Sources & data policy
FirstWeek.de is not a source of truth. It is an index over official German sources, written in plain English. This page lists every source behind the figures on this site, what each one can legitimately support, and when a human last checked it.
The rules we hold ourselves to
No number without a source. Any figure we cannot attribute to a named, dated source is labelled as unverified on the page and withheld from everything a machine reads — our structured data, our llms.txt, and any answer engine quoting us. It stays visible to you, marked for what it is, rather than being quietly dressed up as official.
We tell you when data is old. One person maintains this site, so it will sometimes lag. Rather than pretend otherwise, every figure carries a shelf life. Statutes never expire. Annual publications like a Mietspiegel are flagged after 12 months. Provider prices are flagged after 30 days. Past roughly 18 months for annual data or 90 days for prices, we stop stating the figure as current and send you to the source instead.
We do not compete with the government. Where an official page is the answer, we link to it rather than restating it. What we add is the thing no single authority provides: one structure across 26 municipalities, in a language you read.
Free, and not paywalled. No figure on this site sits behind a login or a payment.
Tell us when we are wrong. If a figure here is out of date or a link is dead, that is a bug. Report it and it gets fixed or pulled.
Statutes
The strongest citation available: the law itself. Both texts below were fetched and read on 2026-08-04.
How long do I have to register my address in Germany?
Two weeks. § 17 of the Bundesmeldegesetz requires anyone moving into a residence in Germany to register with the local Meldebehörde within two weeks of moving in. The clock starts on your move-in date, not your arrival in the country.
“Wer eine Wohnung bezieht, hat sich innerhalb von zwei Wochen nach dem Einzug bei der Meldebehörde anzumelden.”§ 17 Bundesmeldegesetz — Anmeldung, Abmeldung
What is the fine for registering your address late in Germany?
Up to €1,000. Late or missing registration is an Ordnungswidrigkeit under § 54 Abs. 3 of the Bundesmeldegesetz, carrying a fine of up to €1,000. In practice many offices issue a warning or a much smaller amount for a first, briefly late registration — but the legal ceiling is €1,000.
“Die Ordnungswidrigkeit kann [...] mit einer Geldbuße bis zu tausend Euro geahndet werden.”
The €50,000 ceiling in the same section applies to § 19 Abs. 6 (providing a sham address for registration), not to a late Anmeldung. Sources that quote €50,000 for late registration are misreading the provision.
§ 54 Bundesmeldegesetz — BußgeldvorschriftenMunicipal rent surveys (Mietspiegel)
Held for 9publications covering 8 cities. Publisher and edition were read off each document’s own title page. Last reviewed 2026-06-29 (2 months ago).
What a Mietspiegel does and does not tell you.It states the ortsübliche Vergleichsmiete — €/m² for existing tenancies, used to settle rent-increase disputes. It does not measure asking rents, and it says nothing about the price of a room in a shared flat. So it cannot back the “average WG rent” style figures elsewhere on this site, and we do not claim it does. Those figures remain unverified until we have a proper asking-rent source.
- Mietspiegel für München 2025 (Stand 01/2024)Landeshauptstadt München, Statistisches Amt / Sozialreferat · published 2025 · Official publicationcities/Mietspiegel_2025_Broschuere.pdf
- Berliner Mietspiegel 2026Land Berlin · published 2026 · Official publicationcities/mietspiegel2026.pdf
- Hamburger Mietenspiegel 2025Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg · published 2025 · Official publicationcities/d-mietenspiegel-broschuere-2025-data.pdf
- Frankfurter Mietspiegel 2026Stadt Frankfurt am Main · published 2026 · Official publicationcities/64_S1_Frankfurter_Mietspiegel_2026.pdf
- Mietspiegel Köln 2025Stadt Köln · published 2025 · Official publicationcities/Koeln_2025_1621.pdf
- Mietspiegel Düsseldorf 2024Stadt Düsseldorf · published 2024 · Official publicationcities/Mietspiegel-Duesseldorf-2024-digital-s.pdf
- Mietspiegel Stuttgart 2025/2026Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart · published 2025 · Official publicationcities/mietspiegel_2025_2026.pdf
- Qualifizierter Mietspiegel für nicht preisgebundenen Wohnraum, November 2025Stadt Ingolstadt · published 2025-11 · Official publicationcities/Broschüre__Qualifizierter_Mietspiegel_für_nicht_preisgebundenen_Wohnra.PDF
- Stadt Ingolstadt — Straßenverzeichnis 2023 (Wohnlagen)Stadt Ingolstadt · published 2023 · Official publicationStraßenverzeichnis_zum_Qualifizierten_Mietspiegel.PDF
Official city portals
26cities. These are link sources — they back “this is where you book your Anmeldung”, not any numeric claim.
Known gaps
Published deliberately. A site that lists its own weak spots is easier to trust than one that doesn’t.
- Rent figures are indicative, not surveyed. The WG/studio/1-bedroom numbers on city pages are estimates without an official source. They are excluded from our structured data until an asking-rent dataset backs them.
- The 1–10 city ratings are editorial. Student-friendliness, transport and safety ratings are our own read, not a measured statistic with a published methodology. Also excluded from structured data.
- Population figures are unattributed. Not yet tied to a Destatis release and edition, so they are not asserted as current official counts.
- No appointment wait times. Deliberately absent. We could not keep a live figure accurate across 26 cities, and a stale wait time is worse than none — it changes whether someone books a flight.
Source register last reviewed 2026-08-04. Statute citations verified against the published text on that date; status computed as fresh.