Electricity and energy tax in Germany: filing choice by 31 December, estimate by 15 January, annual return by 31 May

Who owes electricity tax and energy tax

Electricity tax is owed by the supplier, meaning whoever delivers electricity to final consumers: the tax arises when the customer draws the electricity from the grid (Section 5(1) and (2) StromStG), and the supplier needs a licence from the main customs office to do so (Section 4(1)). For natural gas, the supplier established in Germany owes the energy tax (Section 38(2) no. 1 EnergieStG) and registers with the main customs office before it starts supplying (Section 38(3)). At a municipal utility that is the sales company, even though the return is prepared in tax or accounting and the volumes come out of billing.

Rates have not moved in years: EUR 20.50 per megawatt hour of electricity (Section 3 StromStG) and EUR 5.50 per megawatt hour of natural gas used for heating (Section 2(3) sentence 1 no. 4 EnergieStG). What is new is the procedure around advance payments. The Third Act amending the Energy Tax Act and the Electricity Tax Act of 22 December 2025 (Federal Law Gazette 2025 I No. 340) rewrote Section 8(6) StromStG and Section 39(5) EnergieStG and attached a fine to both notifications, in force since 1 January 2026. The first January estimate was due on 15 January 2026 and the first mid-year estimate as of 30 June 2026; the estimate for 2027 follows on 15 January 2027.

None of this concerns the relief customers claim. Electricity tax relief for manufacturing companies under Section 9b StromStG is claimed by the company that drew the electricity (Section 9b(3)); the supplier files those volumes at the standard rate of Section 3. How that relief fits with other instruments is covered in our article on the industrial electricity price 2026 to 2028.

The deadlines at a glance

Three deadlines from the deadline calendar fall on suppliers over the next six months, each tied to a different part of Section 8 StromStG and Section 39 EnergieStG. For each one, the table lists who has to meet it, what is required and what the law provides if it is missed.

Monthly filers run on a different beat: return by the 15th of the following month, payment by the 25th (Section 8(3) StromStG; for natural gas due on the 25th, Section 39(1) EnergieStG). On 15 January 2027 these suppliers file for December 2026 while annual filers send their estimate, so both groups have a deadline that Friday.

31 December 2026: monthly or annual filing

For electricity tax, the choice only ever covers one calendar year, and the declaration must have "reached the main customs office by 31 December of the previous year at the latest" (Section 8(2) StromStG, our translation). What counts is receipt, not the date it was sent. A supplier that declares nothing files annually in 2027 and pays monthly advance payments.

Natural gas works the other way round. Monthly filing is the rule (Section 39(1) EnergieStG), and a supplier that wants to file annually submits a written declaration that has to be with the main customs office before the calendar year begins. That choice applies to full calendar years and stands until the supplier revokes it in writing before the start of a year (Section 39(2) EnergieStG). A supplier whose gas tax first arises during a year has until the end of the second month after the month in which it first arose.

Either way, money goes out on the 25th of the following month. Monthly filers pay the tax they filed; annual filers pay an advance of one twelfth of the expected annual tax, set by the main customs office (Section 8(6) and (7) StromStG, Section 39(5) EnergieStG). If that comes to no more than EUR 200 a month, the main customs office waives electricity tax advance payments, provided tax interests are not affected (Section 6(3) StromStV). Since 2026 the real difference is the workload: twelve returns with monthly volumes on one side, one annual return plus two estimate dates on the other.

We advise suppliers that sell both electricity and gas to make the choice for both taxes explicitly every year and record it internally, even when nothing changes. Why: without a declaration electricity tax ends up annual and gas tax monthly, and a switch for gas only takes effect at the start of the next year.

15 January 2027: estimate of the annual tax

Anyone filing annually and making advance payments sends the main customs office, by 15 January of the assessment year (the tax year in question), "an appropriate estimate of the expected annual tax liability that a third party can follow" (Section 8(6) sentence 4 StromStG; Section 39(5) EnergieStG has the same wording; our translation). If the supplier's own estimate is below EUR 2,400, it is sent only on request. It goes to the main customs office in writing on the official form (Section 6(1) StromStV), and the office sets the advance payments by notice.

