General conditions
Train-path prices for 2025 and 2026
On March 19, 2026, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the price cap for regional rail passenger transport (section 37(2) of the Railway Regulation Act (Eisenbahnregulierungsgesetz; ERegG)) is incompatible with European law. As a result, the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur; BNetzA) has reopened the 2025 and 2026 fee-setting proceedings. The fees for 2026 were newly approved on July 22, 2026. In regional rail passenger transport, fees are increasing by 9.1% compared to the original approval. Long-distance rail passenger transport and rail freight transport will see reductions of 17.1% and 11.7% respectively. The fees for 2025 are not expected to be approved until the end of 2026.
Train-path prices and station usage fees for 2027
The fees for the 2027 train-path pricing system have not yet been approved. This is due to unresolved issues regarding apportionable costs. The BNetzA set these at € 7.3 billion on June 24, 2026. DB InfraGO AG filed an appeal against the BNetzA’s ruling.
The BNetzA is currently reviewing the 2027 station usage fees requested by DB InfraGO AG. The Federal agency exercised its option to extend the review period for the approval application and has extended the deadline for the proceedings – beyond which approval would be deemed granted – to December 11, 2026.
The central element is the main application, which is based on the assumption that the ECJ ruling on the train-path price cap is applicable to the station pricing system. Two additional alternative applications have been submitted to cover the eventuality that the BNetzA does not approve the main application. In these applications, station fees are set taking into account the continuation of the price cap for regional rail passenger transport.
Arbitration processes for the Rastatt Tunnel
In September 2017, DB Group and the Rastatt Tunnel working group (Arbeitsgemeinschaft; ARGE) agreed to conduct an evidence-gathering and arbitration procedure to clarify the causes and the associated responsibility. The process was suspended on a provisional basis for settlement negotiations between the parties on the basis of an interim report from the technical arbitration expert on the causes of the accident and a proposal from the legal expert on the allocation of responsibilities. However, an agreement on the mutual claims arising from the construction project (including the consequences of the accident) could not be reached due to differing views on the amount of the mutual claims, and these settlement negotiations have been terminated as a result. The structural work on the tunnel is now fully complete; the working group submitted the final invoice on May 22, 2026.