Return of the old VAT rate increases heating costs

With the planned return of the old VAT rate on natural gas, consumers will once again have to adjust to more expensive heating costs. On request, the comparison portal Verivox reported that the additional burden on households in Saxony would be an average of around 244 euros more per year. At the height of the energy price crisis in October 2022, the German government decided to reduce the VAT rate on natural gas from 19 to 7 percent. The old VAT rate is to apply again from April at the latest.

The average gas price in Saxony was 10.88 cents per kilowatt hour in February. For a single-family home with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours, this corresponds to 1275 euros. According to Verivox, the gas price is around five percent above the national average (10.37 cents per kilowatt hour).

Additional costs in the three-digit range

Customers of energy supplier Sachsen Energie will therefore pay around 280 euros more per year for a household of four people or a single-family home with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours as a result of the tax increase.

Customers of the central German gas supplier Mitgas will have slightly higher additional costs. As the company announced on request, customers with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours would pay around EUR 324 more per year for a full year with 19 percent VAT.

In the Leipzig region, on the other hand, customers of Stadtwerke Leipzig would pay around EUR 280 more for the same annual consumption in the basic supply and around EUR 248 more with the so-called L-gas tariff.

Heating costs likely to remain high in the long term

According to Verivox, average gas prices have fallen sharply over the past 12 months, but the price level is still significantly higher than before the start of the war in Ukraine. According to the report, heating with natural gas will remain more expensive in the long term than it was three years ago. Measures such as building insulation can reduce gas consumption.