Press release No. 468 of 9 November 2022
- Saarland had the highest municipal per capita debt at the end of 2021, followed by Hessen and Rheinland-Pfalz
- Municipal per capita debt was particularly low in Brandenburg, Bayern and Sachsen
- High growh rates in Niedersachsen and Baden-Württemberg
WIESBADEN – The debt of municipalities and associations of municipalities, including their participating interests, owed to the non-public sector amounted to 299.7 billion euros at the end of 2021, according to a model calculation of the statistical offices of the Federation and the Länder. This is a per capita debt of 3,895 euros. In addition to the debt of the core budgets, the debt of extra budgets and other public funds, institutions and enterprises are shown and allocated to municipalities down to detailed levels of participating interests. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that integrated municipal debt increased by 4.1% from the beginning of 2021. The increase was driven by municipal participating interests in other public funds, institutions and enterprises, whose debt rose by 7.8%. Debt of core and extra budgets was slightly down by 0.1%. The city states of Bremen, Berlin and Hamburg are not included in the results as, in official statistics of public finance, they are allocated the the Land level rather than the municipal level.
