Mandatory secure electronic cash registers for larger businesses 1 January 2028, alongside a switch from automatically printed paper receipts to digital receipts.
The German Federal Cabinet approved the draft Second Cash Register Act (Zweites Kassengesetz) on 23 September 2026. The proposals form part of Germany’s wider programme to combat tax and financial crime while further digitising tax records.
The legislation must now proceed through the parliamentary process.
Mandatory electronic cash registers from January 2028
From 1 January 2028, businesses with annual turnover exceeding €100,000 would generally be required to use an electronic cash-register system. This follows similar global fiscal cash register requirements.
The systems must comply with Germany’s existing secure cash-register requirements under §146a of the Fiscal Code. Transaction records would be protected by a certified Technical Security Device (TSE) and generated according to the DSFinV-K digital interface used by the German tax authorities.
The Federal Ministry of Finance says more than 100,000 traditional open cash registers remain in use in Germany. These typically provide no electronic transaction record, making cash sales harder for tax authorities to verify.
Businesses with annual cash sales below €12,000 would be excluded from the mandatory electronic register requirement.
Further exemptions may be introduced by regulation, potentially covering areas such as trust-based cash boxes, direct agricultural sales and weekly or annual markets.
Digital receipts replace automatic paper receipts
The second major change concerns receipts.
From 1 January 2028, businesses would be required to make an electronic receipt available rather than automatically issuing a paper receipt.
Importantly, this does not remove the receipt requirement. It changes it into a digital receipt availability obligation. Customers would not be required to accept or download the electronic receipt.
The reform is intended both to reduce the large volume of paper receipts generated under Germany’s existing rules and to support increasingly digital transaction records.
Tougher anti-fraud rules
The draft goes further than cash registers and receipts.
It would create a new tax criminal offence covering the use and distribution of software designed to manipulate electronic recording systems. Failure to provide the required receipt, or failure to use a TSE-protected electronic register where mandatory, could also become an administrative offence.
Tax authorities would receive strengthened investigative powers relating to falsified electronic records.
The proposals also extend §146a requirements to rental cars, which would have to use distance-measuring devices with a digital interface capable of connecting to a TSE.
Germany pushes further towards digital tax records
The proposals are another element in Germany’s broader shift towards structured and digitally verifiable transaction data.
Germany is already phasing in mandatory B2B electronic invoicing, with businesses required to be capable of receiving domestic e-invoices since January 2025 and transitional rules governing mandatory issuance.
The cash-register proposals address a different part of the transaction chain, particularly retail and cash-based transactions. But the direction is similar: tax authorities are moving away from records that are difficult to verify towards digitally generated, standardised and increasingly machine-readable transaction data.
The Cabinet approval is an important legislative milestone, but the measures are not yet enacted law. Businesses potentially within the €100,000 turnover threshold should monitor the parliamentary process and the detailed exemptions ahead of the proposed 1 January 2028 start date.
See more in our German VAT guide.
