Grid fees 2027: what the shrinking federal subsidy could mean for charging prices
📅 Published on October 23, 2026
Information as of 23 October 2026. It is based on reports from zfk.de, netz-trends.de, WirtschaftsWoche and electrive.net (sources at the end). The legislative process is still under way; figures may change.
Anyone charging at a public station also pays grid fees in the price – the charge for using the power lines. For 2026 the German federal government pushed these fees down with a multi-billion-euro subsidy, and operators such as Fastned passed the relief on to customers. For 2027 the current draft law provides a smaller subsidy. This article sorts out the facts: which figures are documented, what has not been decided yet, what can be calculated from them – and where knowledge ends before anyone should speculate about specific charging prices.
What is documented: subsidy and transmission grid fee
On 1 October 2026 the four transmission system operators published preliminary fees for 2027. According to zfk.de and netz-trends.de, the average transmission grid fee for 2027 is provisionally 3.54 ct/kWh, up from 2.86 ct/kWh in 2026. Without the federal subsidy it would be 6.52 ct/kWh in 2027.
The subsidy itself: €6.5 billion for 2026. The draft law provides €5.525 billion per year for 2027 to 2029, paid from the Climate and Transformation Fund, in ten equal instalments starting on 15 February each year. According to zfk.de it is to be anchored in § 24d EnWG. The federal cabinet approved the draft in early September 2026; according to netz-trends.de (Bundestag document 21/8236 of 28 September 2026) the Bundestag debated it in first reading on 8 October 2026 and referred it to the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy. The law has therefore not been passed.
What can be recalculated from these figures: €6.5bn minus €5.525bn is €0.975bn less subsidy, about 15 percent – consistent with WirtschaftsWoche's “just under 15 percent”. For the transmission fee, the jump from 2.86 to 3.54 ct/kWh is an increase of 0.68 ct/kWh, about 24 percent. The subsidy still lowers the 2027 fee by 6.52 minus 3.54 = 2.98 ct/kWh compared with no subsidy.
What is still open
Three caveats matter. First, the financing law for 2027 to 2029 has not been passed; according to the transmission system operators, the final 2027 fees would rise if there is no legal certainty by 7 December 2026. Under the draft, the final fees are to be fixed by 1 January 2027. Second, the figures quoted are explicitly preliminary. Third, they concern the transmission grid (extra-high voltage and transformer level). What reaches a specific charging station also depends on the distribution grid fees at the site, which are grid-operator specific and had to be published by 15 October 2026 – we did not evaluate them for this article.
The draft itself speaks of “noticeable relief” for 2027 to 2029 but, according to netz-trends.de, does not quantify it. For 2026 the federal government cites an average reduction of grid fees for households of about 2 ct/kWh. In a statement of 13 August 2026 the German Federation of Consumer Organisations (vzbv) argued the subsidy is not an effective way to noticeably relieve households. Both are positions, not measurements – we report them without judging them.
What Verivox estimates for households
For households there is a rule of thumb that WirtschaftsWoche (article of 26 July 2026) quotes from Verivox: the €6.5bn subsidy lowered average low-voltage grid fees for households by about 1.7 ct/kWh net. Removing €1bn would raise them by about 0.25 ct/kWh net, which corresponds to roughly 3 percent of grid fees and about 1 percent of the household electricity price. As examples, Verivox gives additional annual costs of about €12 for a three-person household using 4,000 kWh, about €8 for a couple using 2,800 kWh and about €5 for a single-person household using 1,500 kWh. Netz-trends.de points to a further Verivox estimate of roughly 0.25 ct/kWh net increase from 2027 and notes itself that it predates the preliminary fees.
According to BDEW (quoted in WirtschaftsWoche), grid fees make up about a quarter of the electricity price; taxes, levies and surcharges average 34 percent. These magnitudes help put the numbers in perspective: for household electricity we are talking about fractions of a cent per kilowatt-hour, not a price jump.
Worked example: what 0.25 ct/kWh would mean at the charger
Let us apply the Verivox rule of thumb to one charging session – explicitly as a thought experiment, not a forecast. Assumptions we set ourselves: the subsidy falls by €0.975bn, which by the rule of thumb is about 0.24 ct/kWh net (0.975 × 0.25). A 40 kWh session – an assumed example quantity – would then cost about 40 × 0.24 ≈ 9.6 ct more net, i.e. under 10 cents per session. With 1,000 kWh of charging per year it would be about €2.40 net.
