1. Private households
All persons living in the same dwelling (apartment or single family house) form a private household. Thus persons belonging to one family plus all other persons living in the same dwelling (such as maids, other domestic personnel, care children, sub-tenants, permanent guests, care givers) form one household. Persons living alone also form a household. A further criterion is the fact of a "closed" dwelling (apartment of house). The presence of a kitchen or a kitchenette is the characteristic for a private household (e.g. old age apartments, dwelling of the manager in a hotel).

2. Collective household
All households which are not private households are considered collective households.

Such households are hotels, pensions, boarding schools, workers dormitories, long term care homes.

The continuing pluralization of society and its new forms of households (e.g. smaller and smallest homes) represents a methodological problem for the census. Specifically, homes for caring for old and feeble persons cannot be distinguished clearly from the outside as "institutions".

To collect census data for persons who are registered in the population registers but do not have a physical addresses in the community, the federal statistical office has created a special category of collective households, so-called "aggregated" households [Sammelhaushalte]. For collection purposes, two types of aggregated households are distinguished: