Recent experiments have shown that translational energy loss is mainly mediated by electron–hole pair excitations for hydrogen atoms impinging on clean metallic surfaces. Inspired by these studies, quasi-classical trajectory simulations are here performed to investigate the energy transfer after scattering of hydrogen atoms off clean and hydrogen-covered tungsten (100) surfaces. The present theoretical approach examines the coverage effect of the preadsorbed hydrogen atoms, as was done recently for the (110) crystallographic plane in (J Phys Chem C 125:14075, 2021). As suggested, scattering can be described in terms of three different dynamical mechanisms, the contribution of which changes with coverage, which allow to rationalize the shape of the energy loss spectra.