Germany records highest suicide count since 1998

Germany recorded 11,334 suicides in 2025, the Federal Statistical Office reported this month — the highest annual figure since 1998 and a 9.3 percent rise on the 10,372 deaths of the year before.

The total sits 15.6 percent above the average of the past decade. Men accounted for 7,846 deaths, or 69.2 percent, at a rate of roughly 19 per 100,000 people. The 3,488 female deaths represent a rate of about 8.2 per 100,000, but the female count rose far faster, by 17.9 percent, against 5.8 percent among men. Nearly half the dead were 65 or older: 5,510 people, 558 more than the previous year. The German Depression Aid and Suicide Prevention Foundation attributes part of the rise to an ageing population and to assisted suicides, which major organisations recorded at more than 1,200 in 2025 — the same foundation warns against measures that lower the barriers to suicide.

By the count of the National Suicide Prevention Program and the German Academy for Suicide Prevention, suicides have climbed nearly 23 percent since 2020. Suicide accounted for 1.1 percent of all deaths in Germany last year, and statisticians noted that more people die by their own hand annually than in traffic accidents, homicides and AIDS combined.

The figures arrive alongside the Youth in Germany 2026 study, which found 23 percent of young respondents in debt — the highest share the study has ever recorded — and 29 percent saying they need psychological support. Among young women the figure was 34 percent, among students 32 percent, and among the unemployed 42 percent.

The regional pattern tracks the economy. Rates run higher in the northern and eastern states, while Bavaria and the other wealthy southern states post lower numbers; eastern Germany has lagged the west economically for years.

The German Society for Suicide Prevention has called for the rapid passage of a well-funded national suicide prevention law. That law does not exist yet.