Air passengers are expected to benefit in future from a tax reduction on plane tickets of up to 11.40 euros. This is what a bill adopted on Wednesday by the Federal Council of Ministers provides. In detail, the tax must decrease by 2.50 euros for short-haul flights, by 6.33 euros for medium-haul flights and by 11.40 euros for long-haul flights. The Finance Ministry urged airlines to pass these cuts on to travelers.
The regulation should come into force on July 1, 2026. The coalition formed by the CDU, the CSU and the SPD thus returns to the increase in the tax on tickets which took place on May 1, 2024, in accordance with the commitments of the coalition agreement.
As a result of this relief, the federal government expects significant tax losses. For the second half of 2026, these are estimated at 170 million euros. In the following years, the shortfall for the tax authorities should amount to 355 million euros per year. These revenue losses will be compensated from 2027 by savings made in the budget of the Federal Ministry of Transport.
The air transport tax, passed on to passengers, constitutes, with airport charges and various fees, a component of the operating costs on German airport platforms. The actual reduction in ticket prices for passengers will depend on the willingness of companies, such as Lufthansa, Ryanair or Easyjet, to pass on this reduction in costs. The aviation lobby described the federal government’s plans as a step in the right direction, while calling for much more ambitious measures to reduce costs in the German aviation sector.
(Reporting by Holger Hansen and Klaus Lauer, editing by Sabine Wollrab. For questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and economics) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for business and markets).)
