German driving License and Tips for buying cars in Germany
Being a new expat, it is always tricky to get to know the rules and the paper works needed to obtain a German driving license.
In this blog, I will try to put all the points together starting from registering for a driving license to until buying a car in Germany. If any other points are being missed, please feel free to mention in the comments. So that this would be useful for me and also for other readers as well.
The requirements to obtain a German driving license differs from the country where you are from. The legal age to drive in Germany is 17 years. However, you need to be under a company of an adult until you reach the age of 18. The accompained person should be minimum 30 years of age and they should have had the license for minimum of 5 years. So, you can start your driving license process, when you are 16.5 years, so that you can drive on the road exactly on your 17th birthday with a company in the car.
If we have a license out of Europe, the we could use them for the first 6 months to drive the cars in germany. In the meantime, the license needs to be changed to a German one. The driving license from other EU countries can drive with their license or change them to the German license without any exams (depends on the country of origin).
1. Registering for the German driving License
2. Theoretical Exam
3. Practical Exam
3.1 Tips for the Practical Exam
4. Tips for buying a car
4.1 Buying a new car
4.2 Buying an used car
5. Obtaining a car insurance
6. Disclaimer
7. References
In order to register for the driving license in Germany, you need to do the eye test and the first-aid course. The eye test can be done at any opticals at a cost of around 10€. The first-aid course is for about 8 hours and you have to register in advance for that. This is also conducted on Saturdays (might be beneficial for the working people). This might cost around 40€. Some driving schools provides the voucher for the first-aid course. Hence, before doing the first-aid course, I would recommend to go to the driving school and check if you can avail some vouchers.
Once you have done both the eye test and the first-aid course, you can go to any driving school and register yourself for the driving license with your basic identity (Passport and visa) proof documents. The drivig school will provide a paper along with the seal and signature of the driving school. After that you need to register yourself in the Führerscheinstelle with the paper provided by the driving school. Some driving school does this registration in the Führerscheinstelle themselves at some minimal cost.
If you are trying to rewrite (umschreibung) the license from other countries, then you also need to carry the officially German translated (beglaubigte übersetzung) copy of the old license as well.
If you are a very professional driver in another country, then there are also possiblities to obtain the driving license without registering in a driving school. But it is tedious process which I would not recommend.
Theory tests is all about understanding and memorizing the given questions. Totally there are around 1000 questions available as mobile app or online website and the exam will be conducted exactly from the given questions. The theoretical exam is currently available in 12 languages (Englisch, Französisch, Griechisch, Hocharabisch, Italienisch, Kroatisch, Polnisch, Portugiesisch, Rumänisch, Russisch, Spanisch und Türkisch). Please make sure to decide the language while registering for the theoretical exam itself.
The time required for the preparation depends on an individual how good you are at memorizing things. One need not understand each and every questions. Of course, one needs to understand the symbols and some main information. For the practical driving, we might need to understand only around 50% of the given questions and the chances are high that we might forget the remaining questions after the exam. So, you could memorize the questions (not every questions) and easily get through the exam.
There are several apps available on the market. They all have the same content but in different order or formats. So, you need not think too much about choosing the app. May be you could ask your colleagues / friends, what they have used and decide the app by yourselves. At times driving schools also provide their own apps as well. I would not recommend buying the book for the theory exams.
The practical exam will be conducted on the road. Your driving teacher and the examiner will accompany you during the exam. The exam duration is about 45 minutes to 1 Hour depending on the examiner.
During the exam, you need to drive in the city (30 Zone and 50 Zone), State highway (Bundesstraße) with maximum speed of 100Km/h. and the National Highway (Autobahn). The exam also contains the parking, which is also considered as an important part in the exam. Depends on the examiner, you will be insisted do a road-side parking (parallel parking) and/or Reverse parking. Reverse parking is that you might be taken to a supermarket or to a parking lot and you need to park your car reversly among other cars For both the parking, you have in total of 3 attempts, if you cannot park correctly in the given attempts, then you will NOT get the license.
As a part of the exam, you might also be asked to perform an Emergency braking (Not Bremse). This is performed in order to check, if you are able to react in an emergency situation.
