One German city publishes its towing fee to the cent. Three publish no figure at all

The car is not where you left it. The second question, immediately after the first, is what this is going to cost. In Germany there is no national answer: towing is enforcement under state and municipal law, and every city bills under its own cost regulation. What you might reasonably expect is that each city at least publishes its own figure. Fewer than half of the ones we checked do.

We retrieved the official pages of six German cities and recorded only what the authority itself puts in writing — not what advice portals estimate.

What the cities publish

• Münster — 160 euros on weekdays between 6am and 8pm, 190 euros at night and at weekends — vehicles up to 3.49 tonnes, including 19 percent VAT, in force from 1 April 2026; wasted call-out 40 or 47.50 euros; storage 10 euros per day; administrative fee 112 euros for traffic-enforcement measures, 94 euros for market and fairground supervision
• Munich — "From 200 euros" — the city publishes no fixed figure, stating that the amount depends on the distance to the tow yard and on whether the vehicle is removed by day or at night; no daily storage rate appears on the page, and payment is by cash or debit card
• Bonn — towing costs not quantified, administrative fee "up to 180 euros" — the towing charge is paid directly to the contractor on collection, varies by weekday and time of day, and is payable plus storage and VAT
• Duisburg — towing costs not quantified, administrative fee 30 to 180 euros, parking penalty 20 to 55 euros — the towing charge depends on vehicle type, weekday and time; wasted call-outs are billed at correspondingly lower amounts
• Cologne — no figure — the city lists only the basis of calculation (vehicle type, timing, length of storage) and refers callers to its traffic service on 0221 221-32000
• Leipzig — no figure — the public order office leaflet, dated June 2016, refers to the price list "available at the respective towing company", with all amounts plus 19 percent VAT

Why the bill comes in three parts, not one

A towing bill in Germany is assembled from separate components that are levied independently, which is why the total rarely appears anywhere as a single number: the contractor's charge for the removal, an administrative fee charged by the ordering authority for its own costs, and a storage fee for every started day the vehicle sits in the yard. The parking fine is a fourth item and a different thing entirely — it punishes the offence, it is not part of the towing cost.

The wasted call-out is its own line. It applies when the tow truck has been ordered and the driver moves the car before it is loaded. Münster puts it at 40 euros on weekdays and 47.50 euros at night and at weekends — roughly a quarter of the full rate. Cologne and Bonn confirm that costs arise in this situation but publish no amount; Bonn writes that costs are incurred "even if" the vehicle was moved before the tow truck arrived.