12.11.2026
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Germany Analysis

Almost 50 million euros a year: how US companies lobby in Berlin

Luca Calcagno · Res.Publica 11.11.2026, 18:00 10 min read
US-Botschaft am Pariser Platz in Berlin mit US-Flagge / US Embassy at Pariser Platz, Berlin, with US flag

Foto: usbotschaftberlin (US-Botschaft Berlin), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Embassy_Berlin_(view_from_Pariser_Platz).jpg

According to the German Bundestag’s lobby register, 173 organisations based in the US or owned by a US parent company lobby in Berlin. Together they spend almost 50 million euros a year. Search the register for “USA” and you will find only 35 of them. What they want, where they weigh in, and which former politicians now work for them.

A joint investigation by Res.Publica and politblick.de. 11 November 2026. Lobby register data as of 6 November 2026.

Since 2022, Germany’s Bundestag has kept a lobby register. Anyone who wants to influence MPs or the federal government has to sign up and disclose how much they spend, who works for them and which laws they are lobbying on. The register also shows where an organisation is based. That is where the problem starts: Facebook Germany, Google Germany and Microsoft Deutschland are German companies based in Germany. Nothing in their entries says that they belong to a US group.

politblick.de therefore went through all 6,099 active entries and checked every company against the official subsidiary lists that US corporations file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, plus annual reports and group disclosures. The result: 35 entries have a US address, among them foundations such as the Gates Foundation, defence firms such as Lockheed Martin and companies such as Apple. On top of that come 138 German subsidiaries of US groups. 173 in total.

Chart: lobby spending by US companies in Berlin

Five sixths stay invisible

The 35 US-based entries report around 8.2 million euros in lobby spending per year. The 138 German subsidiaries report 41.6 million euros, five times as much. Going by registered address alone, you see one sixth of US lobbying in Berlin.

The biggest single items are the Gates Foundation (3.7 million euros), Johnson & Johnson with two German companies (1.9 million), McDonald’s with two companies (1.8 million) and Microsoft (1.7 million). Meta, Amazon and Google each spend between 1.3 and 1.5 million euros. McDonald’s spends more than Google or Amazon, Philip Morris about as much as Google.

By sector, tech and digital (13.7 million euros) and pharma and medical technology (13.0 million) are almost level. The five big tech groups, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Google and Apple, add up to 6.1 million euros. US pharma spends more than twice as much as the best-known tech giants.

For context: all companies in the register together report around 324 million euros. US companies account for 13.7 percent of that. Measured against all entries, including associations, unions, NGOs and agencies, the share is just under 6 percent. US groups are a relevant part of Berlin’s lobby, not a dominant one. And lobbying is legal. The register exists to make it visible, not to stop it.

How we counted

We counted companies fully or majority-owned by a group incorporated in the US, and organisations with a US address in the register. We did not count German companies in which US investors merely hold stakes, groups headquartered outside the US despite a US stock listing (for example Medtronic and Accenture, both Ireland), or agencies and law firms, because they lobby for clients. 64 borderline cases were checked and left out. Amounts are the midpoint of the ranges reported in the register, mostly for financial year 2025, for Gates 2024. Small subsidiaries missing from the SEC lists may be absent. The figures are therefore a lower bound.

The latest example: the sugar tax

Lobbying on the tax on sugary drinks, approved by the cabinet on 14 October, is under way right now. Among 51 organisations registered on it are three US players: Coca-Cola and the Consumer Choice Center are against, PepsiCo wants to shape it. The full analysis of who lobbies for and against is in our sugar tax article: https://respublica.media/en/sugar-tax-lobby-en/

Where US groups lobbied on Bundestag votes

politblick.de matched the register entries with roll-call votes in the Bundestag. For five laws since November 2025, US groups reported lobbying on exactly that law.

Chart: US lobbying on Bundestag votes

Health insurance savings law (10 July 2026, 318 to 284). The law to stabilise health insurance contributions also cuts spending on medicines. 106 organisations lobbied on it, 8 of them owned by US groups: Lilly, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Bristol-Myers Squibb, Vertex, GE HealthCare, Insulet, Solventum and Coca-Cola. Bristol-Myers Squibb writes that the cuts to innovative medicines are “disproportionately high compared to their share of costs” and warns of “medication according to the funds’ budget”.

