Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
European statistics on natural gas prices for household and final non-household customers.
3.2. Classification system
Internal Eurostat classification system based on annual natural gas consumption bands and tax levels.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Household sector and final non-household sector (industry, services, offices, agriculture, etc).
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
The prices are collected in national currencies per GJ and according to different bands of consumption.
For the households sector, these bands are:
D1: Customers consuming less than 20 GJ.
D2: Customers consuming 20 GJ or more but less than 200 GJ.
D3: Customers consuming 200 GJ or more.
For the final non-households sector, the bands are:
I1: Customers consuming less than 1000 GJ.
I2: Customers consuming 1000 GJ or more but less than 10000 GJ.
I3: Customers consuming 10000 GJ or more but less than 100000 GJ.
I4: Customers consuming 100000 GJ or more but less than 1000000 GJ.
I5: Customers consuming 1000000 GJ or more but less than 4000000 GJ.
I6: Customers consuming 4000000 GJ or more.
There exist 2 different levels of disagregation for semestrial and annual prices:
1- Semestrial prices:
These prices are reported twice a year and are divided in 3 levels:
Level 1 prices: Prices excluding taxes and levies.
Level 2 prices: Prices excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes and levies.
Level 3 prices: Prices including all taxes and levies.
2- Annual prices:
These prices are reported once a year together with the data for the second semester and are divided into the following components and taxes:
Energy and supply: commodity price for natural gas paid by the supplier or the price of natural gas at the point of entry into the transmission system, including, if applicable, the following end-user costs: storage costs plus costs relating to the sale of natural gas to final customers.
Network cost: transmission and distribution tariffs, transmission and distribution losses, network costs, after-sale service costs, system service costs and meter rental and metering costs.
Value added taxes (VAT): as defined in Council Directive 2006/112/EC.
Renewable taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to the promotion of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and CHP generation.
Capacity taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to strategic stockpiles, capacity payments and energy security; taxes on natural gas distribution; stranded costs and levies on financing energy regulatory authorities or market and system operators.
Environmental taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to air quality and for other environmental purposes; taxes on emissions of CO2 or other greenhouse gases. This component includes the excise duties.
All other taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges not covered by any of the previous four categories: support for district heating; local or regional fiscal charges; island compensation; concession fees relating to licences and fees for the occupation of land and public or private property by networks or other devices.
In addition to these elements, the network cost is split into the respective shares of transmission and distribution. The relative share of consumption in the different consumption bands is reported by the countries and used to calculated the single national natural gas prices (weighted averages for consumer bands IA-IF and DA-DE).
3.5. Statistical unit
Household and final non-household consumers divided into consumption bands.
3.6. Statistical population
Household customers: Data coming from 129 out of appr. 980 natural gas suppliers and representing about 65% of household natural gas consumption (as of 2025).
Final non-household customers: Data coming from 129 out of appr. 950 natural gas suppliers and representing 80% of non-household natural gas consumption.
Every provider with at least a 0.2% market share in any relevant sub-market is included in the survey (cut-off sampling).
3.7. Reference area
Reference area is the whole country.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Natural gas prices data for Germany are available since 1985.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Prices are reported in national currency per GJ. However, Eurostat also calculates and publishes the prices in EURO and PPS (purchasing power parity) and do the conversion to kWh.
Relative shares of sub-component of the network component and consumption volumes are reported in percentages.
For semestrial prices, the reference periods are from January to June for semester 1 and from July to December for semester 2.
For annual prices, the reference period is the whole calendar year (from January to December).
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
At EU level:
Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on European statistics on natural gas and electricity prices and repealing Directive 2008/92/EC (Text with EEA relevance).
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2169 of 21 November 2017 concerning the format and arrangements for the transmission of European Statistics on natural gas and electricity prices pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance).
Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1734 of 14 November 2018 granting derogations to the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of Spain, the Italian Republic and the Republic of Cyprus as regards the provision of statistics pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (notified under document C(2018) 7465) (Text with EEA relevance).
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/803 of 17 May 2019 concerning the technical requirements regarding the content of quality reports on European statistics on natural gas and electricity prices pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance).
At national level:
Gesetz über die Preisstatistik (PreisStatG): Gesetz über die Preisstatistik in der im Bundesgesetzblatt Teil III, Gliederungsnummer 720-9, veröffentlichten bereinigten Fassung, das zuletzt durch Artikel 1 des Gesetzes vom 10. Dezember 2019 (BGBl. I S. 2117) geändert worden ist. In English: Act on Price Statistics.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
At EU level:
Eurostat does not share the data collected with other organisations appart from its usual dissemination channels (Eurostat's database, statistic explained articles and press or news releases).
