Deutsche Bahn Back in Profit but Still Fighting for Trust

Deutsche Bahn has posted its first first-half profit since 2019. Days earlier, the group launched an unusually sharp attack on ZDF over a documentary it says showed every problem and none of the progress.

Germany’s state-owned railway ended the first six months of 2026 with a net profit of EUR 147 million, compared with a loss of EUR 760 million in the same period last year. Revenue rose by 1.8% to EUR 13.6 billion, while adjusted operating profit improved by more than EUR 650 million to EUR 415 million.

Deutsche Bahn expects to remain profitable over the full year, although the weak German and European economies still pose a risk, particularly for DB Cargo. "We are delivering, step by step, what we promised," DB CEO Evelyn Palla said as the results were published. She called the return to profit an important milestone, but added that the real test would be whether passengers begin to notice an improvement in their daily journeys.

Deutsche Bahn Invests a Record EUR 8.7 Billion

The financial turnaround comes as Deutsche Bahn begins implementing its new DB 2035 strategy, approved by the Management and Supervisory Boards in June.

The priorities are reliability, quality and financial stability. DB plans to become leaner and less centralised, with greater responsibility placed on individual business units. Job cuts at the group’s headquarters and internal service companies are already moving faster than planned, and around 30% of the targets set for 2028 have been completed.

Investment also reached a new record. Gross capital expenditure rose by 18% to EUR 8.7 billion, the highest amount Deutsche Bahn has ever spent in the first half of a year. DB-funded net investment increased by 89% to EUR 3.4 billion.

Most of the money provided by the federal government and DB went into a network that had been neglected for decades. The investment programme also pushed the group’s net financial debt up to EUR 21.6 billion by the end of June.

Palla said Germany could lay the foundations for a more stable railway if construction continued at the current pace. The challenge is that record investment also means record disruption in the short term.

Passenger Numbers Rise, but Long-Distance Punctuality Stays Low

More than 960 million passengers travelled on Deutsche Bahn trains between January and June, an increase of 17 million compared with the previous year. DB Long-Distance returned to an operating profit of EUR 148 million, after recording a EUR 59 million loss in the first half of 2025. Ticket sales began to rise in April, helped by new offers aimed at families, young passengers and last-minute travellers.

Around 600,000 passengers used DB’s last-minute fares, more than 200,000 travelled with family tickets and over 50,000 children and young people ordered the free Jugend-BahnCard. DB Regio reported an operating profit of EUR 89 million. Revenue increased by 4%, with demand rising particularly on commuter routes as higher fuel prices encouraged some drivers to switch to trains.

The numbers were less encouraging at DB Cargo. Freight volumes and revenue fell again as the steel, chemical and automotive industries continued to reduce demand. However, DB Cargo improved its operating result by EUR 96 million and ended the period with a loss of just EUR 1 million.

That puts break-even within reach, but the freight operator remains under pressure to complete a difficult restructuring programme and meet conditions imposed by the European Commission.

DB InfraGO Completes Almost 14,000 Construction Sites

Infrastructure manager DB InfraGO ended the first half of the year with an operating loss of EUR 66 million. Its purpose is to manage infrastructure in the public interest rather than generate profit. Traffic on the network fell by 1%, largely because of the extraordinary volume of construction. DB InfraGO completed work at almost 14,000 sites, half of the 28,000 planned for the whole of 2026.

The delayed renewal of the Hamburg–Berlin corridor was completed, while upgraded sections between Hagen, Wuppertal and Cologne, Hamburg and Hanover, and Nuremberg and Regensburg returned to service in July. Work also began on the right-bank Rhine corridor between Troisdorf and Wiesbaden.

The railway’s punctuality figures still show how far the recovery has to go. Across all DB passenger services, 87.5% of trains arrived less than six minutes late. For long-distance trains, the figure was only 59%. Even under the less demanding threshold of a delay below 15 minutes, just 76% of long-distance services qualified. DB Regio achieved punctuality of 88.2%. DB blamed the results on the construction programme, severe winter weather at the start of the year and the June heatwave.

DB Tries to Make Improvements More Visible

A return to profit will mean little to passengers unless stations, trains and information begin to work better. Deutsche Bahn has therefore launched three immediate programmes worth around EUR 150 million. They focus on cleaner and safer stations, greater comfort on long-distance trains and better communication with passengers.

During the first half of the year, 44 mobile maintenance teams carried out quick repairs at stations. Additional security staff completed more than 100,000 hours of patrols, while 220 mobile cleaners worked on long-distance trains each day and cleaned more than one million toilets.

These measures are also part of an attempt to change how the public sees Deutsche Bahn. The company has spent years as a symbol of Germany’s struggling infrastructure, regularly appearing in political debates, satire programmes and jokes about delays.

'Opinion, Not Facts': Deutsche Bahn Attacks ZDF Documentary

The clearest example came after ZDF broadcast Am Puls mit Dunja Hayali – Unsere Bahn: geliebt, verflucht – gefährlich? The 44-minute documentary looked at delays, ageing technology, railway safety and political responsibility. It also examined the 2022 Burgrain derailment and compared Germany’s progress in railway digitalisation with Belgium. Palla appeared in the programme for an extended interview.

Deutsche Bahn responded under the headline "Opinion, Not Facts", calling the programme unprofessional and one-sided. The company said the documentary relied heavily on claims and opinions, consciously left out important facts and failed to recognise the work of more than 200,000 railway employees. In DB’s view, the film showed every weakness but ignored improvements, solutions and investment already under way.

DB did not literally use the phrase "fake news," but the accusation came close. The company argued that the omissions and factual errors created a distorted picture of the railway. One dispute concerned a graphic stating that Deutsche Bahn operated no fully digital signal boxes. DB said it already had three, as well as more than 20 installations using elements of digital signalling in regular operation.

The railway also criticised ZDF’s comparison of punctuality in Germany and Belgium. It said the documentary compared Belgian passenger services as a whole with DB’s much less punctual long-distance sector, rather than using equivalent figures.

ZDF Corrects Two Graphics but Refuses to Remove the Film

ZDF later corrected two graphics. The number of fully digital DB signal boxes was changed from zero to three, while a Belgian punctuality graphic was relabelled from "long-distance transport" to "passenger transport."

The broadcaster nevertheless rejected DB’s broader criticism. It said the documentary had been carefully researched, included several perspectives and gave Palla sufficient space to respond. ZDF also refused Deutsche Bahn’s demand to remove the programme from its streaming platform. The broadcaster said the corrected version contained no substantive defects and described the request for its removal as an attempt to prevent critical reporting.