Overview
About this site
Every figure has a source, every source has a date, and every open question is marked as open. What that means in detail is set out here.
Details
What this site is
Bußgeldmeter is a calculator and reference for German traffic penalties: what an offence costs, what it does to your driver-register total, whether it brings a driving ban, and which deadlines are running. It is built for two audiences at once — drivers in Germany, and drivers from elsewhere holding a German notice — and each language version is written for its own readers rather than translated from the other.
Every figure on this site is researched from primary sources — with the source, the retrieval date and the verbatim quote on record — and has been signed off by the reviewer of record against those sources. The verification run re-fetched every number; its log is part of the data set. The only thing still pending is the final public domain.
Research
Where the figures come from
Amounts and standard driving bans come from the fine catalogue. Points come from an annex to the driving-licence ordinance — the catalogue has no points column, so every points value here is a documented join between the two. Deadlines and fees come from the Act on Administrative Offences; the register mechanics, the probationary period and the prosecution limitation come from the Road Traffic Act.
The fine amounts on this site are the version in force since 09.11.2021. That date is stated deliberately: the consolidated texts published online name the date an amending instrument was signed, which is often not the date it commences. During the research pass one amendment turned out to be signed, published, narrowly scoped and not in force until 01.03.2027 — so we read commencement articles rather than headline dates, on every instrument.
Background
How the figures were checked, and what went wrong first
One method note is worth stating plainly, because it changed how this data set was built. Automated summarisation of legal tables produced fabricated content in our first pass: an invented driving-ban band, and an ordinance that does not exist. Every table was then re-fetched as raw HTML or as the source PDF and read directly, and the payload transcribes only from those reads.
The result is a data set where each figure carries an exact quotation in its source language, the URL it was fetched from, the fetch date, and a locator down to the row or subsection. Our own build refuses to produce a production release while any figure remains unsigned — the preview you are reading is generated by a development build for exactly that reason.
Process
What we do not know, stated as clearly as what we do
Four items in this data set are recorded as unverified, and each one is visible on the page it affects rather than buried here:
- The absolute-unfitness threshold used in criminal cases is settled case law from 1990 whose primary text we could not reach; the alcohol pages present it as case law and never as statute.
- The measurement-tolerance figure lives below federal law, in device approvals and regional guidelines, so it is shipped as an absence with a qualitative disclosure and no number.
- One intermediate catalogue amendment is attested by a later instrument's preamble but its own text was not independently fetched.
- A fee schedule relevant to the probationary-period course could not be retrieved, so its cost is an open follow-up rather than a confirmed absence.
Key figures
Rules that do not exist are content here
A missing rule appears in no table, which is exactly why it misleads people for years. This site treats a statutory absence as a finding with its own provision and its own card: no early-payment discount, no calendar winter-tyre rule, no points below the register threshold, no repeat tier for the new-driver alcohol prohibition, no fee on a points-system rung, no statutory price for the aptitude seminar, no hydrant offence, and no fine at all for driving uninsured because that is criminal rather than administrative.
Each of those took a full-text search or a check across three annex lists to establish. Stating them is the part of this site we are most confident is useful.
Process
Keeping it current
The instruments behind these pages are watched rather than periodically rediscovered: the federal gazette feed, a quarterly re-fetch of the standing text of the five acts involved, and a rule that any amendment is read through its own commencement article. Every statutory value in the data set also carries a review horizon of 30.07.2027, after which it must be re-verified rather than assumed.
One change is already scheduled: the amendment integrating micro-mobility vehicles into the catalogue commences on 01.03.2027, and our review trigger sits before that date.
Details
What this site does not do
It is not legal advice, and it cannot be: every number here is a standard case, and your notice is a specific one. It does not assess your prospects, draft anything for you, or tell you whether to object.
It does not sell you to anyone. There is no lawyer referral, no lead form, no commission, and no advertising anywhere on these pages. There is no contact form either, because the site is a static export with nothing that could receive one.
It does not calculate criminal fines, which are set by a court in daily units from net income. It states no measurement-tolerance figure. It does not estimate a blood-alcohol reading from what you drank. And it does not describe how a German decision is enforced in another country, because we have not sourced that and a plausible answer would be worse than none.
Next step
Speeding
Enter the charged excess from your notice and choose whether it happened inside or outside a built-up area. The result shows the standard rate, the points and any driving ban — and whether the repeat rule applies.
Related offences
Speeding
The bands of the speeding table for cars, split by inside and outside built-up areas. A motorway counts as outside — there is no separate motorway table.
Alcohol and drugs
Escalation follows the entries already on the register, not the reading that was measured. The zero-alcohol rule for new drivers has a row of its own.
Phones and electronic devices
The prohibition covers electronic devices generally, not just phones. The tiers differ according to whether the offence endangered anyone or caused damage.
FAQ