Germany broadcast licence fee GEZ household data matching 2026, Digi Mart USA News: A large data check of the broadcast fee (Rundfunkbeitrag) in Germany is set to begin, according to a report from Bild. From Sunday, the GEZ will compare registration data of around 73 million adults with its own records.
The goal is to find apartments for which no broadcast fee is currently being paid. The cutoff date for the nationwide comparison is November 8 at 0:00.
From that point, residents’ registration offices will transmit names, addresses, dates of birth and move-in dates of all adult residents to the Beitragsservice.
Because of the large volume of data, the transfer is expected to take until about December 8. Those who cannot be matched to an apartment are expected to receive letters from around December 14.
People who have already paid may also receive such a letter and should provide their contribution account number.
ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio, which operate the Beitragsservice, state that the transmitted data will be deleted afterward. However, a substantial back payment may apply if a residence was not previously registered, for example after a move out of a shared flat, a divorce or a separation.
If a previous fee payer moves out and no new resident registers, the apartment may initially remain without a contribution account. The key factor is generally the move-in date, and retroactive registration in the 2026 check will be made no earlier than January 1, 2024.
Recipients who do not respond will, according to the GEZ, be registered automatically, and if they still do not pay, a fee assessment notice, a reminder and eventually an enforcement procedure will follow.
This is the fourth such resident data comparison in the history of the GEZ. The last one, in 2022, identified around 900,000 apartments that had previously not paid a fee.
An objection to the transfer of resident data by the registration offices is not possible. The current GEZ fee is 18.36 euros per household.
The report also notes ongoing criticism of one-sided coverage and wasteful spending by ARD and ZDF.
