NUTS regions in Germany

NUTS, the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics, is the EU’s classification of regions. Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 set it up as the common basis for regional statistics, and Eurostat maintains it. It divides each member state into regions at three levels, from larger to smaller: NUTS 1, NUTS 2 and NUTS 3. Above them is the country itself, for Germany the code DE.

NUTS is revised from time to time, and each version is named after the year it applies from. The version in force is NUTS 2024. It has applied since 1 January 2024 and counts 92 regions at NUTS 1, 244 at NUTS 2 and 1,165 at NUTS 3 across the EU (Eurostat: NUTS). It was adopted by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/674, which amends the annexes of the 2003 regulation. A version is meant to stay stable for at least three years (Eurostat: history of NUTS); the next one, NUTS 2027, applies from 1 January 2027.

NUTS favours existing administrative units and sets a population range for each level: 3 to 7 million inhabitants for NUTS 1, 800,000 to 3 million for NUTS 2 and 150,000 to 800,000 for NUTS 3. Where a level follows administrative units, only the average size of its regions has to fall within the range (Eurostat: principles). That is why Bremen and Nordrhein-Westfalen sit on the same level, although one is many times the size of the other.

NUTS 1: the Länder

The 16 Länder, coded DE1 to DEG. After DE9 (Niedersachsen) the third character continues with letters, from DEA (Nordrhein-Westfalen) to DEG (Thüringen).

NUTS 2: Regierungsbezirke and statistical regions

As a rule the Regierungsbezirke, such as DE21 Oberbayern or DEA2 Köln (Destatis). In Niedersachsen and Rheinland-Pfalz they are the areas of former Regierungsbezirke, kept as statistical regions, and in Sachsen the areas of Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig. Where a Land has no such subdivision, a single NUTS 2 region covers the whole Land, with a code ending in 0, such as DE30 for Berlin.

NUTS 3: Kreise and kreisfreie Städte

The districts and the cities outside a district, such as DE212 for the city of München or DEA23 for the city of Köln.

The NUTS 2024 code list gives Germany 16 regions at NUTS 1, 38 at NUTS 2 and 400 at NUTS 3. In 9 of the 16 Länder, one NUTS 2 region covers the whole Land, so the Land appears on two levels with nearly the same code.

A code grows by one character per level: DE is Germany, DE2 Bayern, DE21 Oberbayern and DE212 the city of München. After 9 the characters continue with letters, so in Oberbayern DE219 is followed by DE21A. The table shows the path from Land to Kreis, and a trap at the end of it.

München has two NUTS 3 codes: DE212 for the city and DE21H for the Landkreis München around it. The same happens with other towns that share their name with a Landkreis, such as Rosenheim (DE213 and DE21K). If you mean the area, include both.

In eForms, the standard for EU notices, the place of performance is a NUTS code in the business term BT-5071, for the procedure, for each lot and for each part. The eForms SDK accepts NUTS 3 codes only in this field, so a German notice names a Kreis or a kreisfreie Stadt, such as DE300 for Berlin. A notice can name several places, for example one for each lot.

Some services have no fixed place. Instead of a NUTS code, the notice then says “anywhere”, “anywhere in the given country” or “anywhere in the European Economic Area” (BT-727). The buyer’s own address carries a NUTS 3 code as well, but it says where the buyer is based, not where the work is done: a federal authority in Bonn can buy services for a site in Berlin.

To place a NUTS 3 code, read it from the left. DEA23 lies in DEA, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and in DEA2, the Regierungsbezirk Köln. Because every code starts with the codes of the levels above it, a code rolls up to its Land without a lookup table.

Inteliwert’s search has a region filter by Land. It matches the start of every place-of-performance code in a notice, on the procedure and on its lots, so the filter for Bayern finds notices placed in the city of München (DE212) as well as anywhere else in the Land (search in Bayern, DE2). The read API accepts NUTS codes at any level, for example DE21 for Oberbayern.

Two things follow from how the filter works. It uses the place of performance, not the buyer’s address. And a notice without a NUTS code, such as a service that can be performed anywhere, appears under no region: search without the region filter, or with the name of a place in your query, to find those.

Each opportunity page shows the notice’s NUTS codes with the names of the places, and the search results name the Land each place lies in. The table at the end of this guide links each Land to its region page, which lists the open opportunities from the sources Inteliwert covers. How the subject of a contract is classified is explained in CPV codes explained.

Codes change between versions

When Kreise merge or boundaries move, codes change with the next NUTS version, and a code from an old notice may not exist in NUTS 2024. Codes are identifiers, not counters: the NUTS 2 regions of Sachsen are DED2, DED4 and DED5.

Letters after 9

DE21A follows DE219. A tool that treats NUTS codes as numbers or sorts them as such gets them wrong.

City and Landkreis

Many towns have one code for the city and another for the Landkreis of the same name. A search for the area needs both.

One area, three codes

Berlin is DE3 at NUTS 1, DE30 at NUTS 2 and DE300 at NUTS 3: the same area on every level. The same holds for Hamburg (DE6, DE60, DE600).

A region, not an address

A NUTS code says in which region the work is done. Where the exact site matters, the notice may add a town, a postcode or a street, and the procurement documents describe it in full.

The table lists each Land with its NUTS 1 code, its NUTS 2 regions and the number of its NUTS 3 regions in NUTS 2024, from the NUTS code list of the Publications Office of the European Union (CC BY 4.0) as distributed with the eForms SDK. Each Land links to its region page on Inteliwert.