DIHK Startup Report 2026 Deutschland; 13% Zuwachs bei Erstberatungen

DIHK Startup Report 2026 Deutschland; 13% Zuwachs bei Erstberatungen

DIHK Startup Report 2026

Information: File format: PDF (accessible) File size: 1 MB Status of: August 2026 Page count: 19 pages

What is the state of entrepreneurship in Germany? Based on approximately 200,000 contacts via the IHK’s business startup services and nearly 800 responses from aspiring entrepreneurs, the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) identifies a rising interest in launching businesses. However, this cannot yet be seen as a widespread entrepreneurial movement.

Business startups bring fresh energy and new ideas into the market, strengthening the economy’s future viability. At first glance, it is encouraging that the advisory services offered by the IHKs are seeing increased demand once again. The DIHK Startup Report 2026 paints a nuanced picture of development and highlights that entrepreneurs perceive a need for reforms, particularly concerning bureaucracy, taxes, and financing.

Key Points at a Glance

Increasing Interest: Interest in starting businesses in industry, trade, and service sectors is rising; the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IHKs) report significant increases in initial consultations (up by 13%) and start-up advice sessions (up by 15%).

Shifting Motivations: Plans to become self-employed are often driven by economic pressures and a lack of alternative employment options.

More Gaps in Concepts: The quality of business plans is declining: nearly half show commercial deficiencies, and 44% of founders have not thoroughly considered financing.

Female Entrepreneurship on the Rise: The proportion of women in IHK start-up consultations remains high at 44%, confirming a long-term structural shift in entrepreneurship.

Numerous Barriers: The biggest hurdles cited by entrepreneurs are bureaucratic burdens and challenging economic conditions with high costs and uncertainties. They primarily call for reduced bureaucracy (73%) and simplified tax laws (61%) from policymakers.

Increased Interest, Often Due to Lack of Alternatives

Interest in starting a business in industry, trade, and service sectors is rising: The IHKs recorded significant increases for 2025 in initial consultation participants (up 13% to 143,756) and subsequent IHK advisory consultations (up 15% to 27,637). However, much of this growth reflects employment restructuring: Poor economic conditions and structural barriers are pushing even well-qualified employees to consider entrepreneurship due to a lack of employment alternatives. This often leads to shifts from dependent employment to self-employment, frequently out of economic necessity.

Simultaneously, opportunity-driven startups, particularly from academia, continue to emerge. Technological transformation is becoming increasingly influential in shaping the startup landscape. Artificial Intelligence is increasingly identified by the IHKs as a driver of entrepreneurship, as it enables new business models and facilitates entry into self-employment.

Additionally, opportunities arise in defence and security, where the evolving geopolitical situation is increasing demand for innovative solutions by the army and security agencies, creating market openings for technology-oriented startups and young growth enterprises.

More Startups Stemming from Lack of Employment Alternatives

Nearly all IHKs cite the lack of job alternatives as the principal reason for the increased interest in startups. Amidst rising unemployment, uncertain employment perspectives, and increasing insolvencies, self-employment is becoming a contingency and safeguarding strategy for many. Accordingly, the share of those in IHK’s startup advisory services intending to launch a business primarily out of a lack of employment alternatives reached 36%, the highest in eleven years.

The trend is further reinforced by changes in startup subsidies, notably the elimination of priority placement requirements for unemployment startup grants. Since early 2023, self-employment is considered an equal employment policy option to dependent employment, leading to a delayed rise in applications and increased interest in startups among unemployed individuals.

The number of IHK advisory opinions for applications for startup subsidies has more than doubled compared to 2023, now comprising 78% of all IHK opinions issued.

With increased interest comes a noticeable rise in the number of qualitative deficiencies in submitted business plans reported by the IHKs. Insufficiently elaborated or poorly sustainable plans are becoming more common. Alarmingly, 49% of plans show deficits in “basic business skills” and 44% lack adequate financing strategies for their business ideas.

Thus, IHK feedback on qualification structures presents a differentiated picture: On one hand, well-qualified entrepreneurs from industry and academia continue to seize entrepreneurial opportunities. On the other hand, there is an increasing share of startups driven by a lack of employment options, often accompanied by less thorough preparation.

Female Entrepreneurship Becomes the Norm

The percentage of women participating in IHK startup consultations remains high at 44% in 2025, underscoring a long-term structural change in the startup scene. In the early 2000s, this figure stood at approximately one-third. The IHKs have played a significant role in this development, supporting around 75,000 women across Germany in initial consultations and intensive advisory sessions on their path to self-employment in 2025 alone.

Where Entrepreneurs See the Most Need for Reform

The primary obstacles faced by entrepreneurs in Germany are revealed in a survey of startups and young enterprises across the nation. Out of 791 respondents, they rate Germany as a startup destination as “fair” (3.5 out of 5).