1. During the exam, the examiner will guide you where to drive. You need to keep driving straight, if a road is getting divided into 2 (one straight & second towards right or left), keep driving straight unless instructor asks you to deviate. In the 30 Zones, some roads might be one way roads(Einbahnstraße) and you are NOT allowed to enter from other side. In that case, the examiner might not tell you to turn right or left, you need to stop and tell the examiner saying that you are not supposed to drive straight, where should I turn ? Then the examiner will be happy that you are also following the road signs.
2. Even if you are an experienced driver, they expect you to turn your head and look into the two side mirros and the rear-view mirror. Yes, you need to turn your head, because the examiner will be sitting on the back seat, if you rotate only your eyes then the examiner will not get to know that your are actually looking into the mirrors. The main reason that you are expected to look into the mirror is that, you need to be informed about the vehicles on the road (on the side and back of your car). This will make you to react faster, if anything unexpected happens.
3. In the 30 Zones, "Right Before Left" rules applies ALWAYS. It means that, the car right to you has the priority, so you need to stop and let them go. Even if no other car comes right to you, the examiner needs to see that you are turning and looking to your right and you are ready to break, if any vehicle comes from your right.
In the real-driving scenarios, I would suggest to look into both the left and right sides. There are chances that the vehicle left to you oversees your car which in turn might lead to accident. It is always expected that we are ready to react for other drivers mistake on the road.
4. When merging into the Highways (Autobahns), you need to drive at least half of the merging distance before entering the highway though there are no vehicles going on highway. This merging road is called Beschleunigungsspur in German.
5. If there is a STOP symbol, you need to 100% come to stop, even when no other vehicles on the road.
6. When entering into the round-about (Kreisverkehr), you need to look into your left side for the incoming cars. When exiting (NOT when entering) the roundabout, you MUST turn on the indicator. This also a sign for the other drivers, who are waiting to enter the round-about.
7. If you see a pedestrian cross, you need to turn your head to the left and right, you should start driving only after making sure that no one is waiting to enter the crossing. If you drive, when someone is trying to enter the pedestrian cross, your exam will end immediately and you will be failed.
8. If it rains, you must turn on the wiper. In that time, you should NOT be searching for the wiper button.
9. At last while coming out of the car after the exam, you MUST look in the left side rear mirror, turn and see the blind spot and then open the door. If you did NOT do this, this might also be a reason for failing in the exam.
Before buying a car, based on your budget you need to decide, if you are planning to buy an used or a new car. Added to that you also need to decide the following factors:
1. Car Brand (Mercedes Benz, Audi, BMW, VW, Skoda, Opel, etc.)
2. Fuel Type (Petrol or Diesel)
3. Car's Power (For Eg. 150PS)
4. Car Type (defines the rear end of the car - Combi, Limousine, SUV, etc. )
Limousine Combi
New cars can be purchased from the showroom either by ordering the car by making an exact configuration that we require or you could also buy the car that is readily available in showrooms. It does not make any difference which one you buy.
An another possibility to buy a new car is buying an "EU Imported Cars". The service partners in Germany, imports the newly manufactured cars from countries like Poland, Romainia, etc and sell them in Germany. These cars are generally cheaper (around 20%) than buying a German made cars.
1. Need to verify if it is “Scheckheftgepflegt”. Scheckheft is a document, where it is completely mentioned about all the services (oil, filter, etc.) that is carried out for that car. From that, you could find if the car was serviced regularly or not. Thereby you could decide, how good the car has been maintained. Sometimes they just get the Seal (Stempel) from some Werkstatt without actually doing some service, so you need to also check the additional things like: zahnriemen, tires, rust in exhaust or underbody, gear shifting is smooth or catchy, clutch engagement is smooth or biting, brake disc and pad wears, stc.
2. The cars which are recommended /not recommended to be bought as an used cars can be referred here: (mängelzwerge = recommended, mängelriesen = not recommended). This report is from TÜV for 2017. You could refer to the latest one by looking at the latest one from TÜV website.
3. Added to the report from TÜV, you could also refer to the "Gebrauchtswagen report" (used vehicle report) from Dekra here.
4. ADAC collects the history of vehicles that has undergone certain number of breakdowns (Pannehilfe). Before deciding a car, you could also take a look at this breakdown history for that particular car model. If a particular car model had more number of breakdowns, then as a result of that your insurance price will also be increased. So, lesser the car's brekdown history, lesser the insurance amount. The insurance amount also depends on several factors. They can be referred here.