Why this only gives an order of magnitude: the rule of thumb applies to household low-voltage fees. Fast-charging parks are often connected to higher grid levels with a different fee structure, and whether and how an operator passes on cost changes is its own decision. The calculation therefore mainly shows that the effect on a single session is likely small, if it arrives one-to-one at all – not that the price at the charger will rise by this amount.
The Fastned example in 2026: pass-through is possible, but not automatic
Fastned shows what a pass-through can look like. According to electrive.net (24 March 2026), from 1 April 2026 its ad-hoc price in Germany fell from 73 to 69 ct/kWh, for app customers with a stored card from 65 to 62 ct/kWh and with the Gold membership (€11.99 per month) from 51 to 48 ct/kWh. The provider cited the lower grid fees. That is 4, 3 and 3 ct/kWh respectively – somewhat more than the roughly 2 ct/kWh average cited by the federal government. The report does not say why the cut was larger; we do not speculate. The report also notes that it is open whether such a subsidy will exist again in 2027.
Two lessons: prices at charging stations do not follow cost changes by law but by each operator's pricing policy. And some providers have visibly passed relief on – for 2027 we naturally have nothing yet, because neither the law nor final fees are in place.
What EV drivers can do now
Concrete price changes for 2027 cannot be predicted seriously today. Useful habits are those that help regardless (conclusions from the figures, not guarantees):
1. Look at the final price. A fraction of a cent in grid fees is quickly lost if a tariff includes a base fee, blocking fee or roaming surcharges. Which price information is meant to become mandatory is explained in our article on the price-display rules.
2. Review tariffs every year. Providers usually change prices on fixed dates – in Fastned's case on 1 April. If you use a charging card or subscription, check at the turn of the year whether the terms still fit. For orientation see ad-hoc, charging card or subscription.
3. Compare prices actually paid. The list price is theory, the price last paid is practice – see community prices vs. list prices for why.
4. Do not forget home charging. Grid fees also apply to household electricity; Verivox's examples show additional costs of a few euros per year. How home and public charging differ is covered in how much does it cost to charge an EV?.
How Elunio can help – and where the limits are
Elunio shows charging stations on a map and list, filters by power and price, and displays prices that other drivers have reported at a station. If prices change in 2027, these are exactly the data that make it visible earlier than a tariff table: a price someone actually paid. The limits: community reports are individual cases and not exhaustive; the best live-data coverage is in Baden-Württemberg (live occupancy via MobiData BW) and the DACH region, elsewhere the data is thinner. Elunio does not tell you how grid fees affect a tariff – it shows what was last reported at the charger. More in our article on the live status of charging stations.
Frequently asked questions
What are grid fees?
The charge for using the power grids. It is passed on through the electricity bill or the price at the charger and makes up about a quarter of the household electricity price according to BDEW (quoted in WirtschaftsWoche).
How high is the federal subsidy in 2027?
Under the draft law €5.525 billion per year for 2027 to 2029, after €6.5 billion in 2026. The law has not been passed yet (status: first reading in the Bundestag on 8 October 2026).
Will charging prices rise in 2027?
That cannot be documented today. The preliminary transmission fees rise from 2.86 to 3.54 ct/kWh; whether and how charging operators pass this on is each operator's decision. For 2026, for example, Fastned passed on reductions.
When will the final fees be known?
Under the draft, by 1 January 2027. Without legal certainty by 7 December 2026 the final fees would be higher, according to the transmission system operators.
Does this also affect home charging?
Yes, grid fees are part of every electricity price. Verivox estimates the extra annual cost for households from the smaller subsidy at roughly €5 to €12, depending on consumption.
Conclusion
Under the draft, the federal grid-fee subsidy falls by about 15 percent in 2027 while the preliminary transmission fee rises by about 24 percent to 3.54 ct/kWh – neither is final yet. For households Verivox estimates the effect at a few euros per year; for prices at the charger there is no documented forecast because each operator decides itself. If you want to keep charging costs under control, compare final prices, review tariffs at the turn of the year and rely on what other drivers actually paid.
Sources: zfk.de – “Übertragungsnetzbetreiber veröffentlichen vorläufige Netzentgelte für 2027” (01.10.2026) · netz-trends.de – “Netzentgelte 2027: 3,54 Cent je kWh, Zuschuss 5,525 Mrd. €” (as of 10.10.2026) · wiwo.de – “Strompreise: Womit Stromkunden 2027 bei den Netzentgelten rechnen müssen” (26.07.2026, incl. Verivox, BDEW) · electrive.net – “Fastned senkt Ad-hoc-Ladepreis in Deutschland auf 69 Cent/kWh” (24.03.2026)