New government portal will let Berliners check if their rent is illegally high

Berlin’s CDU-SPD local government has announced that it will launch an online portal for locals to check whether their landlords are charging them illegally high rent, according to a report from Tagesspiegel.

Berlin dedicates 4,5 million to regulating rents

Berlin’s CDU-SPD government has announced that it will dedicate 4,5 million euros to regulating illegally high rents over the coming two years. The money will be used to establish and hire employees for rent supervision bodies in Berlin’s 12 districts. Initially, 12 government inspectors will be assigned to each of the organisations to assist employees in prosecuting excessive rents.

In August 2025, Berlin announced that it would launch a Rent Price Review Office (Mietpreisprüfstelle) hotline which locals could call to find out if they were being charged illegally high rent. In the second quarter of 2025, 93 of the 95 rental contracts assessed by the Mietpreisprüfstelle were found to be demanding illegally high rent from tenants.

The problem stretches far beyond Berlin. In December 2024, the Left Party launched an online rent exploitation calculator, which tenants across Germany could use to determine whether they were paying too much. One year later, the party announced the calculator had found 146.700 cases of rent exploitation.

The Left Party representative for housing policy in the Berlin Senate praised the CDU-SPD decision to earmark more funding for rent regulation, but added that the policy didn’t go far enough. The Left is pushing for 7 million euros to be dedicated to rent regulations.

How much rent is too much rent?

In 2015, Germany’s CDU-led federal government introduced the rent brake or “Mietpreisbremse”, which determines the “permissible rental amount at the start of the rental period”, i.e. how much landlords can legally charge their tenants.

The rent brake applies in areas with a “strained housing market”. As of mid-2025, the brake applied in 610 of the 11.000 municipalities in Germany. This list is regularly updated.

Landlords in Germany who charge 20 percent over the rent brake limit can face fines of up to 50.000 euros, and those who charge 50 percent over the limit may be committing a criminal offence and can face prison time.

Back in October, the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg was the first district to fine a landlord for charging their tenant exploitative rent. The tenant was renting a 38 square metre flat in the district and was charged rent 190 percent over the maximum amount regulated by the local rental index. The district ordered the landlord to pay a 26.253,50 euro fine.

If you think you’re paying too much rent in Berlin you can contact the Rent Price Review Office (Mietpreisprüfstelle) hotline here or check your rent on the Left Party’s rent exploitation calculator.