Vehicle tax for this trailer comes to:
0,00 €Weight is the only thing that counts here: €7.46 for every started 200 kg, and never more than €373.24 in a year. Some trailers need no registration at all, and those pay nothing.
Trailers are the one category where German vehicle tax is genuinely simple. Weight decides everything: €7.46 for every started 200 kg, and never more than €373.24 a year. Age, construction, number of axles and the vehicle pulling it make no difference to the amount. What they can change is whether the trailer has to be registered at all, and a trailer that needs no registration raises no tax.
The permitted gross weight from field F.2 of the registration certificate Part I (Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I), not the empty weight and not the payload. On a semi-trailer, deduct the load resting on the tractor unit first; on a rigid-drawbar or centre-axle trailer, deduct the nose weight on the coupling.
What weight costs
| Permitted gross weight | Started 200 kg | Annual tax | Charged |
|---|---|---|---|
| 300 kg | 2 | €14.92 | €14 |
| 500 kg | 3 | €22.38 | €22 |
| 750 kg | 4 | €29.84 | €29 |
| 1,000 kg | 5 | €37.30 | €37 |
| 1,300 kg | 7 | €52.22 | €52 |
| 1,500 kg | 8 | €59.68 | €59 |
| 2,000 kg | 10 | €74.60 | €74 |
| 2,500 kg | 13 | €96.98 | €96 |
| 3,500 kg | 18 | €134.28 | €134 |
| 10,000 kg and above | ceiling | €373.24 | €373 |
The common 750 kg box trailer that needs no separate driving entitlement therefore costs €29 a year, which is less than a single tank of fuel. Because the steps are 200 kg wide, 1,201 kg and 1,400 kg cost exactly the same, and the step from 1,200 to 1,201 kg costs €7.46.
Trailers that pay nothing
These are free of tax because German law does not require them to be registered, so the exemption is automatic and needs no application. The list includes:
- Special trailers for sports equipment, for animals carried for sporting purposes, or for the rescue boats of the fire service, the rescue services and civil protection, provided they are used for nothing else.
- Trailers in farming and forestry operations limited to 25 km/h by design.
- Works machines on wheels.
- Single-axle trailers pulled behind a motorcycle.
- Trailers of the fire service and civil protection.
Read the first item carefully, because it is narrower than it looks. The exemption covers a special trailer for sports equipment or for animals taken to a sporting purpose, used exclusively that way. An ordinary trailer bought for leisure is fully taxable, whatever it carries. A horse trailer used to reach competitions falls under the exemption; the same trailer used to move horses commercially does not.
Farm trailers and the 25 km/h rule
The exemption for agricultural and forestry trailers hangs on a design limit, not on who owns the trailer. The trailer has to be built for no more than 25 km/h and has to be used in a farming or forestry operation. A trailer capable of 40 km/h is outside the exemption even behind the same tractor, and a 25 km/h trailer used for something else is outside it too.
The green plate you see on some trailers is a signal rather than a rule of its own. It is issued to vehicles that are exempt or relieved of tax, so it tells you a decision has been made about that trailer, not what the decision was. Trailers that need no registration at all carry ordinary plates or, in the farming cases, the plate of the towing vehicle, and they are free of tax without ever having applied for anything.
Not the same thing: relief for trailers behind trucks
There is a second arrangement that is often confused with an exemption. On application, no tax is levied on a trailer for as long as it is pulled exclusively behind vehicles for which a trailer supplement is being paid, or which are exempt because they run in combined transport. The trailer then carries a green plate.
- The trailer supplement is a fixed €373.24 a year, owed by the keeper of the towing vehicle, not of the trailer.
- Caravans are expressly excluded, as are all trailers pulled behind cars or motorcycles. If you tow with a car, this route is closed to you and the weight table above applies.
- A towing vehicle on a historic plate or a red trade plate cannot pay the supplement at all, because those plates are taxed for being issued rather than for the vehicle being kept.
The arrangement is aimed at haulage fleets with more trailers than tractor units. For a single trailer behind a single truck it is rarely worth it, since the supplement costs exactly what the heaviest trailer would cost anyway.
The trailer is taxed separately from the car
A trailer has its own registration, its own plate and its own tax assessment. Nothing about the towing vehicle changes the amount: the same 750 kg trailer costs €29 a year behind a small hatchback and behind a large estate. And the tax does not pause when the trailer is not being towed. What is taxed is keeping a registered trailer, not using it.
That also means the trailer gets its own SEPA direct debit mandate when it is registered, and its own twelve-month cycle starting on the day of registration rather than in January. Above €500 a year the tax may be paid in two instalments for a 3 % surcharge, but a trailer never reaches that figure: the ceiling is €373.24, so a trailer is always a single annual payment.
When you sell a trailer, your liability ends on the day it is re-registered to the buyer. Until that happens it is still registered to you and you still owe the tax, which is why a sale contract should oblige the buyer to re-register promptly.
A trailer standing on private ground
If a trailer is deregistered and kept on your own property, there is no tax, and no exemption is involved either. The tax is levied on keeping a registered vehicle. Deregister it and the liability stops, subject to the minimum period of one month. Put it back on the road and the liability starts again on that day. For a trailer used in only part of the year, a seasonal plate with an operating period of two to eleven whole months is the tidier solution, since the tax then falls to the share of the year you actually use.
Frequently asked questions
Four steps of €7.46, which is €29.84 a year and is collected as €29. The rate is €7.46 for every started 200 kg of permitted gross weight, so anything from 601 kg to 800 kg lands on the same four steps and the same €29.
Yes, €373.24 a year, collected as €373. The weight steps reach that figure at 10,000 kg, and from there on extra weight changes nothing. Ordinary car trailers and caravans never come close to it.
Those that need no registration in the first place. That covers special trailers for sports equipment, for animals carried for sporting purposes and for the rescue boats of the fire and rescue services, used for nothing else; trailers in farming and forestry operations limited to 25 km/h by design; works machines; single-axle trailers behind a motorcycle; and trailers of the fire service and civil protection. No application is needed, because there is no registration to tax.
Only in the narrow case the law describes: a special trailer for animals carried to a sporting purpose, used exclusively that way. A horse trailer taken to competitions falls under it. The same trailer used to move animals commercially, or an ordinary leisure trailer of any kind, is fully taxable at €7.46 per 200 kg.
It is a fixed €373.24 a year paid by the keeper of the towing vehicle. In exchange, and on application, no tax is levied on trailers that are only ever pulled behind vehicles paying that supplement, and those trailers carry a green plate. Caravans are expressly excluded, as is every trailer towed by a car or a motorcycle, so the arrangement is aimed at haulage fleets rather than private owners.
No. The trailer has its own registration, its own plate and its own assessment, and the same 750 kg trailer costs €29 a year behind any vehicle. The tax also does not pause while the trailer sits unused: what is taxed is keeping a registered trailer, not towing it.
Updated 11 September 2026. The rate and the ceiling are in Section 9 (1) no. 5, the basis of assessment in Section 8 no. 2, the relief for trailers and the supplement in Section 10 of the Kraftfahrzeugsteuergesetz. Which trailers need no registration follows from Section 3 (3) of the FZV, both in German. The amounts in the table are our own calculations and do not replace the assessment of your main customs office.