Speculation Tax Calculator

The so-called speculation tax (Spekulationssteuer) is not a separate tax. It is the German income tax on gains from private sale transactions under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG). If you sell a property at a profit within ten years of purchasing it, that gain is taxed at your personal income tax rate.

Our calculator automatically checks whether the holding period has already expired and estimates the expected tax burden based on your inputs.

What counts are the dates of the notarised purchase agreements: if more than ten years lie between the purchase contract when you acquired the property and the sale contract when you sell it, the gain is completely tax-free. Handover, land register entry or payment of the purchase price are irrelevant for the deadline.

The calculator shows you the exact holding period and the date from which a tax-free sale becomes possible.

In the case of owner-occupancy: if you lived in the property yourself in the year of sale and in the two preceding calendar years, the gain remains tax-free even within the ten-year period. It is sufficient for the owner-occupancy to touch these three calendar years continuously – three full years are not required.

In the calculator, simply select the owner-occupied option for this scenario.

The calculator determines the gain as follows:

• sale price
• minus acquisition costs (purchase price plus incidental purchase costs such as notary, real estate transfer tax, broker)
• minus incidental selling costs
• minus value-enhancing modernisation costs
• plus the depreciation (AfA) claimed while the property was rented out

Your personal marginal tax rate, which the calculator estimates from your annual income, is then applied to the result.

For rented properties, you have claimed depreciation (AfA) for tax purposes over the years. This depreciation reduces the acquisition costs, which correspondingly increases the taxable gain on sale – in effect, the AfA is taxed retroactively.

Enter the total of all depreciation claimed so far in the calculator; for owner-occupied properties, this item does not apply.

There is no fixed speculation tax rate. The gain is added to your other income and taxed at your personal, progressive German income tax rate – up to 45 percent depending on income, plus the solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax.

The calculator estimates your marginal tax rate based on the annual income you enter; the actual burden is determined by the German tax office as part of your income tax return.

Gains from private sale transactions remain tax-free if they total less than 1,000 euros in a calendar year (until 2023: 600 euros). Important: this is an exemption threshold (Freigrenze), not an allowance – if it is exceeded by even one euro, the entire gain becomes taxable.

The calculator takes the threshold into account automatically and flags the corresponding results.

All costs directly connected with the sale reduce the taxable gain. These include in particular:

• the seller's broker commission
• notary and land register fees, to the extent you bear them
• early repayment penalty for redeeming the loan ahead of schedule
• costs for valuations, the energy certificate and advertisements

Enter these items in the incidental selling costs field.

Only value-enhancing measures (construction costs), such as an extension, a complete refurbishment or a first-time attic conversion, increase the acquisition costs and thus reduce the gain.

Pure maintenance expenses such as cosmetic repairs or replacing defective parts do not count – for rented properties they have usually already been deducted as income-related expenses. Therefore, only enter genuine modernisation costs in the calculator.

No new speculation period starts when a property is acquired free of charge. You step into the shoes of your legal predecessor: what counts is the date on which the deceased or the donor originally purchased the property.

If they acquired it more than ten years ago, you can sell tax-free immediately. Accordingly, enter the original purchase date in the calculator.

Losses from private sale transactions cannot be offset against other income such as salary or rental income. They only reduce gains from other private sale transactions – in the same year, by carry-back to the previous year, or by carry-forward to future years.

In this case, the calculator shows that no speculation tax is due.

If you sell more than three properties within roughly five years, the German tax office may classify your activity as commercial property trading. In that case, the rules of Section 23 EStG no longer apply: the gains are subject to income tax regardless of the holding period, plus trade tax on top.

Our calculator models the private sale. If you are planning several sales, you should definitely seek professional tax advice.

The calculator is based on German tax law (Section 23 EStG) and is designed for property sales subject to German income tax. If you are fully tax-resident in Germany, the sale of a property abroad may in principle also be taxable – although double taxation treaties with partly differing rules apply in such cases.

Other countries have their own regulations and holding periods, which the calculator does not model.

The calculator provides well-founded guidance based on your inputs, but it does not replace professional tax advice. Your actual tax burden depends on your individual situation – for example, your exact income, joint assessment, church tax or a property that was only partially rented out.

For binding information, please consult a tax adviser. OFFMARKET24 will then be glad to help you find the right buyer for your property discreetly.