Turnout: 82.50%
About this election
The 2025 German federal election was a snap election held on 23 February 2025, seven months early, after the traffic-light coalition collapsed in November 2024. It elected the 21st Bundestag and returned the CDU/CSU to first place under Friedrich Merz, who became chancellor. The night's biggest story was the far-right AfD, which doubled its vote to finish a clear second — its strongest federal result ever — while the SPD of incumbent chancellor Olaf Scholz crashed to its worst result in the history of the modern republic. Turnout jumped to 82.5%, the highest at a federal election since reunification.
This was the first federal election under Germany's reformed electoral law, which capped the Bundestag at a fixed 630 seats and abolished the overhang and levelling seats that had inflated previous parliaments. Under the new "second-vote coverage" rule, a party's seat total is set strictly by its share of the second vote, and some constituency winners can fail to take their seats if their party's list entitlement is already filled. The 5% threshold (or three constituencies) still applies, and it proved decisive in 2025. The figures here are the second vote.
The government fell when Scholz dismissed his FDP finance minister, Christian Lindner, over an irreconcilable budget dispute, and then lost a confidence vote. The short winter campaign was dominated by the economy — Germany was in its second year of recession — and by migration and security, after a series of attacks sharpened the debate. The AfD, polling around 20%, drew international attention, including endorsements from figures around the new US administration, while all other parties maintained a "firewall" refusing to govern with it.
The Union won 28.52% and 208 seats; the AfD surged to 20.80% and 152, becoming the largest opposition party. The SPD fell to 16.41% and 120, the Greens took 11.61% and 85, and the Left staged a late comeback to 8.77% and 64 seats. Crucially, two parties just missed the 5% threshold: the new left-populist BSW on 4.98% and the FDP on 4.33%, both excluded from the Bundestag. Their near-misses meant that the seats were divided among fewer parties, allowing the Union and SPD together to command a majority.
The map captured a sharply divided country. The Union won the second vote across the west and south, but the AfD topped the poll throughout most of the former East Germany — Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia — while the Left won Berlin and the SPD held Bremen and Hamburg. The east-west cleavage, visible since 2017, was now the dominant feature of the political geography. Click any state above for its full breakdown.
With the FDP and BSW out, Friedrich Merz negotiated a coalition with the SPD and was elected chancellor in May 2025 — though only on a second ballot, after an unprecedented failure to secure a majority on the first attempt. His government took office facing a stagnant economy, pressure on Germany's industrial model, and an emboldened AfD now leading some national polls, making the management of the far right the defining challenge of the new parliament.
Die Bundeswahlleiterin (Federal Returning Officer) — official results at bundeswahlleiterin.de.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.