At national level:
Data is sent to Eurostat.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
At EU level:
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.
At national level:
Confidentiality is guaranteed by section 16 of the Federal Statistics Act. It requires that respondents must be informed about their rights and obligations in providing statistical information. This rule is strictly followed. It also applies to the notification that individual data are only used for statistical purposes and - subject to protection procedures - for scientific purposes.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
Published data should not allow identification of single consumers. Weighted averages are only published when there are at least three observations in a consumption band.
8.1. Release calendar
A release calendar containing the precise release dates for the reference periods for the current year is published on the website of the FSO.
Following the transmission of the statistics to Eurostat at the end of March and the end of September, prices are simultaneously released to all parties and are available through the database GENESIS-Online.
Natural gas prices in Germany are published semi-annually on Eurostat’s website, the FSO’s webpage, and its online database, GENESIS-Online.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
Every semesterial price release is accompanied by a press release. The latest press release and the archive can be viewed at
The FSO is committed to assuring and further enhancing the level of quality of the released data. The FSO applies a variety of systematic quality assurance measures, including the European Statistics Code of Practice. For more details, please see: Quality assurance
11.2. Quality management - assessment
The natural gas price survey encompasses a substantial portion of the retail market, covering approximately 65% of household and 80% of non-household consumption. All major natural gas suppliers are included in the survey scope. Rigorous controls are applied during the data submission process, complemented by internal plausibility checks to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the collected data. Submitted data are systematically validated against previous returns from the same suppliers as well as contemporaneous submissions from other respondents within the reporting period. In cases where anomalies or unexpected trends are identified, the respective providers are contacted for verification or clarification. Furthermore, aggregated data are benchmarked against prior aggregations submitted to Eurostat.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Major users of energy prices are the European Commission (Eurostat) as well as the Federal Government, i.e. the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, business associations and interest groups of various industrial branches at the national level.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
The FSO conducts user satisfaction surveys in various sectors of statistics. The Statistical Advisory Committee (Statistischer Beirat) represents the interests of the users of federal statistics and regularly consults with the FSO. Additionally, user satisfaction is measured by the number of monthly visits on specialized publications on the website of the FSO, quarterly downloads from the on-line database “GENESIS” and the number of external queries via the costumer management system.
12.3. Completeness
The dataset complies with the current regulation.
12.3.1. Data completeness - rate
100%.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Without the use of probability-based selection methods, estimates of statistical accuracy cannot be reliably quantified. Cut-off sampling may introduce inaccuracy when the prices of small market participants - who are not included in the survey - differ significantly and systematically from those of the surveyed energy suppliers. The burden of collecting reliable data from these smaller participants is disproportionately high, as is the risk of non-sampling errors resulting from their inclusion. At the same time, the additional market insight gained is relatively limited, given the weighting of results by market size.
Another potential source of inaccuracy lies in the quality of the data provided through the survey. This risk is mitigated through systematic efforts to detect and correct such errors.
13.2. Sampling error
The target population - the entirety of natural gas consumption and the corresponding prices for both household and final non-household consumers - is not directly observable. Estimates of weighted average prices are therefore derived using a cut-off sample of suppliers in both sectors. The difference between the calculated sample average price and the true (unobservable) population average constitutes the sampling error.
Sampling error may arise if the prices set by small natural gas suppliers, who are excluded under the cut-off sampling approach, differ substantially and systematically from those of the suppliers included in the survey.
However, based on historical data analysis, we do not expect systematic differences between the results obtained through cut-off sampling and those derived from probability sampling methods used up to 2024. Given the high market share coverage of the suppliers included in the sample and the relatively small individual market shares of the non-surveyed participants, the sampling error is expected to be negligible.
13.2.1. Sampling error - indicators
No precise measures of the sampling error are available.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Information is included in the sub-concepts 13.3.1-13.3.5.
13.3.1. Coverage error
We derive our target population from energy statistics data. Shall natural gas suppliers erroneously report to energy statistics, it can affect our definition of the target population and the resulting sample that might lead to under- or over-coverage.
13.3.1.1. Over-coverage - rate
We are not aware of over-coverage in our sample.
13.3.1.2. Common units - proportion
100% of the data is covered by the survey.
13.3.2. Measurement error
Errors may occur during data preparation, entry and transfer. Data completness and the format and the range of magnitudes of individual data-entries are checked upon the survey data entry. Prices and price components are compared to the respective value distributions of all recent submissions and to previous semesters and queried when there is a significant or unexpected price or volume change.
Estimates of the measurement error are not available.
