Infraplan 2026: the Federal Government's first five-year rail infrastructure plan — what it binds, what it defers, and where SPNV fleet financings are touched

What the Infraplan is

The Infraplan is the operational layer of the Government's new Infrastruktur-Gesamtkonzept, announced in the BMV's »Agenda für zufriedene Kunden auf der Schiene« of 22 September 2025. Three instruments are meant to build on one another: the Leitstrategie (the Deutschlandtakt as long-term transport-policy orientation), the Zielnetz 2035 (the long-term infrastructure programme, due early 2027) and the annual Infraplan, which fixes the implementation path for the following five years. The Federal Government describes its own role as that of a strategic owner that sets targets and defines the frame; DB InfraGO implements. The plan assigns itself four functions — prioritisation, control and re-steering, transparency, and bindingness — and concedes that the 2026 edition fulfils only the middle two, because the Zielnetz is not ready and the prioritisation it should supply therefore does not yet exist.

Two structural features deserve attention from the SPNV side. First, the plan expressly includes Länder measures co-financed by the Federal Government (Box 2): the GVFG lists are reproduced with Leistungsphase, planned commissioning date and total cost for every DB project in categories A (finally admitted to the federal programme) and C (conditionally admitted, pending the documents under § 6(4) GVFG) — with the caveat that these figures are as reported by the Länder and were not plausibilised by the Bund. Second, only measures with a planned commissioning date, secured financing and complete Baurecht count towards the steering indicators (chapter 2.2); everything else sits in the pipeline lists of chapter 2.3. The data basis is DB InfraGO's Planungsrunde 2025, plausibilised by the BMV with the Eisenbahn-Bundesamt and the Bundesnetzagentur.

The process is to be synchronised with the federal budget from 2027: preparatory work at year-end feeds the BMV's Eckwerte submission to the Finance Ministry, publication follows at the end of the first quarter, and the Sektorbeirat of DB InfraGO delivers an opinion on each edition that flows into the next. The Infraplan 2027, due in spring 2027, will cover 2027–2031 and is meant to incorporate the new LV InfraGO, the revised corridor strategy and, for the first time, digitalisation.

The eight indicators and what the numbers say

The indicators are split between expansion (new track kilometres, small and medium measures, electrification rate) and the existing network (corridor-renovation kilometres, infrastructure-related delay minutes, noise-remediated kilometres, stations meeting the agreed standard, ETCS kilometres). Fifteen information indicators in a separate annex reflect DB InfraGO's own figures without federal plausibilisation. Read together, the target values describe a modest trajectory:

Electrification. The electrification rate of the federal network moves from 62.7 % (2025) to 62.8 % (2026), 63.1 % (2027) and 63.7 % (2028) — and then stays at 63.7 % in 2029 and 2030. The annex explains why: the measure list behind the indicator contains 87 km for 2026 (chiefly Hannover – Berlin first stage, 59 km), 113 km for 2027 (Hochrhein Basel – Erzingen 75 km, Angermünde – Polish border 30 km), 225 km for 2028 — the flood-damaged Eifel lines Hürth-Kalscheuren – Euskirchen – Nettersheim – Ehrang (164 km), the Voreifelbahn (32 km) and the Erfttalbahn (14 km), plus Homburg – Zweibrücken and the Erdinger Ringschluss — nothing at all for 2029 and 9 km for 2030. Lübeck – Schwerin and the Hamburg S4 Ost are listed but do not count, because Baurecht is still outstanding. The same list carries a footnote worth reading twice: for the Eifel, Voreifel, Erfttal and Hochrhein electrifications and several others, »die Maßnahme kann seitens des Bundes nicht abschließend bestätigt werden«, because the Federal Government is not DB InfraGO's direct contractual counterparty — these are Länder-contracted projects that the Bund merely co-finances. New track follows the same curve: 64 km in 2026, 57 in 2027, 16 in 2028, none in 2029 and 18 in 2030, which is the 155 km the VDV calls »deutlich unter früheren Planungen«. The annex also shows the other side of the traction picture: electric train-kilometres already make up 77.0 % of all train-kilometres on the federal network (2025, up from 71.6 % in 2020), a figure that by definition includes battery and hydrogen units running under no catenary — some 5.2 million train-kilometres in 2024.

Corridor renovations. 702 km of corridor renovation are planned for 2026: Hamburg – Berlin (271 km), Troisdorf – Wiesbaden (163), Obertraubling – Passau (115), Nürnberg – Regensburg (88) and Hagen – Wuppertal – Köln (65), after Emmerich – Oberhausen (73 km) in 2025. The indicator measures the kilometres returned to service and the average deviation in days from the agreed end of the closure; the renovation concept bundles replacement investment with up to ten years of accompanying measures and is meant to secure at least five years free of investive construction afterwards. For 2027–2030 the plan gives no target values and no corridor list, because the strategy is being evaluated and adjusted under the coalition agreement; the result is promised for the Infraplan 2027. Press reporting attributes to the Minister dissatisfaction with operating quality after the first reopenings and expects fewer corridors than originally planned.

