€188,000 in Taxpayer Funds: Germany's Finance Minister Charged for Photos and Makeup
October 6, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil spent €188,000 in public funds on photographers, makeup artists and stylists since taking office in May 2025, his own ministry's figures confirm. The bill rose 50 percent in 2026 while the minister publicly discussed austerity.
Germany's Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has charged €188,000 in public funds to external photographers, makeup artists and stylists since taking office in May 2025. The figures came from the Finance Ministry itself, confirmed by Parliamentary State Secretary Dennis Rohde in a written answer to AfD parliamentarian Hauke Finger, and reported by Tichys Einblick and NIUS.
Photography costs dominate the bill. The Federal Finance Ministry paid €78,436 to external photographers between 6 May and the end of 2025, according to the ministry's parliamentary response. From January to 24 September 2026, that figure reached €86,599. Makeup and cosmetic services cost €9,078 in 2025 and €13,578 through 24 September 2026. Photography accounts for €165,035 of the total, cosmetics for €22,656, totals calculated by ad-hoc-news.de from the ministry's own figures.
The direction of travel is the sharper story. Finger told Tichys Einblick that makeup and styling costs rose 50 percent in 2026.
The ministry framed the spending as routine press and communications work. It told Finger that the Federal Finance Ministry holds a standing framework contract with a photo agency to produce imagery for its communications output. Makeup artists are engaged where photographic assignments require it, the ministry said, with additional cosmetic services procured through service or works contracts for specific communication occasions.
Finger rejected that framing. The AfD finance politician called it a classic case of "preaching water while drinking wine." He said Klingbeil publicly discusses the suspended debt brake, the absence of budget consolidation and the growing pressure to cut public spending, while simultaneously directing more taxpayer money toward his personal image, according to reporting by NIUS.
The ministry heads Germany's budget policy at a moment when, as Finger notes, the coalition faces both a suspended debt brake and unresolved consolidation. Klingbeil has made fiscal discipline a public theme.
Finger described the 50 percent rise in styling costs as "particularly embarrassing" for the minister. "That is not what credible fiscal policy looks like," he told Tichys Einblick.
The ministry offered no rebuttal beyond classifying the costs as press and public relations work. Rohde signed the answer on the ministry's behalf. The ministry made no further statement in its parliamentary response.
Published October 6, 2026 · Frisian News