Germany: visa and entry rules

Germany's borders: every crossing point

All nine of Germany's land neighbours are in the Schengen area: Poland, Czechia, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark.

There is no permanent border control between them, but Germany has brought back spot checks on a number of routes - above all on the Polish and Austrian borders. Carry your documents with you.

By sea there are ferries to Scandinavia - from Rostock and Kiel to Denmark and Sweden.

Bringing a car into Germany

The practical option is to rent a car once you are in Europe, or to arrive in a vehicle registered in a country that is not covered by any entry restriction.

An International Driving Permit is needed only if your licence was issued outside the EU and the EEA; a licence from an EU or EEA country is valid as it is.

A Green Card is compulsory for foreign-registered vehicles.

Travelling to Germany with a pet

The rules are the same across the whole EU.

An ISO-standard microchip is compulsory, and it has to be implanted BEFORE the rabies vaccination - otherwise the vaccination does not count. This requirement really is enforced here, unlike in many countries outside the EU.

Rabies vaccination - not before 12 weeks of age, and 21 days must pass between the vaccination and entry.

A rabies antibody titre test is required only for pets from a country not on the EU's approved list. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK are on the list, so this does not apply to pets travelling from those countries; Russia is one of the countries it does apply to. Blood is taken no earlier than 30 days after the vaccination, and after the test there is a three-month wait before entry.

An EU veterinary certificate is required, issued by the state veterinary service.

No more than five animals per person without commercial paperwork.

Overstaying your visa in Germany

A Schengen overstay is recorded across the whole area - it makes no difference which country you stayed on in.

The main consequence is a refusal of your next visa. The record of the violation stays in the system, and getting a Schengen visa afterwards becomes considerably harder.

An entry ban is applied for a substantial overstay and covers the entire area at once.

All the countries have to be counted together. The typical mistake is to count the days for each country separately; there is a single counter for the whole Schengen area.