Information on CBE service delivery Germany

Functional contact: zevis.online@kba.de
Technical contact: zevis.online@kba.de

Main characteristics of the German vehicle register:

  • In Germany the license plate is registered to the holder to be used with a specific vehicle.
  • If the holder of a registered vehicle changes, what will happen to the license plate depends on the question if the new holder is located in the same German Bundesland (state) as the old holder:
    – If the new holder is located in the same Bundesland: he can choose to keep the old license plate or he can choose to get a new one.
    – If the new holder is located in a different Bundesland: the new holder has to get a new license plate.
  • If the vehicle is de-registered the license plate can be assigned to another vehicle. However the old holder may – for a certain period of time –make a reservation on the old license plate.
  • Germany has a special type of license plate that consists of two parts – one of them is removable, the other one is solid. These are so called Wechselkennzeichen (transferable plates). The removable/flexible part can belong to two vehicles. The fixed part always remains with only one vehicle. However these license plates are not very common in Germany.
  • The German license plates have some sort of region code and is always arranged in the following way:
    – The code or district number (Unterscheidungszeichen), i.e. one to three letters indicating the district or special combinations such as BD for parliament (Bundestag) vehicles or 0 for diplomatic vehicle.
    In the district number so called Umlaute – that means Ü,Ä,Ö might appear. These Umlaute have to be put into a search. If you instead enter U, A, O, UE, AE, OE you will get an incorrect result.
    – The serial number (Erkennungsnummer), i.e. one or two letters plus one to four digits.
  • Basically all types of vehicles except for military vehicles (they are registered in a different register) and modern bikes like Pedelecs (not registered at all) are stored in the German register.
  • Historic data concerning vehicles, holders and insurance information is available in the German register.
  • If license plates or vehicles are stolen we return code 111. (INFORMATION NOT DISCLOSED).

Additional Information:

  • A German CBEMultipleOHByRegNumAndDate request message will contain a maximum of 500 request ID’s.
  • The frequency for sending CBEMultipleOHByRegNumAndDate requests depends on the German users. The system is capable to send these requests several times per day. However in the beginning a high demand from German users is not expected.
  • The mean response time of a CBEMultipleOHByRegNumAndDate-message will be minutes.
  • Germany has not scheduled a time frame. Multiple and single requests and responses will be sent several times during the day. Depending on the amount of requests and responses Germany will adapt its procedures. Their system is designed to react to a growing demand.
  • Germany has roughly estimated to send 50.000 CBE messages in the first year. This number will grow as more and more German authorities will use the CBE service.
  • Germany will be using all of the codes of traffic offences during the forthcoming exchange of information regarding the CBE Directive.

Data Overview (Restricted access)