When looking for an apartment you’ll be confronted with two types of rent: Kaltmiete, or cold rent, and Warmmiete, warm rent. Kaltmiete is the basic rental cost for the space itself, while Warmmiete is the Kaltmiete plus the costs for heat and other amenities such as rubbish removal, building maintenance and water. If the building has central heat and hot water, the Warmmiete will also include the costs for this. Officially, the costs added onto Kaltmiete to calculate the Warmmiete are known as Betriebskosten – literally operating costs.