🧭 Your rights at a glance: homeless (wohnungslos) and roofless (obdachlos)
In brief
"Wohnungslos" (homeless) and "obdachlos" (roofless) are often treated as the same thing, but they mean different things: you are wohnungslos if you have no tenancy agreement of your own, for example because your lease was terminated – this also applies if you are staying temporarily with friends, in an institution or in an emergency shelter. You are obdachlos in the narrower sense if you have no shelter at all, for example if you live on the street. This distinction matters because different entitlements follow from it.
For accommodation, unlike for pensions or basic income support (Grundsicherungsgeld), no federal law is responsible, but the respective state law (police and public-order law) and the practice of your municipality. For basic subsistence, by contrast, SGB II (basic income support, Grundsicherungsgeld, formerly Bürgergeld) and SGB XII (social assistance) apply nationwide – regardless of whether you have a fixed address.
Step by step
- Assess the emergencyAre you without shelter tonight? Then the first step is the local Ordnungsamt (public order office) or – outside office hours – the police or an emergency number for homeless assistance.
- Contact the OrdnungsamtIf you are homeless involuntarily, you are entitled to temporary accommodation under state law (see "Public-order accommodation").
- Secure benefitsYou can apply for basic income support (Grundsicherungsgeld/Bürgergeld, SGB II) or social assistance (SGB XII) even without a fixed address.
- Visit a specialist advice centreSpecialist advice centres for housing emergencies (§§ 67 ff. SGB XII) support you with all further steps, from applications to the housing search.
- Secure your documentsKeep your ID and important documents in a safe place and, if possible, set up a c/o address for post.
Deadlines
- There is no uniform nationwide "homelessness act" – the rules on accommodation differ from state to state and sometimes from municipality to municipality.
- The terms "wohnungslos" and "obdachlos" are used inconsistently in everyday speech and in some statistics – this easily leads to wrong expectations about benefits.
- There is no legal entitlement to a particular quality or location of accommodation; what counts is the so-called "civilisational minimum" (protection from the weather, basic sanitation), not comfortable accommodation.
- Receiving benefits does not require a fixed home address – do not let authorities turn you away with the argument that you have no registered address.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
Distribution of competences: why there is no federal law
Averting danger – which, in the prevailing view, includes protection against involuntary homelessness – is in principle a matter for the states under the constitutional distribution of competences (Art. 30, 70 GG). There is therefore no federal law regulating a duty to provide accommodation; instead, the general clauses of the state police and public-order acts apply (see "Public-order accommodation"). For basic social security (standard needs, housing costs), by contrast, the federal laws SGB II and SGB XII apply unchanged.
Statistics: two figures, two methods
Two figures circulate on homelessness in Germany that are often confused: The Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Wohnungslosenhilfe (BAG W) publishes an extrapolation that also includes people not officially recorded (e.g. people staying with friends/family) and reports around 1,029,000 homeless people in Germany for 2024 (an increase from around 928,000 for 2023 according to BAG W). The official statistics under the Wohnungslosenberichterstattungsgesetz (WoBerichtsG), by contrast, count only people who were accommodated on the reference date in a shelter arranged by municipalities or providers, and reported around 452,900 people for the reference date 31 January 2026 (Destatis) – a decrease from around 474,700 on 31 January 2025. The two figures are not directly comparable methodologically: the BAG W figure is an estimate by the professional association covering all forms of homelessness, while the official figure counts only people who are accommodated.
A "right to shelter"?
A "right to shelter" expressly codified as such does not exist in German law; the municipalities' duty to provide accommodation is derived in the specialist literature and in settled administrative-court practice from the general public-order clauses of the states, ultimately with reference to human dignity (Art. 1 Abs. 1 GG) and the right to physical integrity (Art. 2 Abs. 2 GG). A single leading decision of the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) establishing this duty uniformly nationwide could not be verified beyond doubt in this research – lower-court case law and state law are decisive.
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