If you run a chauffeur, limousine or airport-transfer business in Germany, you are almost certainly a Mietwagen operator — not a taxi operator. The two are separate licence classes under the German Personenbeförderungsgesetz (PBefG), with different rules, and one of those rules governs how you must record your bookings.
This guide is for operators expanding into Germany, English-speaking owners of German operations, and anyone comparing UK and German obligations. The German-language version of this article is also available.
Taxi and Mietwagen are not the same business
The distinction matters more in Germany than the equivalent distinction does in the UK, because it is written into the statute.
Taxi operators may be hailed or picked up at ranks, charge officially set tariffs, and have an obligation to carry within their designated area.
Mietwagen (private hire with driver) operators may only carry out bookings that were received at the business premises (Betriebssitz) or the operator’s home. Prices are freely agreed. And after each job, the vehicle must return to base unless a new booking has already come in.
Chauffeur and airport-transfer work is Mietwagen work. Everything below follows from that.
What § 49 (4) PBefG actually says
Three sentences shape daily operations. The German text is binding; translations here are for orientation only.
On where bookings must arrive:
“Mit Mietwagen dürfen nur Beförderungsaufträge ausgeführt werden, die am Betriebssitz oder in der Wohnung des Unternehmers eingegangen sind.”
Only bookings received at the operator’s business premises or home may be carried out.
On the record-keeping duty:
“Den Eingang des Beförderungsauftrages am Betriebssitz oder in der Wohnung hat der Mietwagenunternehmer buchmäßig oder elektronisch (auch mittels appbasierten Systems) zu erfassen und die Aufzeichnung ein Jahr aufzubewahren.”
The operator must record the receipt of the booking, in a book or electronically — including by means of an app-based system — and retain the record for one year.
On the return obligation (Rückkehrpflicht):
“Nach Ausführung des Beförderungsauftrags hat der Mietwagen unverzüglich zum Betriebssitz zurückzukehren, es sei denn, er hat vor der Fahrt von seinem Betriebssitz oder der Wohnung oder während der Fahrt einen neuen Beförderungsauftrag erhalten.”
After completing a job the vehicle must return to base without delay, unless a new booking was received before or during the trip.
The decisive phrase for software buyers is in the brackets: “elektronisch (auch mittels appbasierten Systems)”. The statute puts paper and electronic records on an equal footing and names app-based systems explicitly. Anyone telling you it must be a paper book is wrong — although printed DIN-A5 Auftrag-Eingangs-Bücher are still widely sold, which tells you how many operators still do it by hand.
Three things that trip operators up
It is the receipt of the order that must be recorded, not the trip. The moment that matters is when the booking arrives at your business — not when the car moves. A list of completed journeys written up in the evening does not serve the purpose of the rule.
The booking must arrive at the business, not at a driver. A driver accepting work directly on a personal phone and telling you afterwards leaves exactly the gap the rule exists to close. In practice, your system is your evidence that the order arrived at the Betriebssitz.
One year is the floor, not the ceiling. PBefG requires one year. German tax and bookkeeping retention rules run considerably longer for invoices and accounting records. Discuss the full picture with your Steuerberater.
What to record for each booking
The statute does not prescribe a form, but its purpose and the practice of licensing authorities point to a clear minimum:
- Date and time the booking was received — the core of the requirement
- Channel — phone, email, web form, app, intermediary
- Customer name and a contact detail
- Pick-up and destination — specific, not “city centre”
- Requested pick-up time
- Allocated vehicle and driver
- A booking reference or other unique identifier
Any competent dispatch system already holds all of this. The task is making sure it is complete, tamper-evident and exportable. Authorities differ in how strictly they interpret form and scope, so ask yours.
Keeping it digitally, properly
Electronic is permitted — but not any file will do. Four things make a digital record hold up:
- A system-generated timestamp, not a field somebody types in later.
- Traceable changes. Bookings legitimately change; what matters is that the original receipt is preserved and amendments are traceable rather than overwriting history. This is also the underlying principle of the GoBD rules for digital records.
- Every channel captured. The classic failure: the web form reaches the system, the phone call and the WhatsApp message do not. The book is then incomplete precisely where most of the business happens.
- Self-service export. You must be able to produce the records. Check that you can export any date range yourself, without a support request — and check it before you need it.
The five-minute test
Pick a date eight months ago. Produce every booking received that day, with receipt time, customer, pick-up, destination, requested time, and allocated driver and vehicle. Time yourself. Then repeat it for a driver who has since left.
The Rückkehrpflicht connection
The return obligation is where good records pay for themselves twice.
A vehicle must return to base after a job unless a new booking arrived before or during the trip. If you can show, with a timestamp, that the follow-on booking came in before the previous trip ended, you have documented the exception. Without timestamps, it is your word against an inspector’s note.
A system that records every receipt to the minute protects you in both directions.
Auftragseingangsbuch is not TSE — do not confuse them
Since 1 January 2026 a certified technical security device (TSE) has been mandatory for taximeters and distance recorders, the transition period having ended. The basis is the Kassensicherungsverordnung and § 146a AO, and non-compliance is expensive.
These are two separate obligations:
- TSE / Fiskaltaxameter — certified hardware in the vehicle, covering the recording of trips and fares for tax purposes.
- Auftragseingangsbuch under § 49 (4) PBefG — recording the receipt of the order at the business premises, expressly permitted electronically.
Dispatch or booking software is not a Fiskaltaxameter and does not replace a TSE. If a software vendor markets “TSE compliance”, ask very precisely what they mean, and confirm your own position with your Steuerberater and licensing authority.
What software covers here — and what it cannot
In RideDesk, every enquiry — from the booking form, by email, via WhatsApp, or entered from a phone call — lands in one board and is created with a timestamp. Each record carries the customer and contact, pick-up and destination, requested time, and the allocated vehicle and driver. Customer and driver records persist, and you can export your own data.
The record is a by-product of doing the work, rather than a monthly catch-up task. The activity log — who changed what and when, across every booking — sits on every plan including the free one, deliberately: an audit trail is an obligation, not an upsell.
Two honest caveats: we are not your licensing authority, and no software can promise compliance with conditions we have not read; and RideDesk is not a TSE solution. RideDesk’s interface runs in German as well as English, and FrankfurtRide is a German operator already running on it.
If you want to check it against your own Auflagen, send them to us and we will go through them honestly — including what it does not cover.
The wider point is worth separating from any product. The statute has permitted electronic records for years, and explicitly names app-based systems — yet printed A5 order books are still being sold, which suggests a lot of operators are duplicating by hand work their booking system already did. If that is you, the change costs nothing: start recording the receipt time properly in whatever you already use, check you can export a date range yourself, and stop writing it twice. What it will cost is a Tuesday morning if you leave it until an inspector asks. Budget for the TSE separately, and get it in writing that whatever you buy is BSI-certified.
General information on § 49 (4) PBefG, not legal or tax advice. Authorities interpret requirements differently. Confirm your own position with your licensing authority and your Steuerberater.
