Guest registration in Germany: what changed in 2025

What changed on 1 January 2025

Since 1 January 2025, German hosts no longer need to collect a Meldeschein registration form from German guests. The Viertes Buerokratieentlastungsgesetz (BEG IV), passed by the Bundesrat on 18 October 2024, amended the Bundesmeldegesetz to remove this requirement for German nationals in accommodation. The exemption applies to German nationals only. Foreign guests remain subject to the full Meldeschein obligation, exactly as before.

What the Meldeschein was

For decades, Germany required accommodation providers to collect a signed registration form from every guest at check-in. The form, called the Meldeschein, contained the guest's personal details and was retained by the host for inspection purposes. The obligation came from the Bundesmeldegesetz, Germany's federal registration law, and applied to hotels, guesthouses, and short-term rental hosts alike, for every overnight guest without exception.

What hosts must still do for foreign guests

For every foreign guest, you must still collect a completed, hand-signed Meldeschein at check-in. The guest must also present a valid identity document: a recognised passport or passport substitute.

The data required on the form includes: full name, date of birth, nationality, home address, date of arrival, and intended date of departure.

You must retain completed Meldescheine for 12 months. After that, they must be destroyed or deleted within a further 3 months. The forms must be made available to police authorities, prosecutors, courts, and customs investigation services on request.

A nuance for tourist tax municipalities

In resort towns and spa towns that charge tourist tax (often called Kurtaxe in these municipalities), the picture is slightly different. Even though the Meldeschein for German guests has been abolished at the federal level, municipalities that levy tourist tax may still require guest data from all guests, including German nationals, for the purpose of calculating and collecting the levy.

This data collection is no longer governed by the Bundesmeldegesetz but by local Kommunalabgabengesetz rules. Hosts in tourist-tax-charging municipalities should check whether their local Gaestebeitragssatzung has been updated to reflect the new framework. Many municipalities were still updating their rules through early 2025.

How to identify which guests require the Meldeschein

In practice, a host receiving a booking through Airbnb or Booking.com does not always know the guest's nationality before they arrive. The simplest approach is a standard check-in process that requests the Meldeschein and a document from all guests who are not German nationals, confirmed at arrival.

Some hosts use pre-arrival document verification to collect this before check-in. This removes the friction at the door and ensures data is collected regardless of whether the host is present for a self-check-in.

State-level variations

The Bundesmeldegesetz change is federal and clear. However, some states maintain additional reporting obligations for accommodation statistics that are separate from the Meldeschein. These are governed by the Beherbergungsstatistikgesetz and have not changed. Accommodation providers with ten or more beds are still required to report monthly statistics to the relevant state authority.

Hosts with properties in multiple states should verify the specific requirements for each location.

What this means for tourist tax

The 2025 registration reform has no effect on tourist tax itself. If your municipality charges tourist tax, the obligation to collect it from guests and remit it to the local authority remains exactly as it was. German guests still pay tourist tax where applicable.

How Trippz handles German guest registration

Trippz manages the guest data collection process for every booking. When a reservation is confirmed, Trippz identifies the guest's nationality and applies the correct registration requirement. Foreign guests go through the full data collection workflow. German nationals are routed to a simplified process that does not include the Meldeschein fields.

As Germany's AVS registration integration goes live, Trippz will connect directly to the system, removing the need for any manual data handling or form storage on your end. Hosts can connect now for tourist tax automation and collection, and the registration integration will layer in once available.

Manage Germany's compliance requirements in one place