Selling online in Germany: the rules your online shop must follow

Anyone selling online to consumers in Germany has to follow German and EU rules, even when selling through a company based abroad. The main ones are a complete Impressum, a privacy and cookie notice, a checkout button reading “zahlungspflichtig bestellen”, a 14-day right of withdrawal and, since 19 June 2026, a withdrawal button, prices shown including VAT, packaging registration and product safety details on every listing. If you ship from outside the EU, you also need an EU responsible person for your products and a plan for VAT and customs.

This article gives a general overview and is not legal advice. Every requirement links to its legal source; for your own situation, speak to a lawyer or tax adviser.

What do you need to sell online in Germany?

An online shop selling to consumers in Germany has to cover nine areas. Some have applied for years; others came into force between 2024 and 2026 and are still missing from many shops:

Area	Legal basis	In force since
Impressum (legal notice)	§ 5 DDG	Years (DDG since May 2024)
Privacy notice and cookie consent	Art. 13 GDPR, § 25 TDDDG	Years
Checkout button “zahlungspflichtig bestellen”	§ 312j BGB	2012
Right of withdrawal and withdrawal notice	§§ 355, 356 BGB	Years
Withdrawal button	§ 356a BGB	19 June 2026
Lowest price of the last 30 days for discounts	§ 11 PAngV	2022
LUCID packaging registration	VerpackG	2019, tightened 2022
Product safety details, EU responsible person	Art. 16 and 19 GPSR	13 December 2024
Accessibility	BFSG	28 June 2025

Most of these are solved in the shop itself: the right pages, the right buttons, the right details on the product page. No shop platform or theme covers all of them out of the box; they have to be planned in when the shop is built.

What is an Impressum?

The Impressum is a legal notice that every commercial website aimed at Germany must display. Under § 5 of the German Digital Services Act (Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz), which replaced the old Telemedia Act in May 2024, it must be easy to identify, directly accessible and permanently available, and it must contain:

• the name and the address at which you are established, and for companies the legal form and the people authorised to represent it
• details for fast electronic contact, including an email address
• your company register and registration number, if you are registered
• your VAT identification number, if you have one

The usual and safe solution is an “Impressum” link in the footer of every page. If you sell through a company abroad, your Impressum shows that company's details. A missing or incomplete Impressum is one of the most common reasons for a formal legal warning (Abmahnung) in Germany, which competitors and associations can send and which comes with costs.

What are the checkout rules?

The checkout is where German rules are strictest. Three points matter most.

The order button. Under § 312j(3) of the German Civil Code, the button that completes the order must be clearly labelled with nothing other than the words “zahlungspflichtig bestellen” (order with obligation to pay) or equally unambiguous wording. “Continue” or “Complete order” is not enough. The consequence is severe: under § 312j(4), no contract is formed if this requirement isn't met.

Price display. Consumers are shown the total price including VAT, and delivery costs are stated clearly before the order. For goods sold by weight, volume or length, the unit price is added.

Discounts. When you advertise a price reduction, § 11 of the Price Indication Ordinance requires you to state the lowest total price you charged in the 30 days before the reduction. “Was €199, now €99” is only allowed if €199 really was that lowest price.

Before the order is placed, consumers must also be clearly told the main characteristics of the goods, the total price, delivery and payment terms, and their right of withdrawal. An order summary directly above the button is the cleanest way to do this.

How do the right of withdrawal and the withdrawal button work?

Consumers in Germany can usually withdraw from an online purchase within 14 days of receiving the goods, without giving a reason. You must inform them of this right in the form the law prescribes. If the information is missing or wrong, the withdrawal period doesn't end after 14 days but can run for up to 12 months and 14 days. Watch the return shipping costs too: customers only bear them if your withdrawal notice says so.

Since 19 June 2026 there is a new obligation: the withdrawal button. Under § 356a of the German Civil Code, every online interface through which consumers conclude contracts with a right of withdrawal must offer an electronic withdrawal function. It must:

• be labelled “Vertrag widerrufen” (withdraw from contract) or with equally clear wording,
• be permanently available, prominently placed and easy to reach throughout the withdrawal period,
• ask for the consumer's name, details identifying the contract and a way to send the confirmation of receipt,
• end with a separate confirmation button such as “Widerruf bestätigen” (confirm withdrawal).

You must confirm receipt without delay on a durable medium, such as an email, including the content of the withdrawal and the date and time it arrived. A function hidden inside the customer account or behind an obscure footer link is not enough; guest customers must be able to find it easily too. Check whether your shop platform already provides a function that meets every one of these points.

How should privacy, cookies and tracking be set up?

A privacy notice is mandatory. Under Article 13 of the GDPR it explains which data you process, for what purpose, on what legal basis and with whom you share it: payment providers, carriers, hosting, analytics and advertising tools.

