DriveHubCountry guide · Germany
Keep a German Fahrtenbuch for ten years — the cut to eight does not reach it
Since 1 January 2025 German news has said records are kept for eight years. For a Fahrtenbuch that is wrong by two years, and the electronic copy has to stay machine-readable for all ten.
The short answer
Ten years (the Aufbewahrungsfrist), counted from the end of the calendar year of the logbook's last entry — AO § 147 Abs. 3 S. 1 and Abs. 4. A Fahrtenbuch whose last entry is in December 2026 is kept until the end of 2036.
Three further points decide whether that answer holds in your case:
- The eight-year period introduced on 1 January 2025 applies to Buchungsbelege. A Fahrtenbuch is not one.
- The period does not run out while the assessment window is still open (Abs. 3 S. 5).
- An electronic logbook must remain "maschinell ausgewertet" for the whole period (Abs. 2 Nr. 2). A PDF on its own is not enough.
Why do people say eight years?
The Viertes Bürokratieentlastungsgesetz (BGBl. 2024 I Nr. 323), in force since 1 January 2025, shortened a retention period, and it was widely reported as the end of the ten-year rule. It shortened one category: Buchungsbelege, the vouchers under § 147 Abs. 1 Nr. 4, which now go after eight years.
A Fahrtenbuch is an Aufzeichnung under Nr. 1 of the same paragraph, and Nr. 1 was not touched. It stays at ten. The two categories are Nr. 1 and Nr. 4 of one sentence, which is why a headline about one is so easily read as being about the other.
Anyone who read the news and cleared out their logbooks after eight years has discarded two years of records they still owed.
The logbook and the Lohnkonto have different periods
The logbook is not the only record a company car produces. The employer's Lohnkonto has its own period, six years under § 41 Abs. 1 S. 9 EStG. That is the payroll record, and the shorter figure belongs to it. It does not shorten the logbook.
The logbook's period is not fixed to the calendar alone. Under § 147 Abs. 3 S. 5 AO the retention period does not expire while the assessment period for the tax is still running. A year that is still open to assessment keeps its records, whatever the arithmetic says.
Ten years of a file that can still be evaluated
Retention in Germany covers more than keeping the file. AO § 147 Abs. 2 Nr. 2 requires an electronically kept record to stay available so that it can be "maschinell ausgewertet werden" — evaluated by machine — for the whole period.
In practice, a printed or exported PDF of an electronic Fahrtenbuch does not satisfy German retention by itself. The machine-readable export has to survive beside it, for all ten years. This is one of the places where German rules ask more than Austrian ones: Austria's BAO § 132 Abs. 2 imposes no machine-evaluability requirement, so a rendered copy goes further there, and the period is seven years, as the Austrian Kilometergeld article sets out.
What failing costs
Three consequences can arrive together:
- The logbook is lost as evidence and private use falls back to the 1 % method — the outcome the Fahrtenbuch article describes, and usually the far more expensive one.
- The tax office may estimate the base, a Schätzung under § 162 Abs. 2 S. 2 AO.
- A fine of up to €25 000 is possible under § 379 Abs. 1 Nr. 7 and Abs. 6 AO.
The changes the file must show for all ten years
An electronic Fahrtenbuch whose entries can still be changed is ordnungsgemäß only if the extent of those changes is documented in the file itself and visible on ordinary inspection (BFH, 12 January 2024 – VI B 37/23), so the change history is part of what you keep for ten years. The seven-day window for entering each trip's purpose, and the rest of what makes a logbook valid, are in the Fahrtenbuch article.
Before you delete anything
- Count ten years from the end of the calendar year of the logbook's last entry, not its first.
- Check whether the assessment period for that year is still open. If it is, keep the records.
- Keep the machine-readable export, not only a PDF, and with it the record of every later change.
- Leave the employer's six-year Lohnkonto period out of your logbook arithmetic.
Where software helps with a ten-year Fahrtenbuch
A paper Fahrtenbuch kept for ten years is a Fahrtenbuch kept for ten years. What software changes is the other end of the logbook's life: whether the chain is complete and the purposes were written in time.
DriveHub records every drive in the background, business and private alike, and asks afterwards which were business. The report prints the odometer at the start and end of each trip, the business partner you visited, and every later change to a trip, on the report itself. It exports the log as a PDF and as a spreadsheet — keep both, because the spreadsheet is the copy that can still be evaluated by machine in 2036.
The purpose is still yours to write. The seven days are for writing it as a reason — "Angebot besprochen, Müller GmbH" — rather than leaving the trip marked only as business. Germany's other rules for the Fahrtenbuch are on the Germany page. Poland has its own retention period that looks shorter than it is; see how long to keep a Polish ewidencja.
This page quotes the Abgabenordnung and names the court's decision so you can read them. It is not tax advice. It can't account for your circumstances. Where the money matters, ask your Steuerberater — and bring the records.
The full rule for Germany, with the instruments it comes from: mileage log requirements in Germany.