WIESBADEN – October 29, 2026 -- German hospitals treated 17.7 million inpatients in 2025, up 1.2% or 203,000 cases on 2024, while bed capacity shrank 0.9% and average occupancy climbed to 72.6%, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
Case numbers remain well below pre-pandemic levels. In every year from 2014 to 2019, more than 19 million people received inpatient treatment. Against 2019, when 19.4 million patients were treated, the 2025 total is 9.4% lower.
Internal medicine and general surgery account for 43% of cases
Internal medicine recorded 5.0 million cases, or 28.1% of all treatments. General surgery followed with 2.7 million cases, a 15.3% share.
Occupancy rises 0.6 points as Germany's 1,807 hospitals run 468,803 beds
Average bed occupancy increased from 72.0% in 2024 to 72.6% in 2025. Larger hospitals ran fuller: facilities with more than 800 beds averaged 75.3%. Occupancy was lowest at the smallest sites, at 55.2% for hospitals with 1 to 49 beds and 68.2% for those with 50 to 99 beds.
Public operators ran 529 hospitals and held 47.4% of beds. Non-profit operators ran 549 hospitals with 31.6% of beds. Private operators ran the most facilities, 729, but held only 21.0% of beds, which makes their hospitals markedly smaller on average.
Average stay falls to 7.0 days, half the 1991 level
The average inpatient stay shortened by 0.1 days to 7.0 days. In 1991, when the statistics began, it was 14.0 days.
Length of stay varies sharply by department. Internal medicine averaged 5.0 days and general surgery 4.8 days. Geriatrics averaged 14.8 days, and psychiatric departments ranged from 24.3 to 47.0 days.
Hospital workforce grows 25% in a decade to 1.49 million employees
At the end of 2025, hospitals directly employed 221,800 people in the medical service and 1,271,700 in the non-medical service, including students and trainees. Headcount rose 1.9% in the medical service and 2.5% in the non-medical service year on year. Against 2015, the increases are 27.1% and 24.9%.
In full-time equivalents (annual average 2025), hospitals employed 1,038,000 staff: 184,100 in the medical service and 854,000 in the non-medical service. Full-time equivalents grew 2.0% and 2.3% respectively year on year. Since 2015, they have risen 19.2% in the medical service and 19.7% in the non-medical service.
The full-time equivalent figures include full-time, part-time and marginal employment, as well as staff who worked at a hospital for only part of the reporting year.