Building modernisation law (10 July 2026, 323 to 271). The law replaces the so-called heating law, and the requirement for 65 percent renewable heat is dropped. Among 63 lobby players is Viessmann. The heating manufacturer from Hesse has belonged to the US group Carrier since 2024; Viessmann Holding International GmbH is on Carrier’s official subsidiary list.

CO₂ price 2027 (15 October 2026, 303 to 210). The price for fuel, heating oil and gas stays at 55 to 65 euros per tonne in 2027. ExxonMobil lobbied on the law, but not on the price itself. Its concern was the procedure: Exxon wants an “efficient auction procedure” modelled on the EU emissions trading system. Nothing in the register suggests Exxon pushed for the price freeze.

Blood test for trisomies (8 October 2026, 527 to 18). The Bundestag ordered monitoring of the consequences of health insurance coverage for the prenatal test. Illumina, which makes sequencers and test kits used for these tests, registered lobbying aimed at “a factual and evidence-based political debate”. It names no concrete demand.

Veterinary medicines law (13 November 2025, 238 to 120). Among four lobby players is Intervet, the animal health arm of MSD (Merck & Co.).

For none of these laws does the register show that a US group decided the outcome. It shows who had a say.

The case where a demand was met

One US company’s goal clearly became law: McDonald’s campaigned for a return to 7 percent VAT on food in restaurants. The Bundestag passed it on 4 December 2025 as part of the 2025 tax amendment act, the Bundesrat followed on 19 December, and it has applied since 1 January 2026. Much of McDonald’s lobbying runs through the Berlin agency von Beust & Coll., which receives 600,001 to 650,000 euros a year from McDonald’s Deutschland. The 7 percent was also in the coalition agreement, and the whole restaurant sector campaigned for it. McDonald’s was one player among many, not the trigger.

The Gates Foundation and the federal budget

The largest single US entry is not a company but a foundation. The Gates Foundation of Seattle reports 3.74 to 3.75 million euros in lobby spending with just 0.8 full-time staff. Its topics according to the register: development policy, health, agriculture. As concrete projects it lists the 2025 and 2026 federal budgets, in other words how much Germany spends on development cooperation and global health.

The revolving door: former officials working for US players

Lobbyists must state in the register whether they worked in the Bundestag or the federal government in the past five years. For six people, this leads to US players.

Chart: former officials working for US players
  • Wolfgang Büchner was deputy government spokesperson until May 2025, before that editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel, and briefly at the agency MSL in 2021. He has been a senior advisor there since January 2026. The register lists him on the account of Mars GmbH (250,001 to 300,000 euros), as well as TikTok Germany, MediaMarktSaturn and the drone maker Destinus.
  • Jens Teutrine sat in the Bundestag for the FDP until March 2025. He lobbies for the Consumer Choice Center, which among other things opposes the sugar tax. The association reports 0 euros in lobby spending and no full-time staff, although three people lobby for it, and 5.47 to 5.48 million euros in donations. The donors are not named in the entry.
  • Valentin Abel, FDP MP until March 2025, works at the agency Rud Pedersen. He is listed on the account of Corteva, a US agriculture group (up to 50,000 euros, topic new genomic techniques), and of the IT service provider DXC Technology.
  • Gunnar Stumpe headed the economy minister’s office until December 2024. At the agency 365 Sherpas he is listed on the Google Germany account (up to 50,000 euros), among others, plus Covestro, Thüga, Alstom and FlixTrain.
  • Frank Sitta, FDP MP until 2021, lobbies directly for General Atomics Europe, the German subsidiary of the US drone maker.
  • Marc Degen, deputy head of the health ministry’s leadership department under Jens Spahn until March 2021, was listed at the agency vaxxio for Pfizer, MSD, BioNTech, GSK and Sanofi. vaxxio’s entry has been inactive since July 2026.

All of these moves are legal. A statutory cooling-off period applies only to former federal ministers and parliamentary state secretaries. Former civil servants must report new jobs to their former employer. For MPs there is no rule. Public sources do not show whether the three former government staff were civil servants.

What the register does not show

The register shows a lot: spending, staff, position papers and laws. One thing is missing: which group a company belongs to. Most people know that Meta is behind Facebook Germany GmbH. Few know that Viessmann belongs to Carrier, Intervet to Merck & Co., or Blue Cube Germany to the chemicals group Olin. For this analysis, 173 companies had to be checked one by one against US stock market filings.

A mandatory field for the parent company would change that. Should the register require it?

The full list of all 173 entries with evidence and the borderline cases is available at politblick.de, as is the analysis of the votes at politblick.de.

Sources

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