Federal budget 2025: Record investments for transport and climate!

Federal budget 2025: Record investments for transport and climate!

On June 25, 2025, the federal government published the second government draft for the 2025 federal budget, which provides for extensive investments in infrastructure and other areas of society. Loud transportenvironment.org Additional spending on transport infrastructure is on the agenda in the draft budget. These projects are financed through several budgets, including the transport budget, the climate and transformation fund and the defense budget. In addition, a new special fund for infrastructure will be set up.

Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil emphasizes the need to invest in economic strength and modernization. Record investments of over 115 billion euros are planned for 2025, which are expected to rise to almost 120 billion euros per year by 2029. He shared this as part of the presentation of the Federal Ministry of Finance with.

Focus on transportation and necessary resources

A central point of the draft budget is the significant promotion of rail, which should benefit from additional funds. The transport budget itself earmarks 1.9 billion euros for the expansion and construction of the motorway. In addition, 900 million euros will be made available from the defense budget as untied funds for highway investments. However, it is criticized that the draft does not prioritize the preservation of existing road infrastructure, but rather considers expansion and new construction to be a priority.

The climate and transformation fund, which will receive a total of 100 billion euros by 2029, will go a long way towards building charging infrastructure. However, there are no planned investments in a socially just transformation, which is seen as problematic given the challenges in the transport sector.

Overall budget and spending priorities

Total expenditure for the 2025 federal budget is 503.05 billion euros, while revenue is 421.24 billion euros. This leads to net borrowing for the core budget of 81.8 billion euros. Investments in rail infrastructure are also considerable at 22 billion euros for 2025 and more than 100 billion euros by 2029.

In addition, 6.5 billion euros will be made available from the special fund for child day care and digital education. Over 4 billion euros annually from 2025 are planned for social housing and urban development funding, while digitalization will also continue to be pushed forward, with at least 4 billion euros annually from the special fund.

Defense spending will be increased to around 62.4 billion euros as part of the budget in order to reach the NATO quota to 3.5 percent by 2029. At the same time, the fight against undeclared work and tax fraud will be intensified in order to promote budget consolidation, which will also be supported by savings in personnel and administrative expenses.