In 2024, 11.5% of Germany’s population lived in overcrowded dwellings. This means that the household had too few rooms compared to the number of inhabitants. In the EU, the average was significantly higher at 16.9%. In most other EU Member States, overcrowding is more widespread. In Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Poland and Croatia more than 30% of the population lived in overcrowded dwellings.
In Germany single parent households (28.1%) and persons at risk of poverty (26.4%) were particularly affected. Persons with non-German citizenship (30.0%) were also considerably more likely to live in crowded conditions than German nationals (6.5%). The urban population (16.7%) was more than three times as likely to be affected as persons living in rural areas (5.8%).
A person is considered as living in an overcrowded household if the household does not have at its disposal a minimum of rooms equal to:
- one room for the entire household,
- one room for each couple in the household,
- one room for each single person aged 18 and more,
- one room for each pair of single people of the same sex between 12 and 17 years of age,
- one room for each single person between 12 and 17 years of age and not included in the previous category,
- one room for each pair of children under 12 years of age.
Examples of affected dwellings are households where:
- three children have to share a bedroom
- a teenage brother and sister have to share a bedroom
- or parents have to use the living room as a bedroom.
Last updated: May 2, 2025