Cookies and similar technologies have an extra rule: under § 25 of the German TDDDG, anything that isn't strictly necessary, such as analytics and advertising cookies, may only run with consent. In practice that means a consent banner and no tracking code loaded before consent is given.

This is how we set it up on our own website: Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel only load when a visitor agrees in the banner. Visitors who don't agree get none of these tools.

What is the German packaging law?

The German Packaging Act (Verpackungsgesetz) makes anyone who first places packaged goods on the German market for consumers responsible for the recycling of that packaging. For an online shop, that includes not just product packaging but also shipping boxes, filling material and tape. There are two steps:

1. Register in LUCID, the register of the Central Agency Packaging Register (ZSVR), before your first sale. The register is public, so marketplaces and competitors can see whether you are listed.
2. Join a dual system. You report the amount of packaging you ship to Germany to a dual system and pay for its collection and recycling.

Selling packaged goods without registration is not allowed, and marketplaces may not let unregistered sellers sell. If you ship directly from abroad, this obligation is yours.

Why do you need an EU responsible person?

Since 13 December 2024, the EU's General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) has applied, and for sellers outside the EU it brings the most important rule of all: under Article 16, a consumer product may only be placed on the EU market if an economic operator established in the Union is responsible for it. That can be an EU-based manufacturer, an importer, an authorised representative appointed in writing or a fulfilment service provider.

Article 19 then requires every online listing to show, clearly and visibly:

• the manufacturer's name, registered trade name or trademark, and postal and email address
• if the manufacturer isn't established in the EU, the name and contact details of the responsible person in the EU
• information identifying the product, such as a picture, its type and, where available, a batch or serial number
• any warnings or safety information, in a language consumers can easily understand

For a UK or other non-EU brand, this means finding an EU responsible person before selling and adding these details to every product page. Large marketplaces ask for them as separate fields on each listing; in your own shop, you have to add them to the product template yourself.

Does the accessibility law apply to your shop?

The Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) has applied since 28 June 2025 and covers e-commerce services aimed at consumers, which includes online shops. Your shop must be usable by people with visual, hearing or motor impairments: keyboard navigation, a structure that works with screen readers, sufficient colour contrast and descriptive text for images.

There is an important exemption in § 3(3) of the Act: micro-enterprises that provide services are exempt. Under § 2, a micro-enterprise has fewer than ten employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than €2 million.

Even if you are exempt, accessibility pays for itself: an accessible shop sells to more people, is easier to use on a phone and is better understood by search engines. On our own website, automated tests check accessibility on every change; if a test finds a problem, the change can't go live.

How do VAT and customs work from outside the EU?

If you ship directly from outside the EU to consumers in Germany, every parcel is an import into the EU and is subject to VAT and customs rules. The rules depend on the value of the consignment:

• Consignments up to €150: VAT can be collected at checkout through the EU's Import One Stop Shop (IOSS), so the customer pays nothing extra on delivery. Sellers established outside the EU must appoint an EU-established intermediary to use IOSS.
• New: a flat €3 customs duty per item. According to the European Commission, since 1 July 2026 consignments up to €150 no longer benefit from the old customs duty exemption and instead carry a flat duty of €3 per item. This temporary rule applies until 1 July 2028.
• Consignments over €150: standard customs procedures and import VAT apply.

As volumes grow, many businesses ship stock in bulk to a warehouse in Germany or elsewhere in the EU and fulfil orders from there. That also makes returns easier: within the 14-day withdrawal period, sending returned goods back across the border is slow and expensive. Because the VAT set-up depends on your situation, plan this part with a tax adviser.

What no longer applies?

Many German shops still have a link to the EU's Online Dispute Resolution platform (ODR platform) in their footer or legal notice. The platform was abolished by Regulation (EU) 2024/3228 and switched off for good on 20 July 2025, and the obligation to link to it went with it. A link to a platform that no longer exists can mislead consumers. Check your Impressum, terms and footer, especially if your shop was built from a legal text template.

What else matters on the technical and language side?

The legal rules keep your shop open; technology and content make it sell. We see three mistakes again and again from businesses entering Germany:

1. Translated text. Machine-translating product descriptions and pages into German costs trust in the first second. On our own site the rule is simple: German text is written in German, not translated.
2. The wrong search terms. The German equivalent of your word is often not the word Germans actually search for. German product and category pages need their own keyword research.
3. Going into Google Shopping unprepared. Google can show your products for free in the Shopping tab, in search and in image search. But if price, VAT and variant settings aren't right from the start, products get disapproved; we describe what that looked like in a real shop in our article on Merchant Center price mismatches.

We run the technical side of an online furniture shop in the German-speaking market and built our own website to the same rules. If you are planning to enter Germany, building the shop to these rules from day one is cheaper and faster than fixing gaps later. If you will sell in several languages, our guide to a multilingual website for Germany will help too.