German waste transportation permit

To carry out waste-management activities (collection, transport, trade or broker) in Germany, You need to either make a notification or have a permit depending on the type of waste involved. For non-hazardous waste a notification is enough, but for hazardous waste one has to obtain a permit.

Hereafter we will use the term „transportation” for all 4 activities for the sake of simplicity.

Responsible authorities, administrative process

Both the notification and the permit has to be started at the regionally responsible authorities, although the notification or permit will be valid for whole Germany. The process has to be started at the authorities where the company wants to enter into Germany. The administration process is in electronic form, through the homepage jointly managed by the German Environmental Ministry and the Federal States. The working language is German only, papers have to be submitted in original language and German translation. We can also provide the translation services if needed.

Notification for transport of non-hazardous waste

Beside the filled-in forms, no other documents are compulsory, although the authorities have the right to ask for additional information. This might be necessary especially in the case of foreign companies. Usually the international transportation license is necessary.

The acceptance of the notification takes a few days. The administration fee is calculated individually, according to the concerning decree and based on the time necessary to deal with it. The usual amount is 50-100 EUR.

Permit for hazardous waste transport

The permitting procedure is more complex, and also more costly than the notification process. It is necessary to attach several company documents and official certificates, all of them also in German translation. It is advisable to attach the national waste-transfer permit, if available.

The assessment of the permit-application takes some weeks, it also depends if all the necessary documents were submitted.

The fee for a comprehensive permit is 6.000 EUR. Depending on certain limitations (area and/or time limit, number of EWC-codes) this amount can be lower (ie. for 15 EWC-codes for whole Germany for 10 years it is around 1.600 EUR).

Our services

Our company undertakes the following services related to waste transportation in Germany:

  • complex compilation of license application and submission to the geographically determined competent authority
  • co-ordination of licensing procedure, liaison with the authorities until license is issued.

You can contact us through email or phone (details on our contact page). We will be happy to answer your general questions also in our officeYou can also book a call with us leaving your phone number, your question and the time when you can be reached via e-mail.