How we counted

Where the figures come from

Every stock figure on the map comes from one official source: the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), VAT statistics based on advance returns, statistic 73311. We use two tables: 73311-0002 for Germany (from 2009) and 73311-0011 for the individual states (from 2014), each with the variable “Umsatzsteuerpflichtige” — VAT-liable businesses (STR040). Retrieved on 2 August 2026 from the Destatis Genesis database (German).

The count covers the industry class WZ 56.30.1 “Schankwirtschaften” — drink-led hospitality, the official category closest to the pub. “Pub” itself is not an official category. On that basis there were 36,669 such businesses across Germany in 2009, and 21,822 in 2024.

For context: the wider group WZ 56.3 also includes bars, discotheques and entertainment venues. Over the same period it fell from 47,506 (2009) to 32,610 (2024).

The kink in 2020

In 2020 the small-business VAT threshold was raised from €17,500 to €22,000 of prior-year turnover, and at the same time Covid hit the trade — the 2020/2021 drop is overstated as a result.

What that means for the curve: anyone below the threshold files no advance return — and drops out of the statistics, even though the door is still open. The 2020 kink is therefore only partly comparable with earlier years. The point is marked on the map's time slider.

What this count does not see

We count what the tax office sees — not every bar counter. Three gaps are worth knowing:

• Small businesses below the turnover threshold do not appear at all.
• The count covers companies, not premises: one company running two pubs appears as one in the statistics.
• Anyone who declares VAT once a year, without advance returns, is missing as well.

The real number of pubs is therefore likely higher than ours. That does not change the trend: these gaps existed in every year of the series.

The state figures before 2014

The national series starts in 2009, the state series only in 2014. For the years before that: state figures for 2009–2013 estimated from the 2014 state shares. So the national figure for each year is real — only its split across the states is estimated, using the 2014 shares. In the map's state view those years are marked accordingly.

The dots on the map

Each dot stands for 50 pubs. Where exactly it sits is schematic — the number per state and year is real.

Why not one dot per pub? Because it would show nothing: 36,669 dots fill the map area completely. A full map and a half-empty one would look the same — the decline this is about would vanish into the texture. At 50 pubs per dot, gaps remain, and the gaps are the point.

The scale changes nothing about the figures. The counter still shows the official number, and the number of dots follows it year by year: in 2009 around 730 dots are alight, in 2024 around 440. There are no historical address records for individual pubs; we spread the official number for each state schematically across that state's area.

In the state view the scale becomes finer: there one dot stands for 5 pubs, otherwise only a handful of dots would be left of the small states. The line beneath the map names the scale that applies.

The map base

Outline and state borders: © GeoBasis-DE / BKG, dl-de/by-2-0 (data modified). Obtained via opendatalab.de as simplified state borders based on the official VG250 dataset. The file sits on our own server — the map loads nothing from third-party servers.

The sound

The murmur of voices behind the map is the recording “General Chatter In Bar” by squareal (freesound.org), released as CC0 / public domain. We shortened it and prepared it as a loop. The sound never starts on its own: it is strictly opt-in and can be switched off again at any time.

The regional facts

The short regional facts in the state view do not come from the VAT statistics but from separate sources: state parliament enquiries, trade association figures, press reports. That is why each of these facts carries its footnote right at the sentence — that is where it says where it comes from.