Foreign investment in Germany rose 50% in 2025, IW says

By Maria Martinez and Rene Wagner

BERLIN, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Foreign direct investment in Germany rose by 50% in 2025 compared with the previous year, helped by a surge in inflows from Britain that more than offset a sharp decline in investment by U.S. companies, according to calculations by the German Economic Institute (IW), seen by Reuters on Monday.

• Foreign companies invested around €86 billion ($99.91 billion) in Germany last year, based on Bundesbank data on foreign direct investment transactions, the IW said.

• Investment in 2025 was nearly 11% above the median for the 2015-2024 period. Foreign direct investment flows can fluctuate sharply from year to year.

• Investment from the U.S. fell almost 44% from a year earlier, to €11.8 billion in 2025, with the U.S. share of all foreign investment in Germany dropping to around 14% from more than 36% in 2024, according to IW calculations.

• Britain emerged as Germany's biggest single source of foreign investment. British companies invested €26 billion, up about 284% from the previous year, accounting for nearly 31% of the total and overtaking the United States.

• Other European Union countries invested around €43 billion in Germany, despite a 2.7% decline from a year earlier. That represented more than half of total foreign investment inflows.

($1 = 0.8607 euros)

(Reporting by Maria Martinez, Editing by Miranda Murray)