Ordinary Ledger: €189 of every €1,000 put aside

Ahead of World Savings Day on 30 and 31 October, the Statistisches Bundesamt has published one number for the household ledger: in 2025 private households in Germany saved 18.9% of their disposable income, against an EU average of 14.3%¹. Desk arithmetic: of every €1,000 that reached a German household after taxes and transfers, about €189 was put aside; the EU average comes to about €143.

The neighbours. French households saved 17.8%, Dutch 17.4%, Austrian 15.7% and Italian 10.8%¹. Switzerland stood well above at 27.4%, which Destatis puts down to the larger role of private pension saving there; the United States was low at 10.7%¹. Over the ten years to 2025 German households saved 19.1% of their income on average¹.

The direction. The rate has eased slightly. It was 19.6% in 2024 and 18.9% in both 2025 and the first half of 2026¹. The peak came in 2020, at 22.9%, when the pandemic left people consuming less than usual¹. Desk arithmetic: from 2024 to 2025 the rate fell by 0.7 points, or about €7 less saved per €1,000 of income.

Read the small print. This is the gross rate, the measure used for international comparisons. It counts depreciation, mostly on owner-occupied and rented homes, in both saving and income¹. Price gains or losses on shares and property count as neither¹. So a rising share price does not make you a better saver in these statistics, and a falling one does not make you a worse one. The net rate, with depreciation deducted, is clearly lower¹.

What the figure does show is a steady habit. Over ten years that included a pandemic and an energy shock, German households put aside 19.1% of their income on average¹. That habit is the quiet balance sheet behind every bank deposit, pension contract and home loan. It is not glamorous. It is why the system has a cushion. Nothing here is advice.