Germany

Driving bans in Germany 2026

In the calendar on pages 8 to 31 you will find the general driving bans in the individual European countries entered with the respective nationality code. Please also bear in mind that, in addition to the various restrictions during the main holiday periods, there are many regions and routes with additional driving bans. This applies in particular to the transport of dangerous goods.

Therefore our recommendation: For your individual trip planning, obtain detailed information on locally or temporally restricted driving bans from the respective national transport associations. Addresses, telephone and fax numbers as well as email addresses can be found in our Driver App (www.fahrer-app.de). Information is also provided by associations for freight transport and logistics and by forwarding companies.

On 4 July, Germany’s HGV holiday driving ban begins. Up to and including 29 August, trucks over 7.5 t as well as trucks with trailers are not permitted on particularly busy motorway sections on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. A detailed list of the affected routes can be found on pages 36/37. In addition, a general driving ban applies to the entire German road network. On Sundays and public holidays from 0 to 22 hours, trucks with a permissible gross weight over 7.5 t and trailers behind trucks may not operate. The period from 22 to 24 hours is not covered by the driving ban. This also applies when several Sundays and public holidays follow one another.

Public holidays in the above sense are New Year’s Day (1 January), Good Friday (3 April), Easter Sunday (5 April), Easter Monday (6 April), Labour Day (1 May), Ascension Day (14 May), Whit Sunday (24 May), Whit Monday (25 May), Corpus Christi (4 June – applies only to Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland), Day of German Unity (3 October), Reformation Day (31 October – applies only to Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia). All Saints’ Day (1 November – applies only to Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland), first and second Christmas Day (25 and 26 December).

On all other holidays, such as Epiphany (6 January), International Women’s Day (8 March), Assumption Day (15 August), International Children’s Day (20 September) and Day of Repentance and Prayer (18 November), there is no driving ban.

Driving ban on Sundays, public holidays and holiday periods for:

• Trucks with a permissible gross weight over 7.5 t
• Articulated vehicles (tractor unit with semi-trailer) with a permissible gross weight over 7.5 t
• Combinations of the type of articulated vehicles with a permissible gross weight over 7.5 t
• Motor vehicles for transporting swap bodies (also without swap body)
• Trucks with trailers

The ban applies to all trailers (including caravans!) behind trucks regardless of the towing vehicle’s weight. Motorhomes are not trucks.

No driving ban on Sundays, public holidays and holiday periods for:

• combined rail/road freight transport from the consignor to the nearest suitable loading rail station (pre-carriage) or from the nearest suitable unloading rail station to the consignee (on-carriage), but only up to 200 kilometers. The kilometer limit does not apply to the holiday driving ban.
• combined port/road freight transport between the loading or unloading site and a port which must be located within a radius of 150 km (delivery or collection). The kilometer limit also applies to the holiday driving ban.

No driving ban for the transport of:

• fresh milk and fresh dairy products (raw milk, long-life milk, sour-milk, yoghurt, kefir, buttermilk, cream and mixed milk products)
• fresh meat and fresh meat products (including sausage and minced meat, but no live animals and fresh animal blood)
• fresh / live fish and fresh fish products
• fruit and vegetables as well as early potatoes (table potatoes loaded immediately after their harvest in the period from 1 January to 10 August).

Sunday driving ban: Fruit juices, fruit concentrates, fruit purée, fruit pulp and fruit mash are not to be classified as highly perishable, provided they are transported properly. Loading of other goods up to a maximum of 10 percent of the loading volume is permitted! Empty runs in connection with the transport of the above-mentioned goods are permitted.

Furthermore, the following may operate:

• solo tractor units
• tractor units with auxiliary loading platform whose payload does not exceed 0.4 times the permissible gross weight
• motor vehicles in which the transported items form part of the inventory (e.g. fire service, vehicles of civil protection, postal, radio and telecommunications vehicles, workshop as well as sales and exhibition vehicles)
• self-propelled working machines, e.g. tow trucks, excavators, road rollers, road sweepers
• vehicles of the public authorities’ road winter service
• vehicles requisitioned for trips under the Federal Performance Act (the requisition order must be carried)
• vehicles of commercial transport companies commissioned by the Bundeswehr in urgent cases. A corresponding certificate must be carried.

