The decomposition
German GDP growth in 2026 is overwhelmingly a public-demand story. Government consumption is rising on defence and administration; public investment is rising as the infrastructure fund and defence procurement begin to flow. Against that, net exports are a drag for the first time in a generation, private investment is broadly flat as firms wait for proof of the recovery, and household consumption is positive but muted. The result is the thin 0.6 to 0.9 percent the institutes forecast.
The state as the marginal buyer
The numbers behind the public impulse are large. The 2026 federal defence budget is a record €108.2 billion, part of a plan to spend on the order of €650 billion over five years to move toward the NATO 3.5 percent-of-GDP target. The €500 billion infrastructure fund, sitting outside the debt brake and earmarked across transport, energy, health, education and digitalisation with €100 billion ring-fenced for climate, must be spent within twelve years. For comparison, the fund alone is equivalent to 11.6 percent of 2024 GDP.
This is why government is the marginal buyer in the German economy in 2026. The question is execution. The ifo Institute's finding that 95 percent of the new debt earmarked for 2025 was used to plug holes in the regular budget rather than to add net investment is the single most important caveat on the entire growth story. Money authorised is not money spent, and money spent on substitution is not stimulus.
Why net exports stopped helping
For decades the reliable German growth engine was net exports. In 2025 it shifted into reverse. The goods trade surplus fell to €200.5 billion from €242.9 billion in 2024, a drop of more than €42 billion. US tariffs hit the most valuable export category directly: shipments of motor vehicles and parts to the United States fell 17.8 percent, and total exports to the US, still Germany's largest single market, fell 9.4 percent to €146.2 billion. Exports to China fell 9.7 percent even as imports from China rose 8.8 percent, flipping the bilateral balance further against Germany.
The export machine has not broken so much as inverted. China is now Germany's largest trading partner but increasingly as a source of imports and a competitor in third markets, not as a customer. The model that defined the German miracle is being dismantled from both ends at once.
The investment that is not happening
Private non-residential investment is the swing factor that would turn a 0.7 percent recovery into a 1.5 percent one, and it is broadly on strike. Capacity utilisation in manufacturing is below average, energy costs remain a structural deterrent to energy-intensive expansion, and the policy environment - while more generous - is not yet proven. Firms have been promised an industrial electricity-price subsidy covering up to half the wholesale cost for energy-intensive sectors from 2026, but they have learned to discount German promises until they appear in the accounts.
| Component | 2026 contribution | Driver |
|---|---|---|
| Government consumption | Strongly positive | Defence, administration |
| Public investment | Positive, ramping | Infrastructure fund |
| Private consumption | Mildly positive | Real wages vs low confidence |
| Private investment | Flat | Awaiting execution proof |
| Net exports | Negative | Tariffs, China competition |
What would change the mix
A durable recovery requires the hand-off from public to private demand. Three things would trigger it: visible, accelerating disbursement from the infrastructure fund that convinces firms the orders are real; a stabilisation in the external environment, particularly a de-escalation of the US tariff regime on autos; and a floor under confidence, which is as much political as economic. None is guaranteed, and the first matters most because it is the one Berlin directly controls.