Until the end of 2025, the main customs office based advance payments on the tax due for the year before last; for 2025, that meant the tax for 2023. The federal government justified the change with practice: many main customs offices had already been asking suppliers for current data at the turn of the year, and the yardstick is now the expected annual tax for the year concerned (Bundestag printed paper 21/1866 of 29 September 2025, p. 76).

The second estimate as of 30 June

As of 30 June, the taxpayer estimates the annual tax again and reports it on request. It has to report it unprompted by 15 August if two conditions are met at once: the estimate exceeds EUR 100,000, and it exceeds the annual tax on which the main customs office based the advance payments by more than 20 percent. In that case the office resets the advance payments. According to the explanatory memorandum, the figure is taken before any tax relief, and the rule follows suggestions from the Federal Court of Audit to reduce the risk of tax shortfalls (Bundestag printed paper 21/1866, p. 76).

In our view, 30 June is the date suppliers are most likely to underestimate. It appears in no notice, it calls for a projection in the middle of the year, and this is the notification that carries a fine. A sales team that wins large business customers in spring, or takes over a default-supply customer base, can reach the 20 percent faster than the tax department hears about it. So the estimate needs the same figures as sales planning, split by tax rate and exemption, and a calculation a customs auditor can follow.

31 May 2027: 2026 annual return, payment by 25 June

With annual filing, the tax for 2026 has to be filed by Monday, 31 May 2027, and paid to the main customs office, after credit for advance payments, by Friday, 25 June 2027 (Section 8(4) StromStG). For natural gas, Section 39(3) EnergieStG says the tax is "due on 25 June" of that year. On the same 31 May, electricity suppliers report the previous year's tax-exempt volumes under Section 4(6) StromStV, to the extent they were generated in stationary installations.

The volumes come from billing, which rarely bills by calendar year. Where billing follows reading periods that span the turn of the year, as with the rolling annual bills for household customers, the law allows an appropriate, traceable estimate to split the volume between tax years. If the reading period ends later, the filed volume is corrected in the year in which it ends (Section 8(4a) StromStG, Section 39(6) EnergieStG).

Since 2026 there has been a simplification: if the billed volume rests on an estimate or later turns out to be wrong, and the bill is changed as a result, the reading period also counts as ending later (Section 8(4b) StromStG, Section 39(6a) EnergieStG). Transactions that no longer make it into the annual financial statements for the tax year count as spanning several years as well (Section 8(4c), Section 39(6b)). According to the federal government, such cases had previously led to very frequent corrections of returns already filed (Bundestag printed paper 21/1866, p. 76). The correction now goes into the next return, and the financial statements and the return diverge less often.

Bookkeeping is set out in the ordinance. Suppliers keep records on the official form, separated by tax rate, exemption and final consumer; if the main customs office allows business records instead, the supplier needs one or more electricity tax accounts in the general ledger from which every transaction can be traced (Section 4(2) and (3) StromStV). Section 79 EnergieStV does the same for natural gas with energy tax accounts. If you are moving billing to SAP S/4HANA Utilities, add the tax accounts and the allocation across reading periods to the test cases; problems there tend to surface only at the first annual return.

What applies if a deadline is missed

Each of the three deadlines has a different legal consequence, and only one of them is a fine. We describe what the law provides; whether and how a main customs office acts in a given case depends on circumstances we do not assess here.

