Automotive/Buying guide

Germany fixes the roadworthiness fee to within one euro. The classic-car assessment beside it ranges from 75 to 285

Four German test stations publish both prices. Their roadworthiness fees land within a euro of each other. The § 23 StVZO assessment that turns a car into a legal classic does not — and the price lists never say what is in it.

Meridians Technik-Redaktion

Published 6 September 2026 · Updated 6 September 2026 · 7 min read

Germany fixes the roadworthiness fee to within one euro. The classic-car assessment beside it ranges from 75 to 285 — Photo: Foto von Ricardo Oliveira / Pexels (Pexels-Lizenz — kostenlos nutzbar, Nennung rechtlich nicht erforderlich (oben dennoch angegeben).)

The short answer

Germany grants a car historic status — the H plate — only after an approved examiner certifies it under § 23 of the road vehicle licensing rules. Of five providers checked on 6 September 2026, four publish a price: 75.00 euros at one KÜS station, 120.00 at one GTÜ station, 285.00 at two others.
TÜV Rheinland publishes no figure on the page checked and points to a phone number and an email address instead.
The spread does not measure the same work. At one station the roadworthiness test sits inside the classic-car price; at another it is a separate line item. None of the four lists says so plainly.
The roadworthiness test itself costs between 106.00 and 107.00 euros without the emissions check and between 164.00 and 165.00 with it at all four stations. The flat annual vehicle tax for H and 07 plates is 191.73 euros for cars and 46.02 for two-wheelers, according to the ADAC.

Disclosure: some links on this page may earn Meridians a commission at no extra cost to you. Commission never influences our testing, ranking or verdicts. Read our affiliate policy.

In Germany a car does not become a classic by getting old. It becomes one when a state-approved examiner says so, in an assessment under § 23 of the Straßenverkehrs-Zulassungs-Ordnung, the road vehicle licensing rules. That document is what unlocks the H plate and with it a flat rate of vehicle tax. What the assessment costs is published by only some test stations. On 6 September 2026 we pulled the price lists of four individual stations and the classic-car page of one national inspection organisation.

What is actually published

The four stations put their own prices online. They operate under the KÜS and GTÜ banners but run as independent businesses, so these are the figures for those locations rather than national rates.

KÜS station Vellmar (SV-Büro Fischer) — 75.00 euros — line item „Gutachten § 23 StVZO“; the roadworthiness test is listed separately (106.00 euros without the emissions check, 164.00 with). Price list dated 03/2026, gross prices including 19 percent VAT.
GTÜ station Warendorf — 120.00 euros — line item „Oldtimer Gutachten (H-/07er-Kennzeichen)“, up to 3.5 t, with the note „zzgl. 2 Jahre HU“ (plus two years of roadworthiness testing). The list is headed „amtliche Gebühr ab 01.02.2026“ — official fee from 1 February 2026.
GTÜ station Velbert — 227.00 euros without the emissions check, 285.00 with — cars up to 3.5 t; motorcycles 157.00 and 187.00 euros. Price list 2026, last updated 31 January 2026.
GTÜ station Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler — 285.00 euros — classic-car assessment for H and 07 plates, gross amounts, in force from 1 February 2026.
TÜV Rheinland — no price published. Its classic-car page says the cost depends on „Fahrzeugwert und Bewertungsumfang“ — vehicle value and scope of assessment — and gives a phone number and an email address.

The spread is not measuring the same thing

75 against 285 euros looks like a fourfold difference for identical work. It is not identical work. At Vellmar the assessment stands alone and the roadworthiness test sits below it as its own charge — anyone needing both pays 75.00 plus 164.00 euros there. At Velbert the classic-car price is split into „without“ and „including“ the emissions check, exactly as the roadworthiness test above it is, which means the test is inside the number. Warendorf writes „plus two years of roadworthiness testing“, and the line does not reveal whether that is included or added. None of the four lists spells it out.

So the useful question on the phone is not what the classic-car assessment costs. It is whether the roadworthiness and emissions tests are inside the quoted figure, and whether the figure is gross.

On the roadworthiness test itself, the spread is one euro

KÜS station Vellmar — 106.00 euros without the emissions check, 164.00 with — cars; 127.20 and 185.20 euros respectively when the test is overdue. Gross, dated 03/2026.
GTÜ station Warendorf — 107.00 euros without, 165.00 including — cars up to 3.5 t.
GTÜ station Velbert — 107.00 euros without, 165.00 including — cars up to 3.5 t.
GTÜ station Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler — 107.00 euros without, 165.00 including — vehicles up to 3.5 t.

That contrast is the finding. On the roadworthiness test, four independent businesses land within one euro of each other. On the assessment that satisfies a single named paragraph of the same rulebook, they land 210 euros apart. Where a service is carried as an official fee, the spread closes. Where it is not, it opens.

What the flat tax is worth, and when it stops being worth it

The ADAC puts the vehicle tax for cars on an H plate and on the red 07 collector plate at a flat 191.73 euros a year for cars and light trucks, and 46.02 euros for two-wheelers. For comparison it gives the rate for vehicles with no emissions classification: 25.36 euros per 100 cc or part thereof for petrol engines and 37.58 for diesels — the bracket most pre-Euro classics fall into.

From those official rates the break-even follows. A 1,600 cc petrol engine would be taxed at 405.76 euros a year, a 2,000 cc at 507.20, against 191.73 flat. Below roughly 800 cc the arithmetic reverses: a 700 cc engine comes to 177.52 euros, less than the flat rate. For a small sixties runabout, in other words, historic status can be the more expensive option. The calculation is our own, applied to the rates the ADAC publishes.

07 or H: the difference is use, not price

H plate — no restriction on use, according to the ADAC, including trips abroad and commercial use.
Red 07 plate — limited to classic-car events, journeys to and from them, test and transfer drives, and trips for servicing or repair. A logbook must be kept.
Required for either — the vehicle must have first entered service at least 30 years ago, and an examiner from DEKRA, GTÜ, KÜS or TÜV must certify that it is in a condition worth preserving.

Sources

Every factual claim above is traceable to these documents. Check them — that is why they are here.

About this byline

Meridians Technik-Redaktion is an editorial desk at Meridians, not an individual. A desk byline means the article was produced and fact-checked to that desk's published standards. Read our editorial standards and corrections policy.

One considered email a week

What changed, what it costs you, and what to do about it — from the Meridians desks. No sponsored picks disguised as recommendations.

Sign-up opens with our launch issue. Nothing is sent or stored yet.