Apply for relief from energy tax for agricultural and forestry enterprises
As an agricultural or forestry business, you may be eligible to apply for tax relief under certain conditions if you use gas oil, also known as agricultural diesel.
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Basic information
The energy tax is an excise tax levied on coal, gas, oil, and other energy products, among other things. The energy tax is a self-assessment tax. This means that if you are required to pay the tax, you must file a tax return with the responsible main customs office and calculate the energy tax yourself. You must also calculate any potential tax credit yourself.
As an agricultural or forestry business, you can claim a refund or credit for a portion of the energy tax you have already paid on diesel fuel.
One of the requirements for a tax relief is that you have used the diesel fuel for which you are applying for tax relief in your daily agricultural or forestry work. This applies, for example, if you use your farm tractor or other machinery and vehicles for agricultural or forestry purposes. The following tax relief rates apply to this so-called agricultural diesel tax relief:
- through February 29, 2024: 0.2148 EUR per liter of diesel fuel
- from March 1, 2024, through December 31, 2024: 0.12888 EUR per liter of diesel fuel
- From January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2025: 0.06444 EUR per liter of diesel
There are two restrictions regarding diesel fuel:
- Businesses that perform agricultural and forestry work for other businesses are not eligible for a tax exemption on diesel fuel. Beekeeping operations may receive a tax exemption for up to 15 liters of diesel fuel per bee colony.
The tax relief for diesel fuel expires on January 1, 2026. If you use diesel fuel for agricultural or forestry purposes after that date, you will no longer receive tax relief.
Requirements
- Your business must be active in agriculture or forestry, i.e.
- Your business cultivates agricultural or forestry land, also in connection with animal husbandry or
- you operate
- a beekeeping business or
- a transhumance sheep farm or
- a pond farm or
- a pumping station for the irrigation and drainage of agricultural and forestry land or
- Your business carries out work for one of these businesses, for example as a contract business, cooperative business, business of a machinery association or as a water and soil association.
- The tax relief is considered state aid. You must therefore meet the relevant requirements under state aid law.
- The total amount of relief for gas oil, vegetable oil and biodiesel must be at least EUR 50.00 per calendar year.
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Procedure
If you would like to apply for tax relief in writing:
- Go to the website of the Directorate General of Customs and call up either the complete "Application for tax relief for agricultural and forestry businesses" (form 1140) or the "Simplified application for tax relief for agricultural and forestry businesses" (form 1142).
- Form 1140 can be used by all applicants.
- You can only use form 1142 if
- you submitted a complete application (Form 1140) or a short application (Form 1142) last year which was not rejected,
- there have been no changes to the type of business, the group of persons or the number of bee colonies since your last complete application (Form 1140) and
- your company is not in difficulty within the meaning of European state aid law at the time of application and use of the energy products.
- Complete the application (form 1140 or 1142) in full.
- If you are submitting an application for the first time: Attach all the necessary documents. If you are submitting a subsequent application, you only need to submit the documents if the main customs office asks you to do so.
- Send the application by post to the main customs office responsible.
- The main customs office will check your tax return and send you a notice of relief if the assessment is different.
If you would like to apply for tax relief electronically:
- From January 4, 2021, it will be possible to submit a fully electronic application via the Citizen and Business Customer (BuG) portal, without the need to additionally send the printed compressed application as before.
- For legitimization, please use your ELSTER certificate from the state tax authorities or your new ID card with the additional function "electronic proof of identity (eID)".
- A one-off registration is required to apply for agricultural diesel relief via the BuG portal.
- To register, please go to our website and follow the link "Create a new account here". Then select the "Business customer account" and have your Elster certificate ready for the rest of the registration process.
- Simplified registration: With the provision of the "Agricultural diesel relief" service, you will receive a link by e-mail on January 4, 2021, which you can use to register in the BuG portal in a simplified manner. The prerequisite for simplified registration is that your e-mail address is available to the main customs office responsible for you.
- IMPORTANT: You can only use one agricultural diesel number per e-mail address to register in the BuG portal.
- Within the BuG portal, you will be asked a series of questions to decide whether the short application or full application is offered.
- The BuG portal gives you, as the applicant, the opportunity to track the status of your applications.
- In the BuG portal, it will be possible to contact the customs administration online in a convenient way - for example, to submit the necessary documents - and to receive digital notifications of discharge in the event of a different assessment.
- Go to the website of the Directorate General of Customs and call up either the complete "Application for tax relief for agricultural and forestry businesses" (form 1140) or the "Simplified application for tax relief for agricultural and forestry businesses" (form 1142).
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Necessary Documents
- Receipts or delivery certificates for energy products received for beneficiary and nonbeneficiary purposes, including.
- Addresses of the consignee and the supplier,
- date of delivery, quantity delivered and
- the amount to be paid
- to the extent that you, as the applicant, are required to do so: Records for all beneficiary vehicles and machines showing the date and scope of the work performed and the volume of energy products consumed
- for beekeepers: a colony declaration as proof of the number of colonies (form ZSA 143)
- Certificates of contract work and neighborhood assistance and the gas oil consumed in the process (Form ZSA 148).
- Receipts or delivery certificates for energy products received for beneficiary and nonbeneficiary purposes, including.
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Fees / Costs
free of charge
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Deadlines & processing time
What deadlines must be paid attention to?
You must apply for tax relief in writing to your responsible main customs office or electronically in the BuG portal by September 30 of the year following the calendar year in which gas oil, vegetable oil or biodiesel was used.
How long does it take to process
Depending on the time of application (January to September), about 3 months on average. Online applications are processed preferentially.
This page has been automatically translated by DeepL. We cannot guarantee that the translation is correct.
The official information in German is complete and correct.
Updated on 02.09.2026