Major reasons include persistently high bureaucratic burdens and difficult economic conditions with elevated costs and uncertainties. Economic policies should aim to position Germany as an attractive destination for startups by providing favourable conditions for innovative ideas to thrive.

Entrepreneurs demand a substantially simpler, faster, and more flexible environment for entrepreneurial action: 73% desire faster and simpler regulations, 61% call for simplified tax laws. Improved access to funding, greater societal understanding of entrepreneurship, energy costs, IT infrastructure, better capital access, and networking are also noted as important factors.

By highlighting these barriers, respondents simultaneously provide concrete points for improvement. Policymakers are already addressing key DIHK demands to promote entrepreneurship. The focus must now shift to implementing these measures effectively and practically.

1. Enable Startups in 24 Hours – Streamline Procedures Drastically

73 percent of founders demand faster and simpler regulations. The DIHK explicitly supports the goal of significantly accelerating company formations in Germany and fully digitizing the process. The political objective of enabling startups to be established in 24 hours aligns with the expectations of many entrepreneurs and sends an important signal about Germany’s attractiveness as a business location. However, achieving this goal requires a true paradigm shift:

The state should fully manage legal obligation identification . Founders should be able to describe their venture without having to examine complex regulations themselves.

The startup process should be organized as a fully digital end-to-end service , featuring seamlessly integrated procedures instead of fragmented sub-processes.

The once-only principle should be consistently applied: Data should only be entered once and automatically exchanged across authorities.

A state-operated backend should be combined with multiple user-friendly and highly visible front-end access points . Especially at the beginning, when clarifying ventures, it’s crucial that qualified institutions assist founders and shape the access points to the administrative startup system, ensuring the process proceeds without delays.

The German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IHKs) play a pivotal role here: They are already the primary contact for founders across the region and possess extensive experience in venture clarification. Systematically and visibly involving them would enhance procedure quality and reduce queries.

It is also crucial that startups are not just formally but also economically operational . This includes promptly issuing tax numbers and providing immediate access to all relevant follow-up processes.

The reform package timeline of four weeks to issue a tax number, as stated by the governing coalition, is far too long and falls short compared to federal and state initiatives aimed at enabling startup formations within 24 hours.

Simplify Tax Law and Provide Targeted Relief

61% call for improvements in this area. The planned tax reform should provide relief not only for sole proprietorships via income tax but also for start-ups, which are frequently established as limited liability companies. This primarily includes bringing forward and bundling the already decided corporate tax reform into 2027 and 2028. The corporate tax rate should be reduced in two stages from 15% to 10%, instead of the currently proposed five 1% reductions beginning in 2028. While the steps towards income tax reduction in the coalition’s reform package would benefit low and medium incomes, they penalise businesses when they begin to grow—especially through the planned increases in the ‘wealth tax.’ Overall, the proposed tax increases primarily affect medium-sized enterprises.

Additionally, a change of course is needed in social charges: non-insurance benefits should be financed entirely from the federal budget to stabilise payroll taxes and avoid placing further burdens on employment.

The policy should also address these areas decisively:

Raising thresholds : The small business threshold, below which companies are not required to declare VAT, should be significantly raised beyond the current €25,000—ideally up to the maximum €85,000 permitted under European law.

Simplifying tax procedures : Particularly, the income-expenditure accounting for small businesses should be further simplified.

Improving predictability : Tax burdens should be predictable for founders, for example, through simpler and more transparent advance payment regulations.

Strengthening loss offsetting : Improved tax loss offsetting would provide targeted relief for start-ups with high initial costs and reduce liquidity shortages.

The objective must be a tax law that is founder-friendly, understandable, and predictable —especially in the first few years.

3. Digitising and Streamlining the Funding Landscape

32% of founders, startups, and young businesses are calling for easier access to funding programmes.

Systematically simplify and make funding programmes more flexible,

Create digital platforms for applications, evaluations, and approvals,

Bundle funding offers transparently and tailor them to the intended audiences,

Review rigid criteria and align them more closely with startups’ needs.

Digital processes reduce bureaucracy, increase transparency, and enable faster decisions. This allows founders to focus more on their entrepreneurial activities.

4. Reform status determination procedures – Increase legal certainty

To promote self-employment, better legal frameworks are needed, particularly for the many solo self-employed individuals in Germany. There is no statutory definition of self-employment, and consequently, it is often difficult to distinguish between self-employment and dependent employment. Furthermore, there is no uniform evaluation catalog for the status determination procedure by the German Pension Insurance Fund, which creates legal certainty for solo self-employed individuals and their client companies.

This increases the risk of ‘bogus self-employment’. This occurs