Driving ban

The exception in § 25(3) StVG is the most useful provision on this page, and it is also the most frequently misdescribed. It applies where no driving ban against you became final in the 2 years before the offence and none becomes final before your own decision either — so the record has to be clean at both moments, not just on the day of the offence.

Where the qualifying condition is met, the provision splits into two cases. Where the licence has to be taken into official custody or the ban has to be noted on it — the ordinary case for anyone holding a licence — the authority determines that the ban takes effect at the latest 4 months after the decision becomes final, instead of the 1-month limit that would otherwise apply. Where no custody and no notation are required, the statute gives an express choice: a written or electronic declaration naming a point in time, expressed in days, weeks or months after the decision becomes final and falling between 1 and 4 months after it, and the authority then fixes that date. Without such a declaration the ban in that case takes effect exactly 4 months after the decision becomes final.

We separate the two because the window is widely reported as a general right to pick your month. In the statute's own wording the declaration mechanism sits in the case that does not involve custody or a notation; in the custody case the outer limit is the same but what happens inside it is the authority's determination. The operative date in either case is the one in your decision — and § 25(9) StVG requires you to be told both that date and the date the ban period starts when the decision is served or announced.

What happens to the licence document depends on where it was issued, and § 25(2a) StVG is unusually explicit about it. A licence issued by a German authority — national or international — is held in official custody for the duration of the ban. A licence issued by another EU or EEA state is held the same way, but only where the holder's ordinary residence is in Germany. A licence issued anywhere else is not taken into custody at all: the ban is noted on the document instead.

If the document is not handed over voluntarily for either purpose, the statute provides for it to be seized. And where it is not found on the person after that, the enforcement authority can apply to the local court for a sworn statement about where it is. Those are the only two compulsion steps the provision contains.

One consequence of this structure regularly catches people out, because it involves two different dates. The date the ban becomes EFFECTIVE and the date the ban PERIOD starts running are not the same thing. Where a licence has to be held or a foreign licence marked, the period is counted from the day that actually happens — so a document left in a drawer does not shorten anything; it moves the end of the ban further away. Time spent in an institution under official order does not count towards the period either.

Driving while banned is not a heavier administrative offence. It leaves the fine system altogether: § 21(1) no. 1 StVG makes it a criminal offence, with a statutory range of up to 1 year of imprisonment or a fine in daily units. This site never computes that fine, because a court sets both the number of units and the value of one unit from net income.

Two further limbs of the same provision matter here. A negligent commission carries a lower range of its own, set out in § 21(2) StVG — the site names the provision and states no figure, because the reviewed data set carries none. And under § 21(1) no. 2 StVG the keeper of a vehicle commits the offence too, by ordering or allowing someone to drive it who is banned: the provision reaches a partner, an employer or a company fleet, not only the person at the wheel. The court may also order forfeiture of the vehicle involved (§ 21(3) StVG).

Several final bans against the same person do not run together. The periods are calculated one after another: the ban that became effective first runs first; where two became effective at the same time, the one ordered first runs first; and where they were ordered at the same time too, the earlier offence decides the order.

Time already lost is credited in one specific case. Where a licence was provisionally withdrawn in criminal proceedings, or the document was taken into custody, secured or seized, that time counts against the ban — unless the authority orders otherwise, in whole or in part, because conduct after the offence does not justify the credit.

At the other end there is no ceremony. The period runs out, the entitlement is back, and a held document is returned. The one rule the statute writes down about the return is narrow: where the ban was ordered inside criminal proceedings, the return of a held or seized document may be deferred if the person does not object, and the time after the judgment is credited in full. How and where a returned document is collected is not in the provision either — that, like the handing-in, is on your notice.

A German Fahrverbot is an order not to drive in Germany. It does not of itself withdraw or suspend an entitlement issued by another state, which is exactly why the statute treats a licence from outside the EU and EEA as a document to be MARKED rather than held: the measure attaches to driving here, and the document goes back into your pocket with a notation on it.

What your own licensing authority makes of a German decision is a matter between the two states. That is not part of the data set this site has verified, and we would rather leave the gap visible than fill it with a plausible answer.

Three things in the file decide what a ban actually looks like, and all three are written down rather than negotiable. The first is the outer limit on effectiveness: 1 month in the ordinary case, 4 months where the first-offender condition is met. The second is the custody rule, because the period only begins to run once the document is held or marked. The third is the length itself — 1 to 3 months — which is set in the decision.

What is not among the factors: whether the ban is inconvenient. Nothing in § 25 StVG makes disruption a ground for shortening one, and this site does not offer a view on whether to contest yours. The objection page sets out what the deadline is and what lodging one does; the decision itself is a legal question about your own file.