5. Mileage: It depends on whether it is diesel or petrol car. If it’s diesel, even 150,000 kms can be fine (although diesel particle filter may have to be changed) and petrol upto 110,000 kms should be fine to purchase. But again depends on the first registration date and in which trips (‘strecke’) those kms were driven. If all those kms were mostly driven within short distance(within city or max of less than 10 kms) then I would not recommend it. But if those kms are mostly from autobahn it should be ok. Also driven kms is proportional to buying price.
There are several insurance providers. You could choose them from the websites like Check24.de. The following are the factors deciding your insurance amount:
1. Car's first registration (Older the car, higher the insurance amount)
2. Car's manufacturing year
3. Mileage (Kilometers driven)
4. Fuel Type (Petrol or Diesel)
5. Whether this particular car model had more number of breakdowns in the previous years
6. How long you possess the German driving license ? The first 2 years is always the probationary period. Hence the insurance amount will be higher. The probationary differs, if you already holded a license from foreign country for more than three years. But NOT all the insurance providers accept the license period from abroad countries.
The above-mentioned informations are purely from my own experiences. Since the procedure might change anytime, I do not guarantee for the correctness of the information.
1. https://www.tuev-sued.de/fuehrerschein_pruefung/die_fuehrerscheinpruefung/die_theoretische_pruefung_vorbereiten
In this blog, I will try to put all the points together starting from registering for a driving license to until buying a car in Germany. If any other points are being missed, please feel free to mention in the comments. So that this would be useful for me and also for other readers as well.
The requirements to obtain a German driving license differs from the country where you are from. The legal age to drive in Germany is 17 years. However, you need to be under a company of an adult until you reach the age of 18. The accompained person should be minimum 30 years of age and they should have had the license for minimum of 5 years. So, you can start your driving license process, when you are 16.5 years, so that you can drive on the road exactly on your 17th birthday with a company in the car.
If we have a license out of Europe, the we could use them for the first 6 months to drive the cars in germany. In the meantime, the license needs to be changed to a German one. The driving license from other EU countries can drive with their license or change them to the German license without any exams (depends on the country of origin).
1. Registering for the German driving License
2. Theoretical Exam
3. Practical Exam
3.1 Tips for the Practical Exam
4. Tips for buying a car
4.1 Buying a new car
4.2 Buying an used car
5. Obtaining a car insurance
6. Disclaimer
7. References
1. Registering for the German driving License
Once you have done both the eye test and the first-aid course, you can go to any driving school and register yourself for the driving license with your basic identity (Passport and visa) proof documents. The drivig school will provide a paper along with the seal and signature of the driving school. After that you need to register yourself in the Führerscheinstelle with the paper provided by the driving school. Some driving school does this registration in the Führerscheinstelle themselves at some minimal cost.
If you are trying to rewrite (umschreibung) the license from other countries, then you also need to carry the officially German translated (beglaubigte übersetzung) copy of the old license as well.
If you are a very professional driver in another country, then there are also possiblities to obtain the driving license without registering in a driving school. But it is tedious process which I would not recommend.
2. Theoretical Exam
The time required for the preparation depends on an individual how good you are at memorizing things. One need not understand each and every questions. Of course, one needs to understand the symbols and some main information. For the practical driving, we might need to understand only around 50% of the given questions and the chances are high that we might forget the remaining questions after the exam. So, you could memorize the questions (not every questions) and easily get through the exam.
There are several apps available on the market. They all have the same content but in different order or formats. So, you need not think too much about choosing the app. May be you could ask your colleagues / friends, what they have used and decide the app by yourselves. At times driving schools also provide their own apps as well. I would not recommend buying the book for the theory exams.
3. Practical Exam
During the exam, you need to drive in the city (30 Zone and 50 Zone), State highway (Bundesstraße) with maximum speed of 100Km/h. and the National Highway (Autobahn). The exam also contains the parking, which is also considered as an important part in the exam. Depends on the examiner, you will be insisted do a road-side parking (parallel parking) and/or Reverse parking. Reverse parking is that you might be taken to a supermarket or to a parking lot and you need to park your car reversly among other cars For both the parking, you have in total of 3 attempts, if you cannot park correctly in the given attempts, then you will NOT get the license.
As a part of the exam, you might also be asked to perform an Emergency braking (Not Bremse). This is performed in order to check, if you are able to react in an emergency situation.
