Germany 2026 — there is no vignette, but the sticker is compulsory

The motorways really are free for cars

The German road charge applies only to goods vehicles above 3.5 tonnes. Cars, campervans and everything up to 3.5 t are outside it. There is no general vignette for cars in Germany, and no city entry charge either.

The scheme operator Toll Collect describes the charge as "Toll over 3.5 tonnes" on its own site (toll-collect.de), read 2 October 2026.

⚠️ The Umweltplakette is the real cost of a German trip

Germany runs low-emission zones (Umweltzonen). In the zones that remain, the sticker you need is the green one (grüne Plakette). The Federal Environment Agency states that since 2012 only vehicles with a green sticker may drive in the existing zones, and that a sticker is valid in every zone in Germany, not just in one city. Without a sticker you may not drive in.

The fine catalogue speaks of "a motor vehicle" and makes no distinction by country of registration, so it applies to a foreign-registered car in the same way.

The zone list is shrinking. The agency's own page says that more and more cities are lifting their zones because air-quality limits are now met everywhere. On 2 October 2026 its zone list showed 35 zones marked active and 23 marked lifted.

The cities a driver crossing Germany meets most often, all marked active on that list: Berlin, Leipzig, Halle (Saale), Magdeburg, and further west Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and the single joint zone covering the Ruhr area. Hamburg and Hanover are not on the active list. Check the list for your route before you leave, because it changes.

Where to buy it

Vehicle inspection stations and vehicle registration offices (Zulassungsstelle) issue the sticker. This pass could not re-open any source that states the price or the full list of sellers, so neither is printed here; the price is shown by the seller before you pay. You need the registration document: the emission class is read from the registration papers.

The fine

100 €. That is the amount in the German fine catalogue itself: Bußgeldkatalog-Verordnung, Anlage, Table 1, entry 153 — "driving a motor vehicle despite a traffic ban for the reduction of harmful air pollution (signs 270.1, 270.2)" — read on 2 October 2026. The Federal Environment Agency prints the same amount.

If you are only passing through and have no sticker, the practical move is the boring one: pull in at the nearest inspection station after the border and buy it before you reach a city.

What actually is tolled

The Warnowtunnel in Rostock. Category 1 covers motorcycles, cars, and a car with a flat trailer — two or more axles, up to 2.05 m high. Paying cash it is 5.40 € in summer (1 May – 31 October) and 4.40 € in winter (1 November – 30 April); with the tunnel card, strip or box it is 3.49 € all year. A car with a high trailer moves up to category 2 and pays more. Operator tariff, prices valid from 1 November 2025, read 2 October 2026.

The Herrentunnel in Lübeck, on the B75, is tolled as well. The rate depends on the height of the vehicle measured at the front axle and on the number of axles. We do not quote a figure for it: the operator publishes its fee table only as an image, so there is nothing we can quote and attribute honestly. Checked 2 October 2026.

We have not checked every other tunnel or bridge in Germany this time, so this page does not say there are none.

The border: expect to be stopped

This is not a seasonal formality. Germany's current notified period runs 16 September 2026 to 15 March 2027. Poland has its own period, 2 October 2026 to 30 March 2027, on its land borders with Germany and Lithuania.

In practice that means you can be checked at the border, and you need an ID card or a passport. The live list of every notified control, with the border sections each country has named, is on the European Commission's register. Read 2 October 2026.

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