13.3.3. Non response error
Participation in the survey is mandatory for all natural gas suppliers whose market share exceeds the threshold in either the household or non-household sector. In case of non-response, fines up to 5 000 EUR can be imposed.
The weight of an enterprise that did not respond to the survey, or was excluded due to quality issues, is set to zero.
13.3.3.1. Unit non-response - rate
Participation in the survey is mandatory, and the unit non-response rate is close to zero.
13.3.3.2. Item non-response - rate
This type of error particularly includes incorrect or inaccurate data provided by responding enterprises, as well as leaving certain fields of the questionnaire blank. Automated checks flag values that fall outside of the acceptable ranges or alert users when mandatory fields have been left empty during the data submission process by energy suppliers. Any remaining inaccuracies in the submitted data are corrected through direct queries with the enterprises during the current reference period.
13.3.4. Processing error
Data submission is carried out using an online questionnaire with built-in controls. Only entries that pass this initial pre-screening can be submitted to the FSO for further plausibility checks and data aggregation. No quantitative information is available to measure processing errors.
13.3.5. Model assumption error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Natural gas providers are requested to submit price data within five weeks after the end of the reference period, although extensions of up to three weeks are possible if needed. Once the surveys are received, the statistical office checks the data for consistency and completeness, and national averages are calculated and reported to Eurostat during the third month following the reference period.
14.1.1. Time lag - first result
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2019 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2019 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2020 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2020 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2021 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2021 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2022 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2022 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2023 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2023 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2024 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2024 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2019 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2019 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2020 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2020 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2021 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2021 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2022 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2022 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2023 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2023 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2024 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
The first version of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2024 was sent 90 days after the reference period.
14.1.2. Time lag - final result
Revison of the second semester data of 2019 was send 127 days after the reference period.
14.2. Punctuality
The legal deadline for submitting the questionnaires is the third month after the reference period.
14.2.1. Punctuality - delivery and publication
All datasets have been submitted on time.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Geographical comparability of Level 2 prices (excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes and levies) for non-households is limited. In most countries, only value-added tax is recoverable; however, in Germany, the energy tax is also considered recoverable. This difference makes direct price comparisons potentially misleading.
15.1.1. Asymmetry for mirror flow statistics - coefficient
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
The data are comparable from 2020 onward. In 2025, the sampling approach was changed from probabilistic sampling to cut-off sampling to reduce the burden on smaller enterprises. Based on our analysis of historical data, no structural breaks in the time series are expected, and the change is not anticipated to affect data comparability over time.
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
The data is comparable since 2020.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Not applicable.
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
Not applicable.
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Annual prices are coherent with the semestrial prices.
The response burden is significant for natural gas providers, as the required data are often not readily available at the specified consumption-band classification level and semiannual frequency. For many suppliers, this necessitates estimation or modelling.
17.1. Data revision - policy
There are no regular data revisions. The goal is to receive all survey data on time, and the submitted results are considered final unless errors in survey responses, administrative data, or calculations are identified after data dissemination.
17.2. Data revision - practice
Version 2 of the natural gas price questionnaire for non-households and non-households for the 2d semester of 2019 was submitted 127 days after the reference period. The average size of revision depended on the consumption band.
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
Households gas prices collection: 0.094859918
Non-households gas prices collection: 0.219830954
18.1. Source data
Natural gas suppliers and network operators in Germany, financial and regulatory authorities.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Bi-annual.
18.3. Data collection
Every provider with a market share of at least 0.2% in at least one relevant sub-market is legally required to participate in the survey. Specific web-based questionnaires are used for energy price statistics and include a data-checking process during data entry. Online reporting is mandatory, and missing responses are followed up through telephone calls, postal mail, or email reminders.
18.4. Data validation
The data are initially validated at the submission stage using built-in tools within the questionnaires (e.g., entry format, completeness, consistency between price components and reported weighted prices). Additional in-house checks include: monitoring sample coverage and response rates; comparing current data with previously submitted returns and data from other energy suppliers; cross-checking across consumption bands; and evaluating price developments against current trader market prices and relevant producer price indices. Inconsistencies, unusual price developments, and values outside reasonable limits are queried with the suppliers.
18.5. Data compilation
For both household and non-household consumers, national average prices are calculated using weighted averages based on the individual consumption figures of each natural gas supplier within each consumption band.
18.5.1. Imputation - rate
Not applicable.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable.
18.6.1. Seasonal adjustment
Not applicable.
European statistics on natural gas prices for household and final non-household customers.
25 June 2025
The prices are collected in national currencies per GJ and according to different bands of consumption.
For the households sector, these bands are:
D1: Customers consuming less than 20 GJ.
D2: Customers consuming 20 GJ or more but less than 200 GJ.
