For most of the past decade, the story of coworking in Germany could be told in one word: more. More spaces, more operators, more cities. That story has now changed. According to the latest survey by the German Coworking Spaces Association (BVCS), the number of coworking spaces in Germany fell from 2,129 to 1,962 over the past year. That is a decline of 7.8%, and the first drop after years of uninterrupted growth.
Before anyone starts writing coworking’s obituary, it helps to look at the context. Even after the decline, Germany still has almost 50% more coworking spaces than it did in 2020. The market isn’t collapsing. It’s sorting itself out.
Decline across all sixteen federal states
The most striking detail in the BVCS data is how widespread the decline is. In previous years, shifts in the market were regional: one city grew while another shrank. This time, all 16 German federal states recorded fewer spaces.
The big cities show a mixed picture:
- Berlin is still by far the largest coworking city with 214 spaces, but it lost 15 in a year.
- Hamburg dropped from 109 to 99, a fall of roughly 9%.
- Düsseldorf went from 66 to 57, one of the sharpest declines among the major cities.
- Cologne fell from 67 to 61.
- Frankfurt stayed broadly stable at 77 (from 78).
- Munich was the only city in the current top 14 to grow, edging up from 113 to 114.
Smaller hubs such as Nuremberg (28), Mannheim (23) and Hanover (20) held steady.
From growth market to mature market
BVCS president Tobias Kollewe doesn’t read the figures as a sign of weakness. In his view, the drop shows the market is maturing. “The era of almost automatic growth is over,” he said. Locations now need to be economically viable, clearly positioned and professionally run. He stressed that flex offices and coworking have long been a fixed part of the working world and of real estate. What is changing is what the market demands from operators and business models.
That framing matches what we’re seeing elsewhere in Europe. In France, new openings have slowed sharply while IWG has bought up a large share of the market. In Belgium, flex office stock has passed one million square metres, but revenue hasn’t kept pace. Germany now fits the same pattern. The growth phase is giving way to a phase where occupancy, margins and operational discipline matter more than the number of pins on the map.
A fragmented market under pressure
The detail in the survey that matters most may be this one: Germany still has more than 1,000 individual coworking operators. That is a highly fragmented market. Many of these are single-site businesses, often founder-led, sometimes started as a passion project or a side business to a property.
Those are exactly the operators who feel rising costs, higher interest rates and more demanding customers first. Larger multi-site operators, meanwhile, are gaining ground. They can spread overheads, invest in software and sales, and negotiate better deals with landlords. The BVCS expects this to drive further professionalisation and consolidation. Expect more acquisitions, more management agreements and more small operators joining networks or franchise models rather than going it alone.
Counting locations is not the same as measuring capacity
It’s worth reading the numbers carefully. The BVCS survey, conducted between July and September 2026, counts locations. It does not distinguish by size, number of desks or floor area. It also includes hybrid workspaces with coworking areas, not only traditional coworking spaces.
That means a smaller number of spaces doesn’t automatically mean less coworking capacity. If a handful of small, underperforming spaces close while larger, professionally run centres open, the total count drops while the actual supply of desks could stay flat or even grow. Munich’s slight growth and Frankfurt’s stability suggest that demand in strong business locations remains solid.
Four lessons for Dutch flex operators
For flex operators in the Netherlands and across Europe, the German figures are a useful mirror. A few lessons stand out:
- Positioning beats presence: Being “a coworking space” is no longer enough. Members want to know who a space is for: freelancers, scale-ups, corporate teams or a specific industry.
- Occupancy and margin are the new growth metrics: Opening a new site only makes sense if existing sites are full and profitable.
- Professional operations are non-negotiable: Billing, access control, bookings and member communication need to run smoothly. Small operators who still rely on spreadsheets will struggle to compete.
- Partnerships can be a lifeline: Joining a network, a booking platform or a larger operator can give independent spaces reach they could never build on their own.
Fewer locations, a stronger market
Germany’s first coworking decline isn’t a sign that flexible working has peaked. It’s a sign that the market has grown up. The spaces that close are often those without a clear proposition or a sound business model. The ones that remain are more likely to be well run, well located and financially healthy, and that is good news for members and landlords alike.