The Sunday and public holiday driving ban applies to foreign vehicles to the same extent.

Anyone who violates the Sunday and public holiday driving ban must expect a fine of 120 euros (driver) and 570 euros (vehicle owner). In addition, continuation of the journey may be prohibited.

New regulations are issued for public holidays at irregular intervals. Current information is available at the nearest police station.

Road detour map

For carriers, the holiday driving ban entails considerable cuts in their route planning. The Federal Association of Road Haulage, Logistics and Disposal (BGL) has therefore compiled the affected road sections in a map and provided them with alternative routes coordinated with the regional road construction authorities. In addition, the detour map contains the truck driving bans of neighboring countries in July and August as well as an overview of congestion-prone motorway sections during the holiday period in Germany. The map can be obtained from the BGL.

Driving bans during the holiday period on the following routes (motorways and federal highways in both directions):

A 1 

from the motorway triangle Erfttal via the motorway interchange Leverkusen-West, Wuppertal, Kamener Kreuz, Münster to the Lohne/Dinklage junction

A 2 

From the motorway interchange Oberhausen to the motorway interchange Bad Oeynhausen

A 3 

motorway interchange Oberhausen to motorway interchange Cologne-East; from the Mönchhof
triangle via the Frankfurt interchange to the motorway interchange Nuremberg

A 4

From the Kirchheim triangle to the Thuringia state border near Herleshausen

A 5

From the Hattenbach triangle to Bad Homburg interchange, from Darmstadt interchange to Karlsruhe-Süd junction and from the Offenburg junction to the Neuenburg motorway triangle

A 6

From the Schwetzingen-Hockenheim junction to the Nuremberg-South motorway interchange            

A 7

From the Schleswig/Jagel junction to the Bordesholm motorway triangle; from the Soltau-Süd junction to the Göttingen-Nord junction;

from the Schweinfurt/Werneck motorway triangle via the Biebelried motorway interchange; Ulm/Elchingen motorway interchange and Allgäu motorway triangle to the end of the motorway at the national border at Füssen

A 8

From the Karlsruhe motorway triangle to the Munich-Obermenzing junction and from the Munich-Ramersdorf junction to the Bad Reichenhall junction

A 9/E 51

Berlin Ring (Leipzig spur/Potsdam motorway triangle) to the Munich-Schwabing junction

A 10

Berlin Ring, from the Werder motorway triangle via the Potsdam-Nord junction to the Berlin-Spandau junction

A 45

From the Dortmund-Süd junction via Westhofener Kreuz
and Gambacher Kreuz to Seligenstädter Dreieck

A 61

motorway interchange Meckenheim via motorway interchange Koblenz to motorway triangle Hockenheim

A 81

From the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen junction to the Gärtringen junction

A 92

Munich-Feldmoching motorway triangle to the Oberschleißheim junction and from the Neufahrn motorway interchange to the Erding junction

A 93

Inntal motorway triangle to the Reischenhart junction

A 99

Munich South-West motorway triangle via Munich-West interchange;

Munich-Allach motorway triangle; Munich-Feldmoching triangle;

Munich-North interchange; Munich-East interchange; Munich South interchange as well as Munich-Eschenried triangle

A 831

Stuttgart-Vaihingen junction to Stuttgart interchange

A 980

Allgäu motorway interchange to the Waltenhofen junction

A 995

Sauerlach junction to Munich South interchange

B 31

From the Stockach-Ost junction of the A 98 to the Sigmarszell junction of the A 96

B 96/E 251

Neubrandenburg Ring to Berlin

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Source: Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport

Federal Association of Road Haulage, Logistics and Disposal (BGL) e.V.
Breitenbachstr. 1, 60487 Frankfurt/M.
Tel. 069 7919-0, Fax 069 7919-227
bgl@bgl-ev.de

DSLV Federal Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics e.V.
Friedrichstr. 155-156, Unter den Linden 24, 10117 Berlin
Tel. 030 4050228-0, Fax 030 4050228-88
info@dslv.spediteure.de