What SCHUFA Score Do You Need for an Apartment?

There is no legally defined minimum score for a rental apartment in Germany. Landlords may check whether you are likely to be able to pay the rent, but no law prescribes a particular number. You can find waitlists in Berlin and Hamburg in one place at Waitly.

Last updated: 13 September 2026.

In short

A score is a probability statement, not a verdict. Since 17 March 2026 SCHUFA has used a new score on a scale from 100 to 999 points, as the Verbraucherzentrale reports. The old percentage Basis-Score is no longer disclosed. Which value is enough for a specific apartment is decided by the landlord, not by the credit agency.

How does the new SCHUFA score work?

It uses points instead of percentages. The scale runs from 100 to 999, where higher values indicate a better assessment of your ability to pay. The classifications still range from excellent down to insufficient.

Transparency is new too. According to the Verbraucherzentrale, the score is based on twelve defined criteria that SCHUFA has disclosed for the first time. That at least makes it possible to see what kinds of information feed into it.

Why do some places still show a different value?

Because the changeover is gradual. At launch, around 25 percent of SCHUFA's contract partners were using the new score, according to the Verbraucherzentrale.

That explains contradictory feedback: one company already works with the points scale while another still uses the old logic. For you, nothing changes about the underlying data, only how it is presented.

Is there a minimum score for a rental?

No. Neither legislation nor the credit agency sets a threshold above which an apartment must or may be let.

Landlords may check whether your financial situation fits the rent. What matters legally is not the score as such, but whether there are concrete indications against your ability to pay. The Verbraucherzentrale explains what credit agencies may and may not do in that assessment.

How do you see your score for free?

Through the Datenkopie under Art. 15 GDPR. Your score is among the information disclosed to you, and the report is free.

There is also a free online account with SCHUFA through which the score can be viewed. You do not need a paid subscription simply to check it.

What can you do if your score is low?

Start with the underlying data rather than fighting the number itself. A score is derived from stored data, and that data can be wrong or out of date.

Three steps help concretely:

Request your Datenkopie and work through every entry one by one
Dispute incorrect or settled entries with both the agency and the reporting company
Check whether the storage periods have already expired

Beyond that, the same applies as with a waitlist position: a single number rarely decides anything on its own. We explain how to read one properly in What does my waitlist position mean.

Key takeaways

There is no magic number above which you get an apartment. It is far more useful to know your own data, have wrong entries corrected, and build an application that makes your ability to pay easy to follow. And because even the best application guarantees nothing, it pays to use several waitlists at once. You will find answers to common questions in the Waitly FAQ.

What a landlord may request is a credit record limited to rental purposes. How long entries stay on file is covered in how long SCHUFA entries are stored. If you already have a negative entry, we set out the routes that remain. For waiting times, see how long does a rental waitlist take.