Substantial increase in shadow economy in 2023 due to unfavorable economic development
For Germany and the year 2023, the shadow economy is expected to increase sharply by €60 billion (or from 9.4% to 10.2% of gross domestic product) compared with the previous year. This is mainly due to the forecast unfavorable economic development. In Germany, however, the shadow economy is growing less strongly than in most other major industrialized countries.
These are the key findings of a new forecast of the shadow economy in Germany published jointly by Professor Friedrich Schneider (University of Linz) and the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IAW). The size of the shadow economy is forecast to be 443 billion euros in 2023. This represents a nominal increase of 60 billion euros compared with 2022. The ratio of the forecast shadow economy and gross domestic product increases to 10.2%. This ratio is therefore slightly higher than in the first year of the Corona pandemic in 2020.