New heating cost regulation: billing based on consumption from October 2025!

New heating cost regulation: billing based on consumption from October 2025!

From October 2025, utility billing in Germany will change fundamentally and this will particularly affect tenants in houses with central heat pumps. As nord24 reports, the so-called heat pump privilege is expiring, which means that the previous flat-rate billing of additional costs is no longer permitted. In the future, landlords will be obliged to accurately record their tenants' energy consumption and bill them based on consumption.

This regulation aims to bring more transparency and fairness to energy costs. If you heat less, you can also pay less for heating costs. However, the new legislation also places clear requirements on landlords: In order to be able to measure actual consumption, special measuring devices must be installed. This technology must be retrofitted by September 30, 2025, otherwise there will be legal consequences.

Consumption-based billing becomes mandatory

The heat pump privilege, which previously allowed landlords to pass on the electricity costs for heat pumps to tenants regardless of consumption, is also no longer applicable. Now the electricity costs, like the gas costs, have to be billed according to consumption. In concrete terms, this means: Tenants can no longer expect flat-rate additional costs from October 1, 2025; instead, they are entitled to consumption-based billing, which will become mandatory in the next billing period after the meters are installed. The Advisory Center for Haus and Grund explains that landlords must install the necessary equipment by September 30, 2025 at the latest, otherwise they may face legal problems, as can be read on Haus & Grund.

For tenants, this means that they can usually only expect to receive their first consumption-based operating cost bill in 2027 if the devices are installed in 2025. In the next billing period, the consumption recording devices must credibly document how much each individual tenant has actually used.

Advance information for tenants

As already anchored in the Heating Cost Ordinance, from October 1, 2024, heating costs in apartment buildings with heat pumps must also be billed based on consumption. Specifically, this means: The big advantage of this new regulation is not only the fairer distribution of costs, but also the opportunity for tenants to pay more active attention to their energy consumption. Under certain circumstances, this can also lead to savings if care is taken to use heating energy efficiently, as energy experts report.

The exchange with landlords should also be coordinated so that everyone is informed in good time about what changes they will face. The timely installation of consumption meters is therefore of great importance in order to avoid legal consequences and to ensure fairer cost distribution.

In summary, the new regulation will be important for many tenants and will require some rethinking of heating habits. It remains to be hoped that these measures will actually lead to energy costs being distributed more transparently and fairly.