The three standards at a glance
| Standard | Subject | Question |
|---|---|---|
| DIN 276 | Costs in construction | What does building it cost |
| DIN 277 | Floor areas and volumes of buildings | How large is the building |
| DIN 18960 | Costs in use of buildings | What does operating it cost |
The order is also the order of application. No quantities, no costs; and no construction costs, no complete viability appraisal.
How DIN 276 and DIN 277 work together
The two standards depend directly on one another. DIN 276 orders costs; DIN 277 supplies the reference quantities to which those costs are related.
Every benchmark per square metre or per cubic metre presupposes an area or volume measurement under DIN 277. At the early stages of cost determination, that is the cost framework and the cost estimate, this connection is in fact the whole arithmetic operation: quantity under DIN 277 multiplied by benchmark.
The governing quantities are the gross floor area, the net room area with its constituent parts, and the gross volume. Their system is covered in the article on reference areas under DIN 277.
Notably, the 2018 reissue of DIN 276 absorbed content from the former third part of DIN 277. The dividing line between the two standards is therefore not historically stable, which matters when working with older documents.
What DIN 18960 captures
DIN 18960 governs costs in use in building construction. It captures all costs arising in structures and on their sites, whether recurring regularly or irregularly, from the start of usability through to removal.
It is built by analogy with DIN 276, which eases understanding. The logic of the structure is the same.
| Cost in use group | Content |
|---|---|
| 100 | Capital costs |
| 200 | Property management costs |
| 300 | Operating costs |
| 400 | Repair costs |
The rest of the system follows the familiar pattern too: a three-level structure, a cost-in-use target as a benchmark, and several kinds of determination of increasing accuracy. The estimate of costs in use is expressly named, in conjunction with the cost estimate under DIN 276, as a basis for deciding on concept design.
Group 400 is particularly instructive: its subdivision follows the building elements, that is foundations, external walls, internal walls, floors and so on. It thereby mirrors cost group 300 of DIN 276 and allows construction and repair costs for the same element to be set against one another.
Why costs in use sit outside DIN 276
The separation is deliberate: costs in use under DIN 18960 are not costs within the meaning of DIN 276, and their determination does not govern the determination of construction, conversion and modernisation costs. The two standards look at different phases of the building's life.
Substantively that is right, because the two kinds of cost follow different logics. Construction costs arise once and are procured; costs in use recur and depend on operation, occupancy and energy prices.
In practice, however, the separation creates a gap in decision-making at precisely the point where the most important decisions are taken. Numerous early design decisions shift costs between investment and operation: insulation thickness, plant strategy, material choice, ease of maintenance, service life of elements.
Anyone applying only DIN 276 assesses such decisions one-sidedly. The magnitude is not small: across a normal building life, costs in use considerably exceed construction costs.
A distinction within costs in use
Costs in use under DIN 18960 must be distinguished from operating costs under the German operating costs ordinance. The two catalogues overlap only in part.
The ordinance governs which costs may be recovered from tenants. The standard captures all costs of operating the building, including non-recoverable ones such as management and repair. Operating costs in the tenancy law sense are therefore only a subset of costs in use.
That distinction is decisive for investment property, since only the recoverable part can be passed to the tenant. The non-recoverable part stays with the owner.
A recurring misunderstanding
Two confusions arise particularly often with these three standards. Both concern the reference quantity or the concept of cost.
Usage area and costs in use. The Nutzungsfläche, usage area, is an area category of DIN 277 describing part of the net room area. Nutzungskosten, costs in use, are the subject of DIN 18960 and describe recurring costs. Linguistic proximity is their only common ground; one is a quantity, the other an amount.
Repair within both standards. Repair works appear in both DIN 276 and DIN 18960, and that is no contradiction. What governs is the occasion: repair as part of a construction project, for instance within a modernisation, belongs in the cost groups of DIN 276. Repair during ongoing operation belongs in cost-in-use group 400.
The dividing line therefore runs not at the element but at the activity. In a refurbishment of an occupied building both cases can arise side by side within the same property, and the allocation must then be expressly settled.
What this means for cost planning
Three practical conclusions follow.
Reference quantities are measured once and used repeatedly. A sound area measurement under DIN 277 serves the cost determination, the costs-in-use determination and the energy performance evidence at once, with different area categories governing in each case.
Comparisons of options belong across both kinds of cost. A decision raising cost group 300 while reducing operating costs cannot be assessed with DIN 276 alone. The system of such shifts is covered in the article on cost management.
The final cost statement is the handover point. It closes out construction costs and simultaneously supplies the baseline data for operation, particularly the element information for later repair planning.
This article reflects the position of the relevant standards at the date of checking and serves professional orientation. The standards named are maintained through new editions and must be consulted in their current versions before any application. It does not constitute legal advice and does not replace assessment of the individual case.