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Plate Atlas
Driving abroad

Driving in Germany

The licence plates you will see on the road in Germany, how to read them, and what a car from abroad needs.

GERMANY50100130

Speed limits

Default limits for cars, unless signs say otherwise, as on the signs at border crossings.

In towns
50 km/h
Outside towns
100 km/h
Motorways
No general limit, 130 km/h recommended

Before you drive

Vignette and tolls
Cars need no vignette and pay no motorway toll; distance-based tolls apply to trucks only.
Environmental zones
Many cities have environmental zones (Umweltzonen), marked by a sign at the boundary. Every car entering one needs an emissions sticker (Umweltplakette) on the windscreen, foreign cars included, and most zones admit only green stickers. Visitors can order one in advance by sending copies of the registration papers. Driving in a zone without one is fined.

Rules and prices change. Check the official site before you travel.

D

Country code

Cars registered here show the country code D. Plates carry it on the blue EU band, which counts as the country sign: no separate oval sticker is needed in the European Economic Area, and the plate is also valid in other countries of the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. A car from abroad shows its own country code at the rear in the same way.

Reading the plates

Plates carry an area code that shows where the car was registered: 732 codes across 401 districts. For example:

SH-AB 1234
Area codes on the mapAll area codes

Plates you will see

  • B-AB 1234

    Standard · Since 1956

Special plates

Older plates still on the road

Plate formats and history of Germany

Sources