“Available” or “Occupied”? Where Live Charger Status Comes From – and How Far You Can Trust It

📅 Published on October 6, 2026

By Soltani Apps · Sources listed at the end

Information as of 06.10.2026. Based on the text of Article 20 of EU Regulation 2023/1804 (AFIR), the "charging station data" factsheet of the German state data platform MobiData BW (as of 04/2026), the status definitions of the open OCPI standard and reporting by electrive.net. We have not systematically measured how up to date and complete individual operators' data actually is – this article explains how the status display comes about, not how well each operator implements it.

Few things are more frustrating on the road than a charger shown as "available" in an app – only to find another car parked in front of it, a black screen or a station taped off when you arrive. The reverse happens too: you skip a station marked "occupied" that has long since become free again.

This rarely comes down to a single error. It comes down to how the status display is produced in the first place. Behind that small green dot is a chain of charger, operator backend, data interface, data platform and app. Every link can add delay or leave something out. Since 2025 there have been EU-wide obligations for this data for the first time, and since April 2026 Germany has a mandatory data format. This article explains what the AFIR requires, what the different status values mean, why "available" does not always mean available – and how to read the display correctly in everyday use. The legal framework applies across the EU; the platform examples focus on Germany, and in particular on the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Key points at a glance

• Obligation since 14 April 2025: Under Article 20 AFIR, operators of publicly accessible charging points must make static and dynamic data available free of charge. Dynamic data includes operational status, availability and the ad hoc price.
• Since 14 April 2026: In Germany, the DATEX II format is mandatory for reporting to the national access point, the Mobilithek of the Federal Ministry of Transport.
• Timeliness: According to the German transport ministry's guidance, dynamic data should be updated no later than one minute after a change, static data no later than 24 hours.
• "Available" describes the charger, not the parking bay: A combustion car or a non-charging EV parked in front of the charger is often not detected by the hardware.
• Live status is not available everywhere: Many freely accessible station databases only contain static or outdated status information. In Elunio, genuine live availability is currently only available in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

What the AFIR has required since 2025

The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) has applied directly in all EU member states since April 2024. It became known mainly for its rules on card payment at chargers, which we covered in our article on card payment at charging stations. Less noticed, but at least as important for charging apps, is Article 20: the provision of data.

Under Article 20(2), operators of publicly accessible charging points had to ensure by 14 April 2025 that static and dynamic data on their infrastructure is available free of charge. Static data includes, among other things, location, number of charging points, connector types, type of current, maximum power output, opening hours and the available payment options – down to whether there is a payment terminal with a card reader or a contactless function. The dynamic data is listed explicitly in point (f): operational status, availability and the ad hoc price.

Article 20(3) additionally requires each operator to set up an application programming interface (API) that provides "free and unrestricted access" to this data and to report information about that API to the national access point. Under paragraph 4, member states in turn had to ensure by the end of 2024 that the data is accessible to all data users in an open and non-discriminatory way via their national access points. By 31 December 2026, the European Commission is also to set up a common European access point that brings the national platforms together.

According to the MobiData BW factsheet, the obligation to provide dynamic data does not apply to publicly accessible charging points where no payment is required for charging. So if you charge at a free charger at a supermarket, you cannot assume its occupancy is reported live anywhere.

Germany's Mobilithek and the DATEX II format

In Germany, the national access point is the Mobilithek of the Federal Ministry of Transport. In August 2025, the National Centre for Charging Infrastructure (Nationale Leitstelle Ladeinfrastruktur) published a DATEX II data profile for charging infrastructure there, which operators can use to report their data in a standards-compliant way. Since 14 April 2026, the use of DATEX II has been mandatory; before that, other formats were also accepted.

The AFIR itself does not specify in detail how fresh the data must be. The German transport ministry's guidance on providing charging infrastructure data does, however: static data should be updated no later than 24 hours after a change, dynamic data no later than one minute after a change. This applies to occupancy as well as to the ad hoc price.

In October 2025, the German federal cabinet also adopted the draft of a new law on intelligent transport systems (IVSG) that is intended to anchor the Mobilithek in law. According to the transport ministry, real-time information on free charging stations, among other things, is to be provided through it "centrally, uniformly and in an easily accessible way". How complete the data is in practice, however, depends on whether and how well individual operators deliver – and that can only be judged to a limited extent from the outside.

Baden-Württemberg as a pioneer: MobiData BW

The German state of Baden-Württemberg runs its own open data platform for mobility data, MobiData BW, organised by the regional transport company NVBW. Among other things, it bundles data on public charging stations – including real-time information on operational status and current availability of charging points, as well as ad hoc prices. Operators can supply their data via the OCPI and DATEX II standards or as JSON; according to MobiData BW, import, bundling and data storage are free of charge for them.