Condition. Measured infrastructure-related delay minutes roughly doubled between 2020 and 2024 (from 11.8 to 23.2 thousand coded minutes per day); the plan sets ceilings of 28.8 thousand for 2025, carried forward from the previous year because the LV InfraGO negotiations are still running, falling to 25.6 thousand by 2029. Stations meeting the agreed Zielbild are to rise from 237 (2025) to 737 (2030), a hundred a year, with the binding values to be fixed in the LV InfraGO. ETCS covered 683 km, or 2.0 % of the network, at the end of 2025; no targets are set for 2026–2030 pending the federal digitalisation strategy.

Bindingness — what the plan binds, and what it does not

The plan's own wording is the best guide. »Bis zur Implementierung eines Eisenbahninfrastrukturfonds löst der Infraplan keine Finanzierung aus«; it »bildet die geltende Haushaltsplanung, die vertraglichen Vereinbarungen zwischen Bund und DB AG bzw. DB InfraGO AG sowie die unternehmerischen Planungen der DB InfraGO AG ab«; its figures »stehen unter dem Vorbehalt der in den Folgejahren zur Verfügung gestellten Haushaltsmittel«; »Der Infraplan 2026 ist kein Finanzierungsplan.« The contractual layer is unchanged: Bedarfsplan measures continue to run through Finanzierungsvereinbarungen under the Bedarfsplanumsetzungsvereinbarung, and the existing network through the LuFV III until it is replaced, from 2027, by the LV InfraGO with target values to 2031. What the Infraplan adds, for now, is a public statement of when new Finanzierungsvereinbarungen will be needed and a yearly Soll-Ist comparison that makes slippage visible.

The annex puts numbers on what the plan is not committing. In 2025, €33.62 bn went into the federal rail infrastructure: €15.08 bn for renewal of the existing network, €14.67 bn for maintenance and operation, €3.37 bn for Bedarfsplan expansion. The sources were federal funds of €20.59 bn — of which only €7.38 bn through the LuFV and €0.57 bn under the BSWAG, against €8.26 bn as equity injections and €2.68 bn as federal loans — plus €7.54 bn of access charges (€6.74 bn track, €0.80 bn stations), €1.28 bn of Länder money and €0.13 bn from the EU. The federal budget line for Bedarfsplan projects rises from €2.4 bn (2026) to €2.9 bn (2027) and €3.4 bn (2028), then stays flat to 2030 on the current cabinet line. Two things follow. The equity route that the Bundesrat asked to be replaced by construction grants — because equity is refinanced through the charges — still carried more federal money in 2025 than the LuFV itself; and the Infraplan's five-year horizon sits on a Bedarfsplan line that is fixed only to the extent the 2027 budget fixes it.

Two steps are announced to change that. The Gesamtkonzept, Infraplan included, is to be anchored in statute »noch in dieser Legislaturperiode«; and the Infraplan is to be linked to a rail infrastructure fund, being developed in a parallel process, that would back the prioritised measures with a reliable multi-year funding commitment. Press reports put the draft law in 2027 and the fund in early 2028 (Parliamentary State Secretary Lange); neither date is in the document. The reference point the associations cite is Austria, where the ÖBB-Rahmenplan is a six-year rolling plan with a statutory basis in the Bundesbahngesetz and is translated into Zuschussverträge between the Federation and the infrastructure company.

The sector's reaction is uniform in structure: welcome for the transparency and the five-year horizon, and the same proviso from every side. The Allianz pro Schiene speaks of the »Auftakt zu einem Systemwechsel« that is complete only when the fund delivers multi-year financing independent of the annual budget. The VDV calls the plan »noch kein echtes Planungs- oder Priorisierungsinstrument« without a financed, binding path. The Bundesverband SchienenNahverkehr sees a promise from the InfraGO founding honoured, to be filled with substance and measured against the indicators. Die Güterbahnen note that the plan creates no binding obligations and lacks the Zielnetz 2035 as a benchmark. The EVG sees the financing signals still »auf Halt«.

