An estimated 9,000 people are jailed in Germany each year because of unpaid public transport fines after they were caught without a ticket. How did they end up there?
Many public transport systems in Germany operate without ticket barriers and the temptation to simply jump on board without a ticket can be tempting if you’re pressed for time or short of money.
But riding on trains and buses without a valid ticket can incur steep fines in Germany and is potentially an imprisonable offence.
What happens if you’re caught without a valid ticket?
All public transport systems in Germany have ticket inspection procedures in place, with the rules varying slightly from state to state.
Sometimes inspectors wear uniforms while at other times they’re dressed like regular passengers. Whenever they board a train or bus, the inspectors have to announce their presence, usually with the words Fahrscheinkontrolle (Ticket inspection) or Die Fahrscheine bitte (Tickets, please).
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If you don’t have a valid ticket, the inspectors will ask for ID and take down your name and address in order to be able to issue you with a fine.
If you’re unable to produce a valid form of ID, the inspectors may decide to call the police.
The size of the fine varies from city to city but is generally somewhere between €40 and €80. The standard fine in Berlin is €60.
It’s not a good idea to try and run away from the inspectors. Shouting at them doesn’t help either. Anecdotally, they’re not the friendliest people in the world but they’re also not the people who make the rules.
It’s usually possible to choose whether you want to pay the fine immediately or wait until it arrives in the post.
If you have a valid ticket but you can’t show it to the inspectors – perhaps because your phone has died or you can’t get a signal – they may still issue you with a standard penalty notice, generally payable within 14 days.
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It’s possible to challenge the penalty if you can demonstrate you had a valid ticket for your journey within this period of time, although you may still be liable for a processing fee (usually about €7).
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What happens if you can’t or won’t pay the fine?
If you fail to pay a fine for travelling without a ticket, it will usually be passed along to a debt collection agency – substantially increasing the amount you ultimately have to pay.
Under German law, fare evasion is a criminal offence, which means that if the fines remain unpaid, the state may decide to bring criminal charges against you.
Passengers board a U-Bahn train in Berlin. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Soeder
Every year, Germany imprisons between 8,000 and 9,000 individuals for failing to pay fines for travelling without a valid ticket under Section 265a of the German Criminal Code, a law which dates back to 1935 and the Nazi era.
The practice of putting someone in prison as an alternative to the payment of a fine is known as Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe (substitute imprisonment) in German.
Advocates for reforming Section 265a argue that the law has severe and far-reaching social consequences, disproportionately affecting people living in poverty.
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The majority of those imprisoned for unpaid fines – 87 percent of whom are unemployed, 15 percent homeless, and 15 percent at risk of suicide – often emerge from prison even more disadvantaged, having lost their homes during their time in prison, according to reporting by Progressive International.
The cost of sending someone to prison in Germany in approximately €200 a day and €229.40 in Berlin, which means that sending someone to prison for 40 days for fare evasion may cost the state more than €9,000 – not including additional expenses for judges, court officials, prosecutors, and police.
Moves towards decriminalisation
At the national level, efforts to reform the current system were underway until the collapse of the traffic light coalition of the SPD, Green and FDP parties in 2024.
At state and municipal levels, a number of German cities have independently taken the decision to decriminalise fare evasion or cease reporting offenders to the police.
READ ALSO: What passengers from Germany should know about European train travel
The latest move in this direction came this September, when Frankfurt’s city council voted to instruct municipal transport operators not to file criminal charges against people caught without a ticket.
The Frankfurt decision echoes similar policies already adopted by cities including Karlsruhe, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Münster, Bremen, Halle, Dresden, and Potsdam.
Although fare evasion remains a criminal offence under federal law, offenders in these cities only face fines rather than the threat of criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
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Announcing the move, Frankfurt’s mobility commissioner emphasised that the increased fare penalty is an adequate sanction and that ticket controls will continue to be rigorous to prevent a culture of fare evasion. Inevitably, there’s a German word for this: Freifahrscheinmentalität.
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