Germany Business Confidence

Last Release

Jan 31, 2025

Actual

85.1

Units In

Points

84.7

Frequency

Monthly

Next Release

Feb 24, 2025

Time to Release

26 Days 8 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
109.8 Jan 1991	75.4 Apr 2020	96.95 Points	1991-2025	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 edged up to 85.1 in January 2025 from 84.7 in December which was the lowest level since May 2020, and above forecasts of 84.7. The current conditions gauge rose to 86.1 from 85.1, above forecasts of 85.4 while the sub-index for business expectations edged down to 84.2 from 84.4, matching forecasts. The services sector is improving while manufacturing declined again but the stagnation in the Germany economy continued, according to the Ifo President.