Mileage log requirements in Germany

What your records have to contain to survive a check by the Bundesministerium der Finanzen, and the rate DriveHub applies.

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Updated 5 Oct 2026

Country

The rate

€0.30 per km

In force from 1 January 2014.

Who sets the rule

Bundesministerium der Finanzen; the operative text is an administrative guideline, not the statute.

The rule that governs it

§ 6 Abs. 1 Nr. 4 Satz 3 EStG allows valuing private use of a vehicle by actual cost instead of the 1 % list-price rule only where "ein ordnungsgemäßes Fahrtenbuch" exists. What "ordnungsgemäß" means is spelled out in R 8.1 Abs. 9 Nr. 2 LStR.

What every trip has to record

Required per business trip, verbatim

R 8.1 Abs. 9 Nr. 2 Satz 3 LStR, for dienstliche Fahrten "i. d. R.": "Datum und Kilometerstand zu Beginn und am Ende jeder einzelnen Auswärtstätigkeit, Reiseziel und bei Umwegen auch die Reiseroute, Reisezweck und aufgesuchte Geschäftspartner."

Required for the other trips

Private trips: "Kilometerangaben" only. Home↔first workplace: "jeweils ein kurzer Vermerk im Fahrtenbuch". Detours must be recorded.

Prefer to keep it by hand? A blank log with these fields: CSV · PDF.

What form the records may take

Kept "zeitnah und in geschlossener Form", and the entries must "die Fahrten einschließlich des an ihrem Ende erreichten Gesamtkilometerstandes vollständig und in ihrem fortlaufenden Zusammenhang wiedergeben" — one unbroken chain, private trips included. This is case law, not the LStR text: BFH 09.11.2005 – VI R 27/05, restated in H 8.1 (9-10) LStH and, in these words, in BMF 18.11.2009 Rz. 24.
Electronic logbooks: R 8.1 Abs. 9 Nr. 2 Satz 6 LStR allows one "wenn sich daraus dieselben Erkenntnisse wie aus einem manuell geführten Fahrtenbuch gewinnen lassen und nachträgliche Veränderungen der aufgezeichneten Angaben technisch ausgeschlossen oder dokumentiert werden"; BMF 03.03.2022 Rz. 28 says "technisch ausgeschlossen, zumindest aber dokumentiert werden". Documented in the exported file — the record has to stand on its own without querying whoever administers the system (BFH 12.01.2024 – VI B 37/23).
The seven-day rule is the tax administration's, not a court's. BMF 03.03.2022 Rz. 29 treats an automatically captured logbook as "zeitnah" where the driver enters Reisezweck and aufgesuchte Geschäftspartner "innerhalb eines Zeitraums von bis zu sieben Kalendertagen nach Abschluss der jeweiligen Fahrt". FG Niedersachsen 23.01.2019 – 3 K 107/18 did not accept a GPS logbook: its Leitsatz is that automatic capture of the routes is not enough, the purposes must be entered promptly as well, and it rejected the logbook.
BFH 10.04.2008 – VI R 38/06: minor deficiencies alone do not invalidate a logbook.

How long to keep them

Ten years for the logbook itself, from the end of the calendar year of the last entry — AO § 147 Abs. 3 S. 1 and Abs. 4 — and six years for the employer's Lohnkonto under § 41 Abs. 1 S. 9 EStG. The widely-reported shortening to eight years does not reach a Fahrtenbuch. The Viertes Bürokratieentlastungsgesetz (BGBl. 2024 I Nr. 323), in force 1 Jan 2025, cut only Buchungsbelege (Abs. 1 Nr. 4) to eight; a Fahrtenbuch is an Aufzeichnung under Nr. 1 and stayed at ten. Anyone who reads the news and shortens their logbook retention is wrong by two years. The period also does not expire while the assessment window is open (Abs. 3 S. 5). Electronically, AO § 147 Abs. 2 Nr. 2 wants the record "maschinell ausgewertet werden" throughout — so a PDF alone does not satisfy German retention; the machine-readable export has to survive beside it. Failure is both a Schätzung (§ 162 Abs. 2 S. 2) and a fine up to €25 000 (§ 379 Abs. 1 Nr. 7, Abs. 6), on top of losing the logbook and falling to the 1 % method.

What it costs to get wrong

The tax office reverts to the 1 % / 0,03 % method, usually far more expensive. And it is not per trip: a break in the chain invalidates the logbook for the entire year.

Where this comes from

The requirements above are quoted from the Bundesministerium der Finanzen. DriveHub re-checks these, and the rate, against the authority's own pages; this page is built from that record.

DriveHub records this automatically. It tracks each drive in the background and keeps the start and end, the distance and the route. Tracking and the missing-drive check are free; the report in the shape a tax office expects is part of DriveHub Pro.