BAFA funding - experiences with payout duration?

On your overview page in the BAFA portal, you have three icons under "Actions". When you hover your mouse over the middle one, the description appears ("Upload documents for the application"). There you can upload your invoices. I did that at the same time as submitting the certificate of use. If something is missing, it will certainly cost pointless time again because BAFA will then send you a letter asking you to submit or upload the corresponding invoices. Apparently, this is no longer possible by mail. I had to submit the documents digitally (which makes sense).

But all of this is not user-friendly. It also took me a while to get the hang of it.

I have uploaded the invoices - my question was purely about proof of payment. So that you submit transfer receipts to prove that you have actually paid the craftsmen's invoices. That is what our EEE was referring to.

Did you also upload payment proofs to BAFA?

No.

I have just finally applied for the funds, i.e. submitted the invoices and specialist contractor declaration, etc.

If you sent everything that was requested, then that’s enough - meaning:

- Confirmation of truthful information
- Specialist contractor declaration (important: it has to be the one you received with your approval!)
- Invoice(s)

Nowhere was payment proof requested

Correct - and there are even heating installers who will grant you the money on credit until BAFA pays - so you might not even have one, even if you wanted to...

But the energy consultant said they would probably be needed?

Nonsense. That used to be the case for funding of solar systems or wall boxes, but that’s history now...

Your experiences?

As written - and our money has been there for over three weeks...

But it’s not user-friendly at all. Took me a while to get my head around it.

I found it brilliant - imagining sending all that crap by mail... really no... I submitted my taxes by mail and have been waiting for 4 months, whereas BAFA paid in less than a month...

Thank you! Then I'll leave it at that. The specialist contractor declaration is the one we received with the approval, yes. We have also already noticed that this no longer matches the one that can be downloaded online from BAFA.

I also think it's great that everything is done online. For the latest tax return, we were even able to send the invoices as proof digitally right away. Because I know they will ask anyway if you claim higher amounts. And we are doing that for 2023 – everything that BAFA does not fund, we submitted on the tax return and that was still quite a lot.
Now I am curious who will be faster. The tax office or BAFA. The tax office usually takes 4-5 months for us.

I also think it's good that all of this is done online. I just meant that the site could have been designed more clearly. By the way, I waited half a year for the money back then. (Von Hochladen der Fachunternehmererklärung bis zur Auszahlung).

Yes, I am curious. An article from December 2023 states that the current processing times are significantly shortened - probably also by a few weeks. Maybe this is related to the funding stop and the general reluctance to invest.

Our heating engineer said the same, sometimes only 2 weeks processing time.

We'll see, still waiting for the electrician's invoice for the connection and fuse box. In the meantime, we'll submit the roof these days first...