D3: Customers consuming 200 GJ or more.
For the final non-households sector, the bands are:
I1: Customers consuming less than 1000 GJ.
I2: Customers consuming 1000 GJ or more but less than 10000 GJ.
I3: Customers consuming 10000 GJ or more but less than 100000 GJ.
I4: Customers consuming 100000 GJ or more but less than 1000000 GJ.
I5: Customers consuming 1000000 GJ or more but less than 4000000 GJ.
I6: Customers consuming 4000000 GJ or more.
There exist 2 different levels of disagregation for semestrial and annual prices:
1- Semestrial prices:
These prices are reported twice a year and are divided in 3 levels:
Level 1 prices: Prices excluding taxes and levies.
Level 2 prices: Prices excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes and levies.
Level 3 prices: Prices including all taxes and levies.
2- Annual prices:
These prices are reported once a year together with the data for the second semester and are divided into the following components and taxes:
Energy and supply: commodity price for natural gas paid by the supplier or the price of natural gas at the point of entry into the transmission system, including, if applicable, the following end-user costs: storage costs plus costs relating to the sale of natural gas to final customers.
Network cost: transmission and distribution tariffs, transmission and distribution losses, network costs, after-sale service costs, system service costs and meter rental and metering costs.
Value added taxes (VAT): as defined in Council Directive 2006/112/EC.
Renewable taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to the promotion of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and CHP generation.
Capacity taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to strategic stockpiles, capacity payments and energy security; taxes on natural gas distribution; stranded costs and levies on financing energy regulatory authorities or market and system operators.
Environmental taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to air quality and for other environmental purposes; taxes on emissions of CO2 or other greenhouse gases. This component includes the excise duties.
All other taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges not covered by any of the previous four categories: support for district heating; local or regional fiscal charges; island compensation; concession fees relating to licences and fees for the occupation of land and public or private property by networks or other devices.
In addition to these elements, the network cost is split into the respective shares of transmission and distribution. The relative share of consumption in the different consumption bands is reported by the countries and used to calculated the single national natural gas prices (weighted averages for consumer bands IA-IF and DA-DE).
Household and final non-household consumers divided into consumption bands.
Household customers: Data coming from 129 out of appr. 980 natural gas suppliers and representing about 65% of household natural gas consumption (as of 2025).
Final non-household customers: Data coming from 129 out of appr. 950 natural gas suppliers and representing 80% of non-household natural gas consumption.
Every provider with at least a 0.2% market share in any relevant sub-market is included in the survey (cut-off sampling).
Reference area is the whole country.
For semestrial prices, the reference periods are from January to June for semester 1 and from July to December for semester 2.
For annual prices, the reference period is the whole calendar year (from January to December).
Without the use of probability-based selection methods, estimates of statistical accuracy cannot be reliably quantified. Cut-off sampling may introduce inaccuracy when the prices of small market participants - who are not included in the survey - differ significantly and systematically from those of the surveyed energy suppliers. The burden of collecting reliable data from these smaller participants is disproportionately high, as is the risk of non-sampling errors resulting from their inclusion. At the same time, the additional market insight gained is relatively limited, given the weighting of results by market size.
Another potential source of inaccuracy lies in the quality of the data provided through the survey. This risk is mitigated through systematic efforts to detect and correct such errors.
Prices are reported in national currency per GJ. However, Eurostat also calculates and publishes the prices in EURO and PPS (purchasing power parity) and do the conversion to kWh.
Relative shares of sub-component of the network component and consumption volumes are reported in percentages.
For both household and non-household consumers, national average prices are calculated using weighted averages based on the individual consumption figures of each natural gas supplier within each consumption band.
Natural gas suppliers and network operators in Germany, financial and regulatory authorities.
Natural gas prices in Germany are published semi-annually on Eurostat’s website, the FSO’s webpage, and its online database, GENESIS-Online.
Natural gas providers are requested to submit price data within five weeks after the end of the reference period, although extensions of up to three weeks are possible if needed. Once the surveys are received, the statistical office checks the data for consistency and completeness, and national averages are calculated and reported to Eurostat during the third month following the reference period.
Geographical comparability of Level 2 prices (excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes and levies) for non-households is limited. In most countries, only value-added tax is recoverable; however, in Germany, the energy tax is also considered recoverable. This difference makes direct price comparisons potentially misleading.
The data are comparable from 2020 onward. In 2025, the sampling approach was changed from probabilistic sampling to cut-off sampling to reduce the burden on smaller enterprises. Based on our analysis of historical data, no structural breaks in the time series are expected, and the change is not anticipated to affect data comparability over time.
