What your records have to contain to survive a check by Bundesministerium der Finanzen; the operative text is an administrative guideline, not the statute, and the rate DriveHub applies.
€0.30 per km
In force 2014-01-01 onwards.
§ 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.
"Datum und Kilometerstand zu Beginn und Ende jeder einzelnen beruflich veranlassten Fahrt, Reiseziel, Reisezweck und aufgesuchte Geschäftspartner."
Private trips: "Kilometerangaben" only. Home↔first workplace: "jeweils ein kurzer Vermerk im Fahrtenbuch". Detours must be recorded.
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.
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.
The requirements above are quoted from Germany's own tax authority. DriveHub keeps them, and the rate, under version control and re-checks them against the authority's pages — this page is generated from that record, not written separately from it.
DriveHub records this automatically. It tracks each drive in the background, keeps the start and end, the distance and the route, and exports a report in the shape a tax office expects.