Deutsche Bahn delivers its first half-year profit since 2019
GERMANY: Deutsche Bahn’s rail business made a profit in the first half of 2026, the first since 2019. The full-year outlook carries risks, DB says, with DB Cargo as the main one: it has to be profitable by the end of December to meet the European Commission’s conditions.
By Dan Jensen
The group presented its half-year results on 30 July: a profit after tax of EUR 147m, against a loss of EUR 760m a year earlier. Revenue rose 1.8 percent to EUR 13.6bn, and the adjusted operating result (EBIT) improved by more than EUR 650m to EUR 415m.
CEO Evelyn Palla maintained her full-year guidance of a profit for 2026, with revenue of around EUR 28bn and an adjusted operating result of around EUR 600m. “For the first time in seven years, our rail business is back in the black,” she said.
Where the profit came from
Every business unit held or improved its operating result. DB Fernverkehr swung from minus EUR 59m to plus EUR 148m as long-distance ticket sales recovered from April, and DB Regio contributed EUR 89m on growing commuter demand.
The first savings from job cuts in group headquarters and at internal service providers also count toward the result.
The figure covers the rail business that remains after the sale of DB Schenker. The logistics division that carried the group’s results for years is no longer part of the calculation.
The balance sheet moved the other way. Net debt grew by around EUR 1bn to EUR 21.6bn in six months, because DB is financing a larger share of the construction programme itself: net self-funded investment rose 89 percent to EUR 3.4bn. Group-wide gross investment reached a record EUR 8.7bn for a first half, up 18 percent, with most of the money from the federal government and DB itself going toward renewing the network.
Cargo: one million short of the EU requirement
DB Cargo again lost volume and revenue, hit by weak demand from the steel, chemical and automotive industries. Its operating result still improved by EUR 96m, to minus EUR 1m.
After a competitor’s complaint, the European Commission opened an in-depth investigation in January 2022 and ruled in November 2024 that the group’s automatic coverage of Cargo’s losses was state aid.
It approved the EUR 1.9bn already paid on conditions that include the termination of the loss-transfer agreement at the end of 2024, a German commitment to divest DB Cargo activities and assets, and a requirement for Cargo to reach sustainable profitability by the end of 2026.
German media have widely described the consequence of missing that deadline as a risk of forced break-up, though the Commission’s published material does not itself specify one.
Since January 2025 the freight operator has stood on its own finances. DB Cargo CEO Bernhard Osburg announced in February 2026 that 6,200 of around 14,000 full-time positions in Germany would be cut, with implementation running to 2030.
DB points to a weak economy, an unresolved infrastructure situation and federal funding for single-wagon traffic as factors beyond its control — the last of which is a question now on the desk of Steffen Bilger, who became transport minister the day before the results were presented.
The precedent from 2025
Last year followed the same pattern for most of its course. The adjusted operating result reached around EUR 300m, and the year still ended with a net loss of EUR 2.3bn on continuing operations, because DB wrote down the value of its long-distance business by EUR 1.4bn after the state of the infrastructure forced revenue expectations down. Including the DB Schenker sale proceeds, the group’s total net result for 2025 was a profit of EUR 5.3bn.
The full-year promise holds only if nothing similar happens in 2026. This time the exposed position is Cargo, where a weak economy and unresolved single-wagon funding are the ingredients that could force a charge of that kind.
The network is being rebuilt under the trains
Long-distance punctuality was 59 percent in the first half, pressed down by a record number of construction sites, winter weather in January and February and a June heatwave. Regional services reached 88.2 percent. Infrastructure company DB InfraGO posted an operating loss of EUR 66m as traffic on the network fell 1 percent.
The construction programme is delivering its milestones. The Hamburg–Berlin corridor renewal is complete, three further lines reopened in July, and 14,000 of the 28,000 sites planned for 2026 are finished. The rebuilding that depresses today’s operations is what the profit is supposed to pay for.
Palla has set her own bar accordingly: she will be satisfied, she said, only when the quality of daily train operations convinces. For Cargo the bar is set in Brussels, and the deadline is the end of December. If the freight operator misses it, DB Cargo enters 2027 with EUR 1.9bn in approved aid resting on a restructuring plan that has failed.