3.1 Tips for the Practical Exam
2. Even if you are an experienced driver, they expect you to turn your head and look into the two side mirros and the rear-view mirror. Yes, you need to turn your head, because the examiner will be sitting on the back seat, if you rotate only your eyes then the examiner will not get to know that your are actually looking into the mirrors. The main reason that you are expected to look into the mirror is that, you need to be informed about the vehicles on the road (on the side and back of your car). This will make you to react faster, if anything unexpected happens.
3. In the 30 Zones, "Right Before Left" rules applies ALWAYS. It means that, the car right to you has the priority, so you need to stop and let them go. Even if no other car comes right to you, the examiner needs to see that you are turning and looking to your right and you are ready to break, if any vehicle comes from your right.
In the real-driving scenarios, I would suggest to look into both the left and right sides. There are chances that the vehicle left to you oversees your car which in turn might lead to accident. It is always expected that we are ready to react for other drivers mistake on the road.
4. When merging into the Highways (Autobahns), you need to drive at least half of the merging distance before entering the highway though there are no vehicles going on highway. This merging road is called Beschleunigungsspur in German.
5. If there is a STOP symbol, you need to 100% come to stop, even when no other vehicles on the road.
6. When entering into the round-about (Kreisverkehr), you need to look into your left side for the incoming cars. When exiting (NOT when entering) the roundabout, you MUST turn on the indicator. This also a sign for the other drivers, who are waiting to enter the round-about.
7. If you see a pedestrian cross, you need to turn your head to the left and right, you should start driving only after making sure that no one is waiting to enter the crossing. If you drive, when someone is trying to enter the pedestrian cross, your exam will end immediately and you will be failed.
8. If it rains, you must turn on the wiper. In that time, you should NOT be searching for the wiper button.
9. At last while coming out of the car after the exam, you MUST look in the left side rear mirror, turn and see the blind spot and then open the door. If you did NOT do this, this might also be a reason for failing in the exam.
4. Tips for buying a car
1. Car Brand (Mercedes Benz, Audi, BMW, VW, Skoda, Opel, etc.)
2. Fuel Type (Petrol or Diesel)
3. Car's Power (For Eg. 150PS)
4. Car Type (defines the rear end of the car - Combi, Limousine, SUV, etc. )
Limousine Combi
4.1 Buying a new car
An another possibility to buy a new car is buying an "EU Imported Cars". The service partners in Germany, imports the newly manufactured cars from countries like Poland, Romainia, etc and sell them in Germany. These cars are generally cheaper (around 20%) than buying a German made cars.
4.2 Buying an used car
2. The cars which are recommended /not recommended to be bought as an used cars can be referred here: (mängelzwerge = recommended, mängelriesen = not recommended). This report is from TÜV for 2017. You could refer to the latest one by looking at the latest one from TÜV website.
3. Added to the report from TÜV, you could also refer to the "Gebrauchtswagen report" (used vehicle report) from Dekra here.
4. ADAC collects the history of vehicles that has undergone certain number of breakdowns (Pannehilfe). Before deciding a car, you could also take a look at this breakdown history for that particular car model. If a particular car model had more number of breakdowns, then as a result of that your insurance price will also be increased. So, lesser the car's brekdown history, lesser the insurance amount. The insurance amount also depends on several factors. They can be referred here.
5. Mileage: It depends on whether it is diesel or petrol car. If it’s diesel, even 150,000 kms can be fine (although diesel particle filter may have to be changed) and petrol upto 110,000 kms should be fine to purchase. But again depends on the first registration date and in which trips (‘strecke’) those kms were driven. If all those kms were mostly driven within short distance(within city or max of less than 10 kms) then I would not recommend it. But if those kms are mostly from autobahn it should be ok. Also driven kms is proportional to buying price.
5. Obtaining a car insurance
1. Car's first registration (Older the car, higher the insurance amount)
2. Car's manufacturing year
3. Mileage (Kilometers driven)
4. Fuel Type (Petrol or Diesel)
5. Whether this particular car model had more number of breakdowns in the previous years
6. How long you possess the German driving license ? The first 2 years is always the probationary period. Hence the insurance amount will be higher. The probationary differs, if you already holded a license from foreign country for more than three years. But NOT all the insurance providers accept the license period from abroad countries.
