Germany's lease-return standard sets the line between wear and damage in millimetres — and publishes it
Three dents up to 20 mm per panel, bumper scratches under 20 mm, summer tyres from 2 mm of tread: the German industry standard for fair vehicle appraisal is a public PDF, and it is far more specific than most lessees expect.
Meridians Technik-Redaktion
Published 24 August 2026 · Updated 24 August 2026 · 7 min read
AutomotiveThe short answer
- When a leased car goes back in Germany, a four-figure sum often turns on where normal wear ends and chargeable damage begins.
- The VMF, the German association of brand-independent mobility and fleet management companies, publishes an appraisal catalogue with exact millimetre thresholds — free to download before you book the handover.
- The catalogue is a trade standard, not law: it binds only if your lease contract references it, and captive manufacturer lessors often apply their own.
- On the money side the Federal Court of Justice settled one question outright — a compensation claim for excess wear may not carry VAT.
The appointment takes twenty minutes, and at the end of it there is a number on the form. Anyone handing back a leased car in Germany knows the moment: three years of ordinary life — a parking scuff on a door edge, a spray of stone chips across the bonnet, a kerbed alloy — suddenly get converted into euros. The question is never whether the car shows use. It is where exactly the line runs between normal wear and chargeable damage.
In Germany that line is largely written down, and it is public. The VMF — the association of brand-independent mobility and fleet management companies — publishes an appraisal catalogue called Die Faire Fahrzeugbewertung, free to download from the association's website. Reading it before the handover tells you what an argument would actually be about.
What the VMF catalogue accepts without charge
The figures below come from the VMF passenger-car catalogue in the version hosted on the association's site, dated June 2022. Anything inside these limits is not charged under the standard. Anything beyond is — and where a defect is safety-relevant, it is charged at 100 percent.
- Bodywork — up to 3 dents or dings of no more than 20 mm each per panel — accepted; more dents, or larger ones, are charged
- Paint, front section — stone chips up to 5 per 100 by 100 mm area — accepted
- Door edges and bumpers — scratches under 20 mm — accepted; anything longer is charged at 100 percent
- Steel wheels — scratches up to 50 mm — accepted
- Alloy wheels — scratches up to 20 mm, but only without material loss — accepted
- Summer tyres — tread depth from 2 mm — accepted
- Winter and all-season tyres — tread depth from 4 mm — accepted
- Mixed tyres — different brands on one axle are not accepted and are charged at 100 percent
- Windscreen — a chip counts as repairable at no more than 5 mm across, at least 10 cm from the edge, and outside the driver's field of vision
- Interior — colour change and normal wear accepted; soiling, scratches and tears are charged
- Missing items — spare key, onboard tools, spare wheel, navigation media and anything else from the original delivery scope are charged at 100 percent
The appraisal principle matters more than any single threshold
One sentence in the catalogue is worth more in practice than the millimetre tables: the appraiser must apply the least expensive viable repair method. That explicitly includes smart repair — the localised work where a dent is pushed out rather than a panel replaced. So if the report shows a replacement part price where a pull would have done, that is a point of challenge, quite apart from whether the damage should have been charged at all.
Tyres are the second fork in the road. German law requires 1.6 mm of tread depth in the main grooves under section 36 paragraph 2 of the Road Traffic Licensing Regulations. The VMF standard asks for 2 mm on summer tyres and 4 mm on winter and all-season tyres. A car can therefore be entirely roadworthy and still cost you a set of tyres. Measuring a few weeks ahead leaves you the choice of where to buy them.
On excess-wear compensation, the Federal Court of Justice removed the VAT
Where a lessor claims compensation after return because the vehicle deteriorated beyond normal wear, that amount must be calculated without value-added tax. The German Federal Court of Justice so held in its judgment of 18 May 2011, case number VIII ZR 260/10. The reasoning: once the contract has ended and the vehicle has been returned, the payment no longer corresponds to any taxable service by the lessor. An invoice showing VAT on an excess-wear amount is worth having checked.
What you can still influence on handover day
- Request the applicable appraisal catalogue in advance and hold your own damage against it — that moves the conversation from opinion to document
- Present the car clean: interior soiling is expressly chargeable under the VMF standard, while colour change is not
- Check completeness before you set off — spare key, onboard tools, charging cable, spare wheel and data media are charged at 100 percent with no tolerance
- Do not sign the return protocol under time pressure, and have objections written into it rather than merely voiced
- Take your own photographs, ideally with a ruler beside the damage — the catalogue's millimetre limits can only be checked later against images
Sources
Every factual claim above is traceable to these documents. Check them — that is why they are here.
- Die Faire Fahrzeugbewertung — quality standard and catalogue downloads (German and English)VMF — Verband markenunabhängiger Mobilitäts- und Fuhrparkmanagementgesellschaften e. V.
- Die Faire Fahrzeugbewertung — PKW appraisal criteria (PDF, dated June 2022)VMF
- BGH, judgment of 18 May 2011 — VIII ZR 260/10, excess-wear compensation calculated without VATBundesgerichtshof
- BGH ruling on excess-wear compensation for leased vehicleskfz-betrieb
- End-of-term inspection — return requirementsTesla
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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.
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