MobiData BW passes on the bundled data under the open Data Licence Germany 2.0 with attribution, including to the Mobilithek. This lets operators in Baden-Württemberg meet their AFIR obligations via the state platform, while third parties – such as research institutions or app providers – can use the data freely. For drivers in south-west Germany this is a noticeable advantage: comparatively many stations there have genuine live occupancy data.

This fits the broader trend in the state. According to the 2026 charging station atlas by energy company 1Komma5°, reported by electrive.net on 5 October 2026, Baden-Württemberg ranks second among Germany's non-city states with around 99 public charging points per 100 square kilometres, behind North Rhine-Westphalia. Stuttgart remains the independent city with the highest density at 2,107 charging points per 100 square kilometres, and the district of Böblingen ranks second among rural districts. More charging points do not automatically mean better information about them, though – at the German transport ministry's charging infrastructure conference, according to electrive.net, the focus increasingly shifted to quality: availability, reliability and ease of use.

What the individual status values mean

Most operator backends use the Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI) internally, an open standard for data exchange between charge point operators and mobility service providers. For each individual charging point (an "EVSE" in industry jargon), OCPI defines a fixed list of states. Knowing them quickly explains why apps sometimes show different things:

The key point is the difference between "occupied" in everyday language and the technical status. CHARGING means a car is actually charging. BLOCKED exists in the standard, but it requires the charger to be able to detect an obstacle at all, for example via a sensor in the parking bay. Without such a sensor, a charging point with a combustion car parked in front of it remains technically AVAILABLE. And UNKNOWN explicitly does not mean "broken" – only that there is no information right now, for instance because the charger has lost its connection to the backend.

Why "available" in the app does not always mean available on site

Even when an operator reports perfectly, there are typical situations in which display and reality diverge:

• Blocked bays: Without an occupancy sensor in the bay, the charger only knows whether a plug is connected and power is flowing. A combustion car, a van or an EV that is merely parked without being plugged in stays invisible.
• Shared bays: Many AC chargers have two charging points, but the bays are laid out so that one car parked at an angle blocks both. The charger then reports one point as available even though you cannot reach it.
• Delays along the chain: The one-minute guideline applies to the operator's report. After that, the information still has to be fetched by the data platform, processed by the app and reloaded on your phone. Every step can add time. If you are ten minutes away, expect that someone else may take the charger in the meantime.
• Working does not mean ready for your car: A charging point can be AVAILABLE and still fail to start – because your charging card is not accepted there, power is throttled or a fault only appears when the session starts. The status says nothing about whether charging will actually work.
• Different counting methods: Some apps count per station, others per charging point, others per connector. A charger with two charging points and four connectors may appear as "1/1", "1/2" or "2/4 available" depending on the app – describing the same situation.

Where charging apps get their status data from

Broadly speaking, there are three sources, and many apps combine them:

1. Direct operator or roaming data. Large charging card providers and roaming platforms receive status data directly from operators via contractual interfaces. This data is often very current but not freely available – it belongs to the respective provider.

2. Open data platforms. These include the national access points under the AFIR and regional platforms such as MobiData BW. Their strength: anyone may use the data. Their weakness: coverage depends on which operators actually deliver.

3. Community databases and reports. Open directories such as OpenChargeMap or OpenStreetMap contain locations, connectors and power ratings for a very large number of stations worldwide. As a rule, they do not provide live status – a status stored there is usually static or simply "unknown". On top of this come reports from drivers who were just there and indicate whether a charger is available, occupied or broken.

How Elunio does it – and where the limits are

We want to be honest about what Elunio can and cannot do today. Station data comes mainly from OpenChargeMap and OpenStreetMap and therefore covers a very large number of locations worldwide – but, as described above, these sources practically never provide a reliable live status.

Elunio currently shows genuine live occupancy only for stations in Baden-Württemberg. To do this, the open data from MobiData BW is fetched regularly on our server and matched to the displayed stations by location, because the two data sources use different identifiers. If there is a match, a green live badge such as "Live · 2/6 free" appears on the station. Only charging points with the status AVAILABLE are counted – the others may be charging, broken, reserved or without status information. Since October 2026, it also shows when the status last changed, e.g. “changed 12 min ago”.

