Germany’s Mietwagen sector — private hire, the licence class nearly every chauffeur and airport-transfer business there operates under — carries an obligation with no UK equivalent: the Rückkehrpflicht, the duty to return to base. This piece exists primarily in German for the operators it binds; this English version summarises it for everyone else, including anyone assessing the German market from outside.
The rule
§ 49(4) PBefG, verbatim:
„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 the business premises without delay — unless a new transport order was received, before or during the trip. Three details carry the weight. “Without delay” rules out waiting at the airport to see what turns up — and airports, where private hire competes directly with taxis, are exactly where the rule is enforced. The new order must have been received at the operator’s premises, as the same subsection requires for all Mietwagen bookings — a driver may not pick up follow-on work at the kerb. And timing is everything: an order that arrives after the car is already waiting empty does not cure the wait retroactively.
Since the 2021 PBefG reform there is one genuine relaxation: for municipalities with a large surface area, the licensing authority may approve designated Abstellorte — parking locations other than the business premises a vehicle may return to without a new order, subject to conditions including a minimum distance of 15 kilometres between premises and Abstellort. It is discretionary and local: no approval, no exception, and an informally “tolerated” second location is no location at the first roadside check.
Enforcement and the proof that decides it
Violations are an administrative offence under § 61(1) no. 3(h) PBefG, fined at up to €10,000 per § 61(2) — with the more expensive consequence being repeat findings putting the operator’s Zuverlässigkeit (reliability), a licensing precondition, into question at the five-yearly renewal. The founding requirements are covered in our German market start-up guide.
In practice every case turns on one question: can you prove when the follow-on order reached your premises? That is where the rule connects to the Auftragseingangsbuch — the order-intake record the same subsection requires. A chained booking timestamped in your system at 14:41 while the previous job ran until 14:55 fully explains why the car never returned; the same booking existing only in the driver’s private chat proves nothing, except perhaps a second violation of the premises rule. Hence the operational checklist: every follow-on order routes through the business (never the driver’s personal phone), the intake timestamp is system-set rather than typed, the driver demonstrably learns of the job from the business, and empty waits are never “bridged” on spec.
We build RideDesk — disclosure accordingly — and the timestamped intake, documented driver assignment and per-period export that make up this evidence chain are core functions of it. But the honest limit matters: no software exempts you from the Rückkehrpflicht. It makes the lawful exceptions provable; it does not approve an Abstellort and it does not legalise waiting without an order.
Economically, the rule is a state-mandated dead-mile ratio — every job without a timely chained order buys an unpaid return leg, which belongs in your prices, not in wishful route planning. Why that utilisation ratio decides the profitability of the whole operation is worked through in our profitability arithmetic.
General information as of August 2026, not legal advice. Statutory quotes from § 49(4) and § 61 PBefG (gesetze-im-internet.de, retrieved August 2026). Abstellort exceptions are a matter for the local licensing authority — settle your specific case there and with your lawyer.