• Filing choice: if the electricity tax declaration is late, the tax is filed and paid annually (Section 8(2) sentence 4 StromStG). For natural gas, monthly filing or the existing annual choice continues (Section 39(1) and (2) EnergieStG).
• Estimate: anyone who intentionally or recklessly fails to make a notification under Section 8(6) sentences 4 to 7 StromStG, or makes it incorrectly or late, commits an administrative offence; the fine is up to EUR 5,000 and the main customs office is the competent authority (Section 14 StromStG). For natural gas, Section 64 no. 5 EnergieStG refers to Section 381 AO, which also provides for up to EUR 5,000.
• Annual return: a late filing surcharge can be imposed (Section 152(1) AO). For returns covering a calendar year it is 0.25 percent per started month of the tax less advance payments, at least EUR 25 and at most EUR 25,000 (Section 152(5) and (10) AO). If no return is filed at all, the main customs office assesses the tax itself (Section 167(1) AO).
• Payment: if the tax is not paid by the due date, a late payment surcharge of 1 percent of the arrears, rounded down to the nearest EUR 50, accrues per started month; delays of up to three days carry no surcharge (Section 240(1) and (3) AO).

The fine for the estimate came with the act of 22 December 2025, which rewrote Section 14(1) StromStG and added no. 5 to Section 64 EnergieStG (Federal Law Gazette 2025 I No. 340, Article 1 no. 12 and Article 2 no. 24). Surcharges under the Fiscal Code applied before.

Associations and legislator on the estimate

The in-year estimate already featured in the 2024 draft of an act to modernise and cut red tape in electricity and energy tax law, which at the time provided for a check after every quarter. In its comments on the ministerial draft on 26 April 2024, the energy industry association BDEW wrote that repeated in-year calculation of the tax liability "contradicts the nature of an annual liability with credit for advance payments made". On the sanction: "Treating breaches of duty by the taxpayer separately as an administrative offence is not acceptable." The association pointed out that differences are settled fairly promptly anyway through the return on 31 May and the payment on 25 June (quotes translated by us).

VIK, which represents industrial energy users, wanted the duty limited in its statement of 8 October 2024 to companies "whose economic focus lies in section E of WZ2003 (energy supply)", in other words to suppliers. In its draft of 29 September 2025, the federal government kept the estimate and justified the mid-year check with the risk of tax shortfalls flagged by the Federal Court of Audit; the change as a whole, it said, follows the practice many main customs offices already had (Bundestag printed paper 21/1866, p. 76).

The act of 22 December 2025 sits between the two positions: one mid-year check instead of four quarterly ones, a reporting duty only above EUR 100,000 and 20 percent, but with a fine. VIK's limit to suppliers did not make it into the act; an industrial company that generates electricity for its own use and owes electricity tax on it as a self-generator and files annually also estimates by 15 January once its annual tax reaches EUR 2,400.

What suppliers should do before January

Five steps to the 2026 annual return

1. Decide the 2027 filing method for each tax

   In November, record whether electricity tax and energy tax will be filed monthly or annually in 2027, and check which gas declaration from earlier years is still in force.

2. Send the declaration so that it arrives before 31 December

   For electricity tax, receipt by the main customs office is what counts; for gas, the written declaration has to be on file before the year begins. 31 December is a Thursday between the holidays, so plan the dispatch to have proof of receipt beforehand.

3. Derive the 2027 estimate from sales planning

   Take volumes per tax rate and exemption from sales planning, multiply by the rate, document the calculation and report it on the official form by Friday, 15 January 2027.

4. Treat 30 June as a deadline in its own right

   Re-project with actual volumes to the end of May and check whether the estimate exceeds EUR 100,000 and is more than 20 percent above the assessed annual tax. If so, report by 15 August; if it is well below, consider applying for a different assessment.

5. Prepare the 2026 annual return from January

   Pull the allocation of the 2025/26 and 2026/27 reading periods from billing, reconcile it with the electricity tax and energy tax accounts in the general ledger and file by 31 May; the payment run for 25 June belongs in the same plan.

Other dates that hit suppliers in the same weeks, such as the publication of levies, are covered in our article on the 2027 levies and in the energy transition deadline calendar.

Further reading

Frequently asked questions