Two limitations apply. First, every change has to pass through several steps before it reaches you: from the operator to MobiData BW and from there to Elunio. Since October 2026, Elunio fetches changed stations every two minutes and additionally reconciles the full dataset once an hour. The display can still lag a few minutes behind actual occupancy; the note in the station view points this out. Second, not all sources report equally reliably: in our own analysis on 6 October 2026, around a quarter of the roughly 7,600 stations in our MobiData BW snapshot had not reported a single status change for more than seven days. For a public charger, that points to a frozen data feed rather than a week without use. Elunio therefore no longer shows such stations as “live”.

Outside Baden-Württemberg, Elunio relies on community reports: anyone who has been at a station can mark it as available, occupied or broken. Only reports from the last 30 minutes are taken into account, and the app shows the ratio, for example "reported 3×: 2× available, 1× occupied". A "broken" report is deliberately not outvoted by "available" reports but shown as a separate warning, and stations freshly reported as broken are skipped as charging stops in route planning. Where nobody has reported anything, Elunio shows no status – better no information than made-up information.

The community's real strength, however, lies in prices: alongside the stored list price, Elunio shows what other drivers actually paid at a station – as an average of up to 20 reports from the last 180 days, with the number and age of the reports. How dense these reports are depends on the region; coverage is currently best in Baden-Württemberg and the rest of the German-speaking (DACH) region. Why this is often more meaningful than a list price is explained in the article Community prices vs. list prices.

How to read live status correctly: tips for the road

• Check the status again shortly before arriving: An "available" from 20 minutes ago is worth little. Refresh the view when you are a few minutes away.
• Prefer charging hubs over single chargers: A display like "4/8 available" gives you more buffer than "1/1 available" – even if someone arrives in the meantime, a point is usually left.
• "Unknown" is not a reason to rule a station out: Many working chargers simply report no status, for example because they are free of charge or the operator does not supply live data. If your range is tight, though, have an alternative with a known status nearby.
• Plan a fallback: On long trips in particular, it pays to know a second station within range. More in our EV road trip tips.
• Report it yourself: If a charger is shown as available but is blocked or broken, a quick report helps the next driver. This applies in the Elunio app as much as in other community services.
• Be considerate on site: Free up the bay after charging and do not use it as a parking space – the simplest measure against "available but blocked". Our article on charging etiquette sums up the key rules.

Frequently asked questions

Are all charge point operators required to report live status?
Under Article 20 AFIR, operators of publicly accessible charging points have had to provide dynamic data such as operational status and availability free of charge since 14 April 2025. According to MobiData BW, this obligation does not apply to charging points where charging is free. Whether and how reliably individual operators deliver is another question – we do not monitor this and cannot assess it for every operator.

Why do two apps show different occupancy for the same charger?
Because they often use different data sources, fetch them at different intervals or count differently – per station, per charging point or per connector. When you last loaded the view also plays a role.

Can I reserve a charger?
The OCPI standard has a status for reserved charging points. Whether a reservation is possible, however, depends on the operator and provider; the AFIR contains no general obligation to offer it. Elunio does not offer reservations.

Do apps also get prices via the national access points?
Under Article 20 AFIR, the ad hoc price is one of the dynamic data items that must be provided. That creates more transparency for spontaneous charging without a contract. Prices with a charging card or subscription are not covered – and what is actually billed in the end can differ from the stated price. That is why real-world experience from other drivers remains a useful complement.

Conclusion

Since 2025, charge point operators in the EU have been required to make occupancy, operational status and the ad hoc price openly available, and in Germany this has run through the Mobilithek in the mandatory DATEX II format since April 2026. That is a big step forward for anyone who charges spontaneously. Still, live status remains a snapshot of the charger, not of the parking bay: blocked bays, delays in the data chain and stations without a reporting obligation mean that "available" does not always mean available. If you check the status shortly before arriving, prefer hubs with several points and know a fallback, you will be surprised less often. In Baden-Württemberg, Elunio lets you benefit from MobiData BW's open live data; everywhere else, community reports help – for occupancy just as much as for the prices people actually paid.

Sources: Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 (AFIR), Article 20 – "Provision of data" (German text via gesetze.legal) · MobiData BW / NVBW – factsheet "Datenprofil E-Ladesäulen" (as of 04/2026) · electrive.net – "Live-Daten von Ladestationen: BMV stellt DATEX-II-Datenprofil bereit" (26.08.2025) · electrive.net – "„Mobilithek": Kabinett bringt digitale Plattform für Ladesäulen auf den Weg" (29.10.2025) · electrive.net – "Beim Ladepunkt-Ausbau führen Stuttgart und Mettmann" (05.10.2026, 1Komma5° charging station atlas 2026) · Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI), "Locations" module, status definitions (github.com/ocpi/ocpi)

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