How to Check and Pay Traffic Fines in Germany Online

To check a traffic fine in Germany online, go to the website of the city, district, or state authority that issued it — the name and address are printed near the top of your notice — and enter the file number (Aktenzeichen or Kassenzeichen) into their fine lookup tool. Germany has no single national portal for traffic fines. Each municipality runs its own system, so the correct starting point depends entirely on where the violation was recorded.¹

What You Need From Your Notice

Before opening any portal, pull the following details off your fine notice:

The file number, labeled Aktenzeichen or Kassenzeichen. This is the reference the portal uses to find your case.
The license plate of the vehicle involved.
The date, time, and location of the offense. Some portals use these as verification fields.

If what arrived in the mail is a hearing questionnaire (Anhörungsbogen) rather than a fine notice, you’re at an earlier stage of the process. The questionnaire asks you to identify the driver; the actual fine notice, with the file number the online portals need, comes after the authority processes your response.

Finding the Right Portal

The issuing authority appears on your notice, and that name is what you search for. The quickest route is a search combining the authority’s name with “Bußgeldstelle” (fine office) or “Verwarnungsgeld online” (warning fine online). If the notice came from Munich, for example, try “München Bußgeldstelle online.” The federal Bund.de portal has general information about the fine process but sends you to local authorities for anything tied to a specific case.¹

Some state and city portals offer English versions. Hessen’s administrative services portal, for instance, publishes a full English page on traffic fine proceedings.² Many portals are German-only, and a browser translation is usually enough to work through the form.

Smaller municipalities may not run a real-time lookup at all. In that case the website will list contact details and a downloadable payment form. Call the fine office directly with your file number, or dial 115, the general German government service line, which can point you to the right office.¹

Running the Lookup

Once you’re on the correct portal, the form is broadly similar across systems. You enter your file number and usually the license plate. Some portals also ask for the offense date or a PIN printed in your correspondence. Submitting the form pulls up the case record.

The result shows the offense type (speeding, illegal parking, phone use, and so on), the fine amount in euros, and the date, time, and location. For anything at or above €60, the notice becomes a formal administrative fine order (Bußgeldbescheid), and the record will also show a €25 administrative fee and any procedural costs such as blood testing.³

For more serious violations, the record indicates whether penalty points will be added to your file in Flensburg, the central driving fitness register kept by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). Offenses at the €60 threshold and above carry one to three points depending on severity. The record also states whether a driving ban (Fahrverbot) applies, typically one to three months for serious infractions like heavy speeding or running a red light.

Paying the Fine

Payment is made by SEPA bank transfer to the IBAN printed on your notice or shown in the portal. Put the file number in the reference field so the authority can match the payment to your case. Deadlines matter and they are counted from the date of service:

Warning fines under €60: one week to pay. Miss the window and the warning converts into a full administrative fine order with a €25 administrative fee added.³
Administrative fine orders at €60 and above: four weeks to pay.¹

Paying From Outside Germany

German fine portals almost universally accept only SEPA transfers. No credit cards, no PayPal, no international wire option on the portal itself. If you don’t hold a European bank account, a third-party transfer service such as Wise can bridge the gap: you fund the transfer with a card or your local bank, and the service sends a SEPA payment to the German authority’s IBAN. Include the file number in the reference field, or the payment won’t be linked to your case.

Filing an Objection

If the fine is wrong — wrong driver, disputed measurement, mismatched facts — you can file an objection (Einspruch) against an administrative fine order. The deadline is two weeks from the date the order was served, and it is strict. Miss it and the fine becomes legally binding whatever its merits.⁴

The objection has to be in writing, sent to the authority that issued the order. Email does not count.⁵ A mailed letter works, in-person delivery works, and some authorities accept objections through their online portal. You don’t need a lawyer to file one. If the objection is denied and the case goes to court, the fine can grow and court costs are added, so on larger fines legal advice before objecting is worth the money.

Warning fines under €60 do not carry the same formal objection mechanism. To dispute one, contact the issuing authority directly within the one-week payment window.

If You Don’t Pay

A warning fine that goes unpaid past its one-week deadline escalates automatically into an administrative fine order with the €25 fee added. If the administrative fine order is then ignored past its four-week deadline, enforcement begins. A German bailiff gets involved and further costs for garnishment and enforcement are added to what you already owe.³

Cross-Border Enforcement

Drivers from other EU countries can be pursued at home. Under EU Directive 2015/413, member states share vehicle registration data for traffic offenses, which lets German authorities identify the owner of a foreign-registered vehicle.⁶ Where fines with fees reach at least €70, the German authority can request enforcement through the Federal Office of Justice, which then works with your home country’s authorities. Only public authorities can start this process; private debt collectors cannot.⁷

For non-EU drivers, direct enforcement at home is harder, but an unpaid fine can surface at border checks or when renting a car on later visits to Germany or the Schengen area.

If You Were Driving a Rental

Expect two bills. The German authority sends the fine, and the rental company bills a processing fee for passing your driver details to the authority. The European Consumer Centre Germany considers these processing fees legally questionable in many cases, even when the rental terms include them.⁷ You can push back on the fee, but the underlying fine still has to be paid to the issuing authority through its portal or by direct transfer.

Checking Your Flensburg Points

Point totals are held separately from any individual fine. To see your current status, use the online register lookup run by the KBA, which produces a downloadable PDF of your driving fitness record.⁸ The online option requires a PIN, typically tied to the German electronic ID card (Personalausweis with eID function). Without a German ID, you can request the record by mail.

Consequences step up with the total: four or five points brings a written warning, six or seven triggers a required seminar, and eight results in license withdrawal. Points expire over time depending on severity, so the risk sits in how fast they accumulate.

1
Bundesportal. Fines for Traffic Violations General Information
2
Hessian Portal for Administrative Services. Fine Proceedings for Traffic Offenses
3
21st Theater Sustainment Command. German Traffic Tickets Explained
4
Gesetze im Internet. OWiG 1968 – 67
5
U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz. German Traffic Violations
6
European Parliament. Revision of Directive (EU) 2015/413 on Cross-Border Exchange of Information on Road-Safety-Related Traffic Offences
7
European Consumer Centre Germany. Traffic Violations and Fines in Germany
8
Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt. Information From the Register of Driver Fitness (Points Status)