Germany's revived electric-car purchase premium is being taken up faster than it was at launch. As of 5 August 2026, the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) had received 103,500 applications since the scheme opened on 19 May — close to double the roughly 50,000 that had arrived by mid-June.
The ramp
The trajectory is the interesting part. The scheme took about a month to reach 17,000 applications, then roughly doubled twice in the following weeks.
| Date | Applications |
|---|---|
| 20 May 2026 (launch week) | ~17,000 |
| Mid-June 2026 | ~50,000 |
| 5 August 2026 | 103,500 |
More than 90% of the applications are for battery-electric cars rather than other eligible vehicle types. Approvals, however, lag well behind submissions: only around 28,000 applications have been conclusively approved so far, meaning roughly three-quarters of applicants are still waiting on a decision. Earlier figures from the scheme showed Tesla and Skoda leading the approved applications; BAFA has not published an updated brand breakdown alongside this month's total.
The budget arithmetic
The federal government has allocated €3 billion to the subsidy through 2029, a pot intended to cover about 800,000 electric vehicles. Against that target, 103,500 applications in under three months represents roughly 13% of the programme's expected lifetime volume — inside the first 5% of its calendar duration.
That comparison should be read carefully rather than as a prediction. Early demand is inflated because the premium applies retroactively to purchases made from 1 January 2026, so the opening months absorbed a backlog of buyers who had already taken delivery. The genuine run-rate will only be visible once that backlog clears. Even so, the pace is a change from the halting uptake that followed Germany's previous incentive schemes, and it puts pressure on BAFA's processing capacity long before it puts pressure on the budget.
What applicants should know
The retroactive start date is the detail worth acting on. Anyone who bought or leased an eligible electric car in Germany since 1 January 2026 can still apply, and given the approval backlog there is no advantage in waiting. The gap between 103,500 submissions and 28,000 approvals is an administrative queue rather than a funding constraint — the money is committed through 2029.
The wider European picture
Germany is Europe's largest car market, so what happens to its incentive matters well beyond its borders. Domestic EV demand is already firm: battery-electric cars took a 29.3% share of German registrations in July. The premium is arriving into a market that had begun recovering without it, which strengthens the argument that the subsidy is accelerating a transition rather than creating one.
The political fight is over who benefits. The CSU has been pushing to restructure the premium in favour of European-made cars, a proposal aimed squarely at the Chinese models now competing at the bottom of the German price list. Any such change would apply to future applications rather than the 103,500 already filed, but buyers weighing an imported budget EV against a European one should treat the current rules as the ones in force now, not necessarily the ones in force next year.
Update: 2026-08-11
On 11 August 2026, BAFA published a breakdown of the premium as it stood on 1 August: 26,875 approvals granted and €117 million actually paid out — around 3.9% of the €3 billion envelope. Of those approvals, 24,794 went to battery-electric cars and 2,081 to plug-in hybrids, and they split almost evenly between outright purchases (13,689) and leases (13,186). The income figures suggest the means-testing is landing where it was aimed: 13,064 approvals fell in the lowest bracket, up to €45,000 of taxable income, against 6,043 between €45,001 and €60,000 and 6,840 between €60,001 and €80,000. Spread across 26,875 approvals, €117 million implies an average of roughly €4,350 per vehicle — well above the €3,000 base rate, and a reminder that the graduated top-ups, not the base grant, are what most approved applicants are receiving. Figures via BAFA's approval statistics to 1 August.
Update: 2026-09-02
On 2 September 2026, figures reported by Welt am Sonntag and relayed by ecomento put the premium's payout at around €200 million by the end of August — up from the €117 million recorded at 1 August, so roughly €80 million in a single month. On that run-rate the scheme could absorb close to €1 billion in its first year, against a €3 billion envelope scoped to last to the end of 2029. That revises the reading given above: the gap between submissions and approvals was described here as an administrative queue rather than a funding constraint, and on these figures the budget is now the binding pressure. The ZDK projects 370,000 privately registered electric cars in 2026 and 817,000 across all registration types. The government says it will give notice before the money runs out, and exhausting an annual allocation puts later applications on a waiting list to be met from the following year's budget.
Update: 2026-10-05
On 5 October 2026 the Federal Environment Ministry said the first 100,000 applications to the electric-car premium have been approved, worth more than 430 million euros — 90 per cent for battery-electric cars and the remaining 10 per cent for plug-in hybrids. That is a steep acceleration on the figures above: 26,875 approvals and 117 million euros at 1 August, and roughly 200 million euros paid by the end of that month. Across 100,000 approvals, 430 million euros implies an average of about 4,300 euros per car. It also tests the projection in the September update. The scheme opened in mid-May, so 430 million euros represents roughly four and a half months of spending — an annualised run-rate near 1.1 billion euros, slightly ahead of the 1 billion flagged then, against a 3 billion envelope scoped to last until 2029. Figures via electrive.