Germany Business Confidence

Last Release

Oct 31, 2024

Actual

86.5

Units In

Points

85.4

Frequency

Monthly

Next Release

Nov 25, 2024

Time to Release

29 Days 11 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
109.8 Jan 1991	75.4 Apr 2020	97.03 Points	1991-2024	IFO Institute

In Germany, the IFO Business Climate Index measures entrepreneurs’ sentiment about current business situation and their expectations for the next 6 months. The survey is made by phone and covers 9,000 firms in manufacturing, the service sector, trade and construction. The Business Climate Balance is constructed as the difference between the percentage share of executives that are optimistic and the share that are pessimistic. This balance can take values between -100 (all responding firms assess their situation as poor and expect business to deteriorate) and +100 (all responding firms assessed their situation as good and expect an improvement in their business). For the calculation of the IFO Business Climate Index, the Balance is normalized to the average of a base year (currently 2015).

Latest Updates

The Ifo Business Climate indicator for Germany increased for the first time in five months to 86.5 in October 2024 from 85.4 in September which was the lowest reading since January, and beating forecasts of 85.6. The sub-index for current conditions improved to 85.7 from 84.4, and business expectations went up to 87.3 from 86.4. “Expectations were brighter but marked by skepticism. The German economy stopped the decline for the time being”, Ifo President Clemens Fuest said. In manufacturing, the downward trend did not continue in this month, due to noticeably less pessimistic expectations. However, they assessed the current business situation as considerably worse. The lack of orders remains a core problem. Capacity utilization fell by 1.2 percentage points and, at 76.5%, is significantly below the long-term mean of 83.4%. In the service sector, the Business Climate Index returned to positive territory, with sentiment improving especially in logistics, tourism, and IT.