Digital Government in Germany: When Does an Online Service Become Truly Digital?
Being able to book an appointment online does not make public administration digital. A new analysis by Gisma University of Applied Sciences reveals significant differences in the digital maturity of public services across Germany’s largest cities and shows why the real challenge is not putting forms online, but redesigning entire administrative processes for the digital age.
From registering a new address to applying for official documents, interactions with public authorities are part of everyday life. Yet how digital these services actually are still depends heavily on where people live.
Experts at Gisma University of Applied Sciences, part of the GUS Germany higher education network, examined eleven commonly used public services across Germany’s 20 largest cities. Rather than simply asking whether a service was available online, the analysis assessed how far the entire process could be completed digitally from finding the service to completing the transaction.
The results reveal significant differences between cities. Düsseldorf leads the 2026 ranking with 86.4 out of 100 points, followed by Munich and Frankfurt with 84.8 points each. At the other end of the ranking, Duisburg scores 68.2 points, behind Bremen and Dresden.
Digital does not always mean digital from start to finish
More revealing than the ranking itself, however, is what lies behind the results.
Standardised services have made considerable progress. Address registration and changes of residence achieve the highest level of digital maturity across all 20 cities analysed, while certain document-ordering services are also highly digitalised in 19 of the 20 cities.
The picture changes when a process requires personal identification, original documents or the physical collection of documents. Passport and ID-related services, for example, remain only partially digital in many cities. The certification of copies performs particularly poorly: 15 of the 20 cities receive the lowest possible score for this service.
The analysis highlights one of the central challenges of digital transformation: offering an administrative service online does not necessarily mean that the underlying process is digital. Downloadable forms, online appointments and digital application preparation may improve access, but if documents still have to be printed, signed, posted or submitted in person, the digital process remains incomplete.
From digital forms to digital public services
The next stage of digital government therefore requires more than additional online portals. Administrative processes need to be rethought, unnecessary breaks between digital and analogue processes reduced, and secure digital identities and electronic signatures further expanded.
“Ultimately, public services should be user-friendly, accessible and designed around the needs of citizens,” says Ramon O’Callaghan, President of Gisma University of Applied Sciences. “The challenge is to make public services simpler and faster while ensuring data protection and security.”
The Gisma analysis therefore goes beyond a city ranking. It demonstrates how data-driven research can reveal where digital transformation is already making a tangible difference to everyday life – and where a gap remains between offering a service online and providing a genuinely end-to-end digital process. More information about this topic you may find here: Wie digital sind Deutschlands Bürgerämter? Düsseldorf führt Ranking im bundesweiten Vergleich an
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