deviation from energy requirements but does not exempt from the certificate duty. Anyone selling or newly letting a listed building from 2027 therefore needs a certificate. Having one before then is a selling point anyway if the house performs better in energy terms than its age suggests.

For mixed-use buildings the main use alone does not decide. Under § 106 (1) GModG a part of a building — a shop on the ground floor, say — is to be treated separately as a non-residential building if it differs substantially in the type of use and in the building services equipment and occupies a not insignificant part of the floor area. That two certificates then fall due follows from § 79 (2) sentence 2. The Act names no percentage threshold; where we draw it in practice is described in the comparison of the certificate types. This is not an exemption from the duty but a doubling — anyone who has only one certificate prepared has fulfilled it by half.

#What happens if the certificate is missing

Anyone who does not present the energy performance certificate in time when selling or letting to a new tenant (§ 108 (1) no. 18 GModG) or does not hand it over (no. 19) commits a regulatory offence. For both, § 108 (2) no. 2 provides for a fine of up to 10,000 euros.8 The numbers shift by one on 1 January 2027; the amount stays. Enforcement lies with the authority competent under state law (§ 80 (1) sentence 4, § 95 GModG) — which one that is, each federal state decides for itself.

The 10,000 euros are the ceiling, not the standard rate — the amount is set case by case. The trigger is rarely an official inspection: authorities usually become aware through tips, for instance from a prospective buyer who came away empty-handed, or from a competitor who noticed the incomplete advertisement.

Added to this is the civil-law side, which is not in the Act: a buyer who received incorrect figures can derive claims from them.

The responsibility is shared, and more precisely than is often said. For the details you provide, you are responsible; for the data the issuer determines themselves, the issuer is (§ 83 (3) sentence 1 and (1) sentence 2 GModG). The issuer already has to check your details today: they may not rely on them if there are doubts about their accuracy (§ 83 (3) sentence 2). From 1 January 2027 it is added that they must inspect an existing building on site or have suitable photographs provided. That is why the question of whether your details are checked before issue weighs more heavily than the price — what a certificate costs is explained under energy performance certificate costs.

#Conclusion: the occasion decides, not the ownership

As long as you stay living there yourself, you need do nothing. If a sale or new tenancy is coming up, you need the energy performance certificate before the first viewing — not before the contract. Check once whether your building falls under one of the exemptions; if not, ordering is the smaller exercise compared with a 10,000-euro fine and a buyer relying on incorrect figures.