Germany is a country of rule and regulation and processes, and driving rules and getting a driver's license is no exception to that. In this page, I discuss the process of getting a B Class (non-truck, passenger car with 4 wheels with an option for towing a trailor) drivers license, the cost and tips. I will not discuss the road rules because I'm not in a position to teach, and there's already great material out in the internet.
As getting a driver's license is a long process and costs a lot while doing it from scratch, it's better to convert your existing driver's license from your own country if possible. Here is the list of countries that is elegible for conversion of driving license to Germany. And also whether you need an additional theoretical or practical.
Use the chrome-builtin google translate functionality to translate to your own language. But Klasse column means the type of drivers license, theoretische Prüfung and praktische Prüfung column means whether you need to do additional exam for theory and practical, respectively.
Note that you cannot convert your driving license after 12 months (citation needed) you've moved into Germany, or if you have aquired the foreign license after you moved to Germany with an exception of visiting outside of a foreign country for longer than 6 months. So it's better to plan everything ahead.
- Find a driving school.
- Do a mandatory first aid course (9 hours) - in big cities there will be places offering English courses.
- Get an eye examination.
- Submit the necessary documents at TÜV including indication of your driving class and your driving school.
- Take mandatory 14 hours of theoretical driving course.
- Take the theoretical exam. Only after taking all the mandatory theory course, you can register for the theoretical exam.
- Do the mandatory and the optional practice driving hours before the practical exam (mandatory: 3 hours night driving, 4 hours Autobahn driving, 5 hours of countryside driving)
- Register for the practical exam and do it. You can only register after the mandatory driving hours
Note that you can do driving lessons before even you pass the theory exam, and this is what I did. But in a retrospective it's better to learn fully the rules before you sit in front of the wheel, because learning the rules the hard way (being shouted by the driving teacher 😭 ) isn't a good idea and it takes longer.
Cost will increase over time and vary from driving school to driving school, but this what I paid in 2024 until I fulfiled all the mandatory course.
- First Aid + Eye examination : 29.99 EUR
- Registration for Class B in the driving school (Includes theory courses) : 549 EUR
- (Optional) App to learn theory exam + practical : 80 EUR
- 33 Hours of Driving lessons : 2640 EUR (80 EUR/hour x 33 hours)
- Registration for the theoritical exam : 124.5 EUR
- Registration for the practical exam : 210.17 EUR
It costed me in total 3633.60 EUR, I did a full automatic course without the option to do manual transmission. I was a slow learner, so it might be much cheaper for you if you learn quickly. If you already know how to drive but still need to go through the whole process, the driving hours will mostly go down only to the mandatory 12 hours (3+4+5) of driving lessons.
Theory exams will be a list of 30 problems out of a pool of around ~1500 problems. You will sit in front of a computer or a tablet, being shown a simple question that you can answer, or also given a situational video asking how you should react in that situation. You can search the problems online, and if you memorise every one of the problems and the answers, you will pass. You have to be at least 100 points out of 110 points, so there's very little space for mistakes. The problems will be the same that you found in the internet, except for the order of the multiple choice questions might be different.
The exam is offered in multiple languages, you can do it in English or many other languages, but the thing for English is in Brittish English so you'd have to learn the vocabulary as well if you're not very educated on these kinds.
It's up to you, but the app offered by the driving school (80 EUR) to prepare the exam was very effective for me. I'm guessing there's some free app out there which does a similar thing, so it's up to you.
Practical exams is only offered in German. To this reason, I highly recommend that you be at least A2, or preferably B1 or above, before registering to a driving course. In the first part of the exam, the examiner will ask several questions to ask your knowledge on the vehicle.
The questions are usually under the following groups:
- Name the lights that you can control in a car and asks to turn a specific light (e.g. turn on high beam)
- The types of fluid that you can and cannot refil in the bonnet.
- How to inspect a tire
- When can you use a rear fog light
- In which situations you can turn on the hazard light.
and so on. you can easily find these questions in the interet to get prepared.
The second part is actual driving. The instructor will tell you where to turn, when to enter an autobahn and so on. If they haven't said otherwise the default is just to proceed forward. You will be doing a little bit of everything that you learned, including reverse parking, autobahn entering and exitting, exercising the right before left rule, doing an emergency brake, and so on. Because of this if you don't understand German very well, you will have a hard time understanding the examinor and thus will lead to a fail of your exam. Your teacher from the driving school will also be in the car but is not allowed to translate the instructions for you.
Although I did fully automatic transmission, if you intend to also drive manual cars you might want to get B197. The process is almost the same, except for an 10 additional driving hours with manual transmission. After that do the exam with an automatic car, then you will have a license for both. I didn't do it because it was just too stressful with manual transmission, and I didn't want to pay more for a skill that I'm not sure I'm going to use frequently.
Youtube videos are really helpful to watch. There are two Germany driving youtube channels that were really helpful for me to prepare.
The main reason that I recommend these channel is that they have lots of videos explaining things but also videos with students in the car explaining in depth what was wrong and what was being well and so on, when you're actually driving inside a car you will most likely not have cognitive capacity to process what's happening and also process your mistakes. These videos are great material to learn from others mistakes and also process your own mistakes while watching.