AfA Fundamentals: Why Only Half Your Purchase Price Depreciates

Absetzung für Abnutzung (AfA) - tax depreciation - lets you deduct the cost of the building over its statutory life. It is the one deduction you claim every year without spending a cent.

Building only, never land

Only the Gebäude (building) depreciates. Grund und Boden (land) does not - the law assumes it never wears out. Every euro of the price allocated to land is dead money for AfA. It is not lost forever (it reduces any taxable gain on a sale inside the 10-year window, and the interest financing the land share stays fully deductible), but it produces no annual deduction. This is why the purchase-price split is the highest-leverage number in the whole file.

Linear rates in force 2026 (§ 7 Abs. 4 EStG)

A degressive AfA of 5% on the declining balance exists (§ 7 Abs. 5a EStG), but only where construction started between 1 Oct 2023 and 30 Sep 2029 - irrelevant for a typical Bonn resale.

What goes into the AfA base

The building portion of the price plus the same percentage of every acquisition cost: Grunderwerbsteuer, notary, Grundbuch, buyer's agent, survey fees. Split them with the identical building/land ratio.

Excluded: financing costs (deducted immediately instead) and the slice of the price representing the Erhaltungsrücklage (maintenance reserve) taken over from the seller - per OFD Frankfurt, 9 Nov 2022, that is not an acquisition cost of the flat.

Worked example: €180,000 price + €15,000 costs = €195,000; 71% building = €138,450; at 2% = €2,769 per year.

In the year of purchase, AfA runs monthly pro rata from the month Nutzen und Lasten (benefits and burdens) pass - not from the notary date.