Details
Payment
What is added to the amount, when the payment deadline starts running, what happens once it passes — and why paying early saves nothing.
Overview
Which paper you have decides everything else
The two German routes look alike on an envelope and behave differently in law.
A Bußgeldbescheid is an administrative act. It adds a fee of 5 % of the fine with a floor of 25 € and a ceiling of 7.500 €, plus 3,50 € for service. It carries a deadline to object of 2 weeks from service, and a payment deadline of 2 weeks from the point it becomes final.
Verwarnungsgeld (caution)
- 2 weeksDeadline to object
- 2 weeksPayment deadline
Process
Paying from outside Germany
Pay to the account and with the reference stated on the notice, and quote that reference exactly — the case number is how the payment is matched, and an unmatched payment is functionally an unpaid one. Where a keeper is billed instead of a driver, the notice will say so.
This site does not describe how a German fine is pursued in another country. That depends on arrangements between Germany and that state, which are not part of the data set we have verified, and we would rather leave a gap than fill it with something plausible.
Background
What happens if you do nothing
A fine notice that is not objected to becomes final on its own, and the payment deadline starts from that point. After the due date there is a grace period of 2 weeks before enforcement may begin.
Enforcement is a separate track. Where a fine is neither paid nor shown to be unpayable, the statute also provides for detention to compel payment — a coercive measure to make an unwilling payer pay, not a punishment for the traffic offence, and available only where the payer can pay and will not. Its ceiling is set in the enforcement provision; this site names that provision and states no duration, because the reviewed data set does not carry one.
If the amount is the problem rather than the principle, the route is the hardship one: instalments or a later due date on a fine notice, or the economic reduction on a caution. Both are addressed to the authority, and both are about your circumstances.
Research
The rule that does not exist, and the deadline that is longer than you were told
What does not exist
There is no early-payment discount
OWiG (full text) · § 2(5) BKatV
Prosecution is time-barred after 6 months
§ 26(3) StVG (current text; open question recorded)
Next step
Payment and deadlines
When does the deadline to object expire, when the payment deadline, and what does the notice add in fees and disbursements? The calculator shows both — and the rule that does not exist.
Related offences
Parking and stopping
Most parking offences carry no points — but not all of them. Where obstruction is involved, the row changes and so does the consequence.
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.
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.
FAQ