Städtebauförderung

Städtebauförderung is a joint programme of the federal government and the states for urban renewal. It supports the development, renewal and stabilisation of town and village centres and of entire neighbourhoods. At federal level it sits with the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building; it is implemented through the states. An earmarked grant is paid, not a loan and not a tax relief. The current federal-state framework has applied since 14 April 2026.

Unlike most other programmes, Städtebauförderung does not fund individual businesses. What is funded is always an overall urban development scheme in a formally defined assisted area. The municipality submits the application, not the company. If you are looking for a grant for your own project, other funding programmes will take you further.

For you as a company, the effect on the ground is what counts. If your municipality upgrades a neighbourhood, the quality of the location, the surroundings and passing trade around your business all improve. An overall scheme is funded for 15 years, so the upgrade is designed for the long term.

The federal states and the municipalities are eligible to apply. In practice, the towns and municipalities register their needs, and in individual federal states inter-municipal cooperations do so too. Individual companies cannot submit an application, regardless of size and legal form.

The hard condition is the area. Only what lies within a formally defined urban development assisted area is funded. You can check whether an address is included yourself: Brandenburg shows the assisted areas on a map from the state office for building and transport, and Berlin lists the assisted areas with a spatial search in its geoportal. Where there is no map, the state’s approving authority can help, in Bavaria the district government. Your municipal administration will also know whether an assisted area exists.

Overall urban development schemes in the assisted area are funded, from the preparatory steps through to implementation. In 2026 the funds are spread across three sub-programmes: Lebendige Zentren with €380 million, Wachstum und nachhaltige Erneuerung with €370 million and Sozialer Zusammenhalt with €250 million.

Typical measures are securing old buildings on townscape-defining properties, adapting social infrastructure for a new use, dismantling social facilities that are no longer used and dismantling technical infrastructure. A single building project is not enough, not even your own business’s: what always counts is the overall scheme. In Bavaria this must reach a cost basis of at least €50,000.

The funding is a grant towards the eligible costs of the overall scheme. In principle, the federal government covers one third of this, that is, 33%. The states top up this share, and the municipality bears the rest.

How high the grant is in the end is determined by your federal state’s programme. In Bavaria, up to 60% of the eligible expenditure is possible for individual measures, while the funding there should not exceed 50% of the expenditure of the overall scheme. For individual cost types the rates go higher: securing old buildings as well as adapting and dismantling social infrastructure are funded at up to 90% in individual states, and dismantling technical infrastructure at up to 50%. The funding period is 15 years per overall scheme.