Where rolling-stock financings are touched

Traction choice and residual value. An electrification rate that stops moving in 2028 means that, for SPNV contracts procured in 2027–2030 with twelve- to fifteen-year terms, a line not in the Infraplan should be modelled as non-electrified for the whole term. The Infraplan therefore becomes a diligence document for fleet decisions: chapter 2.2 for firm measures, chapter 2.3 for the Bedarfsplan pipeline, and the GVFG lists with the distinction between category A (final) and category C (conditional). The Niddertalbahn is the live example: »Ausbau und Elektrifizierung der Niddertalbahn« appears in category C, Leistungsphase 3–4, planned commissioning 2030, total cost €318.22 m — while the RB 34 procurement has already been postponed to a December 2032 start because the electric operation depends on exactly that measure. Conversely, the Eifel electrification sits in the firm list with commissioning in 2028 — which is what a lessor financing EMUs for the NRW and Rhineland-Palatinate networks concerned would want to see, subject to the annex's own caveat that the Bund cannot finally confirm the measure because the contract is between DB InfraGO and the Land. That caveat is the general rule for Länder-led electrification: the Infraplan reports it, the Land warrants it. For battery fleets the dependency has moved into the plan as well: GVFG now funds BEMU charging infrastructure (Schleswig-Holstein, category A; the Darßbahn reactivation including charging infrastructure, category C), so the infrastructure-side availability of a BEMU business case is itself an Infraplan item.

Corridor renovations and PSO cash flows. Full closures of several months are the method; 702 km are scheduled for 2026, and the 2027–2030 pipeline is open until the Infraplan 2027. For an operator on an affected route the closure means replacement bus services, cancelled train-kilometres, detours and idle vehicles; who carries that depends on the Verkehrsvertrag — in a gross contract largely the authority, in a net contract the operator, with the construction-related adjustment clauses in between. For the financing, the relevant questions are whether availability or capital-service payments continue during the closure, how mileage-based lease components and minimum-use covenants respond to a quarter without operation, and whether the contract's remedies for infrastructure-related performance shortfalls are mirrored in the lease. Until the corridor list is fixed, business cases for fleets deployed on the forty corridors carry an unquantified disruption window; the Infraplan 2027 is the date to put in the diary.

Authority budgets and the fund. The Länder measures listed in the plan create no entitlement, and the plan releases no federal money; what the lists give an Aufgabenträger is a dated, costed statement of where its project stands in the federal view, which is more than existed before. If the fund arrives in 2028 with multi-year commitments, infrastructure-dependent fleet business cases — S-Bahn extensions, the Berlin-Brandenburg i2030 projects, the Erdinger Ringschluss — gain a schedule anchor on the infrastructure side that the Regionalisierungsmittel dynamisation provides on the operating side. The flip side is the one documented in the track-access charges note: the same federal transport budget is falling in 2027, and the track-access charge shift onto SPNV is competing for the same Länder envelopes that fund the local share of these projects.

Governance. Steering DB InfraGO by owner-set output indicators is a different thing from dictating its charges, which the CJEU found incompatible with the manager's independence in C-770/24; but the plan itself says that the Infraplan indicators, the LuFV III, the future LV InfraGO and the owner strategy are to be kept consistent and partly build on each other. Where fleet financings are serviced out of charge-funded cash flows, the way these instruments interlock from 2027 is worth following.

What to watch

The LV InfraGO, due by the end of 2026, which will fix the existing-network targets to 2031. The Zielnetz 2035, due early 2027, which supplies the prioritisation the Infraplan currently lacks. The Infraplan 2027 in spring 2027, with the corridor-renovation strategy, digitalisation and the 2027–2031 lists. The draft statute anchoring the Gesamtkonzept and the fund concept, both unscheduled in the document. The Sektorbeirat's opinion on the 2026 edition. And, for individual fleets, migrations of GVFG projects from category C to category A — which is the point at which an electrification date becomes something a financier can rely on.

Where this sits

See the financing structures page on operator-financed fleets, authority pools and guarantee instruments, the German overlay on the regulation page, the procurement-wave note for the Niddertal and other electrification-dependent procedures, and the track-access charges note for the federal budget side.

Sources: BMV, Infraplan 2026 — Maßnahmen und Kennzahlen 2026 bis 2030 (October 2026) and Anhang: Ergänzende Anlagen zum Infraplan 2026 (information indicators, measure lists and indicator profiles); BMV press release 092/2026 of 6 October 2026; DB InfraGO AG, »Infraplan 2026 übergeben« (6 October 2026); BMV, Agenda für zufriedene Kunden auf der Schiene (22 September 2025); Allianz pro Schiene, press release »Infraplan läutet Systemwechsel ein« (6 October 2026); VDV, Bundesverband SchienenNahverkehr, Die Güterbahnen and EVG statements of 6 October 2026 as reported by Nahverkehrspraxis and Verkehrsrundschau; Tagesspiegel of 6 October 2026 on the reported timetable for statute and fund. Indicator values, measure lists, the 2025 funding sources and the Bedarfsplan budget line are taken from the annex (chapters I and II); percentages and delay-minute ceilings are read from the plan's charts and rounded. Facts as published; not independently verified. Last reviewed: 19 October 2026 (update note added). These notes are not legal advice. See the Disclaimer.