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Caravan rules in Germany

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The whole holiday, night by night

Tell us where you're going. We split the drive into daily legs and find somewhere to sleep every evening.

  • Legs that fit your driving time
  • A campsite or aire every night
  • Rules and size limits for every country
Trip settings
2 h8 h14 h
days

Saved and shown while you navigate. Campeur does not route by them, but warns when your rig exceeds the limits of the country you enter. Weight is shown only: no country in our material sets a weight limit that binds a private rig.

Improve the map

Every pin and road here comes from OpenStreetMap — a free, open map that anyone can edit. If an aire, campsite or dump station is missing, wrong or has closed, you can fix it, and the change flows back here at the next data update. Here's how.

! Quickest: leave a Note

  1. Open openstreetmap.org and find the spot.
  2. Click the speech-bubble icon (right toolbar) to add a Note — no account needed.
  3. Describe what's wrong or missing (e.g. "dump station here, 3 €") and post it. A local mapper picks it up.

✎ Edit it yourself

  1. Create a free account on openstreetmap.org.
  2. Find the place, click Edit — the beginner-friendly iD editor opens in the browser.
  3. Drop a point and pick a preset: Caravan/RV Site, Campsite or Sanitary Dump Station.
  4. Fill in what you know — name, fee, capacity, opening hours, whether there's a dump station.
  5. Save with a short comment (e.g. "added aire, visited July 2026").

Useful for campers

  • Aire / stopover — tourism=caravan_site
  • Campsite — tourism=camp_site
  • Dump station — amenity=sanitary_dump_station
  • Fee — fee=yes/no, charge=…
  • Access / barriers — a closed barrier=gate or access=private tells others whether they can drive in.

Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors. State-subsidised road network (Sweden): © Trafikverket (NVDB), NetInfo WMS. Country polygons: Natural Earth. Routing via FOSSGIS (OSRM/Valhalla). Guidance only, not legal advice.

Towing a caravan in Germany

Germany has no general motorway speed limit, which makes it easy to forget that a car with a trailer has one everywhere — and that the exemption everyone talks about is a German registration matter, not a driving licence you bring with you.

The limits

  • Inside built-up areas: 50 km/h for all motor vehicles.
  • Outside built-up areas: 80 km/h for a car with a trailer, and for a lorry or motorhome up to 3.5 t with a trailer. The 100 km/h that applies to cars and other vehicles up to 3.5 t is for driving without a trailer.
  • On Autobahnen, and on Kraftfahrstraßen with carriageways separated for each direction: 80 km/h for a car with a trailer.
  • With snow chains fitted: 50 km/h, everywhere.
  • If fog, snowfall or rain brings visibility below 50 m: 50 km/h at most, and less where conditions demand it.

Source: StVO § 3 and StVO § 18, read 11 August 2026.

Whether you may use the Autobahn at all

Autobahnen and Kraftfahrstraßen may only be used by motor vehicles whose design speed exceeds 60 km/h, and when a trailer is taken along the same applies to the trailer. Vehicle and load together may not be higher than 4 m or wider than 2.55 m. Reversing and turning are forbidden, and so is stopping — including on the hard shoulder.

Source: StVO § 18 (1), (7), (8), read 11 August 2026.

Tempo 100, and why it is probably not yours

The 9th Exemption Ordinance to the StVO raises the combination limit to 100 km/h on Autobahnen and Kraftfahrstraßen, but only when every one of these holds:

  • The towing vehicle has ABS.
  • The trailer’s permitted mass is at most X times the towing vehicle’s unladen mass, where X = 0.3 for unbraked trailers and for braked trailers without hydraulic dampers, X = 0.8 for caravans with a rigid body and hydraulic dampers, and X = 1.1 for other trailers with hydraulic dampers. X rises to 1.0 and 1.2 respectively for trailers meeting § 30a (2) StVZO fitted with a stabilising coupling to ISO 11555-1 or another component proven to improve the combination up to 120 km/h. In every case the trailer’s permitted mass may not exceed the towing vehicle’s permitted mass or the permitted towing capacity.
  • The competent lower administrative authority has certified the 100 km/h in the trailer’s papers.
  • The sealed Tempo-100 plate issued by that authority is fixed to the rear of the trailer.

Every one of those steps runs through German vehicle papers and a plate issued by a German authority, and the ordinance names no foreign equivalent. That the silence is deliberate is easier to believe next to the ordinance for motorhomes below, which does address foreign registration in its own § 2. So Campeur plans Germany at 80 km/h. If a caravan registered outside Germany can lawfully be granted Tempo 100, we have not found the provision that says so, and we would like to be shown it.

Source: 9. Ausnahmeverordnung zur StVO, § 1. Version in force when read on 11 August 2026: last amended by Article 2 of the ordinance of 19 December 2025, BGBl. 2025 I Nr. 382.

Motorhomes over 3.5 t

A motorhome over 3.5 t and up to 7.5 t, described as a Wohnmobil in the vehicle document, may drive 100 km/h on Autobahnen and Kraftfahrstraßen instead of the 80 that would otherwise apply. This one does cover foreign vehicles: where a motorhome is registered abroad, its papers must show unambiguously that 7.5 t is not exceeded.

Source: 12. Ausnahmeverordnung zur StVO, §§ 1–2. Version in force when read on 11 August 2026: last amended 26 October 2009.

The figures above come from the federal statutes as published and are dated, but Campeur is not a legal source and rules change. Check the signs and the version in force before you drive. Found a mistake, or do you have the link to the text in force? Send it to kontakt@campeur.eu and the page will be corrected.