Germany: does a prize draw need approval before launch?
No. No permit, no registration and no notary, as long as no separate charge is made for the chance to win.
Rated: straightforward
Planning effort, not legal risk, and not legal advice. Before every launch the mechanic is confirmed by a law firm admitted in the market.
In detail
Permitted, including purchase-linked draws, subject to the transparency duty in section 6(1) no. 4 DDG and the fairness rules of the UWG; no free-entry route required
No permit, registration or notary, as long as no separate charge is made for the chance to win; normal postage or standard-rate transmission costs are not a stake, but a genuine participation fee makes the draw a licensable game of chance under the GlueStV
No prize tax; winnings are tax-free for private individuals unless the winner gives something in return to the organiser or acts professionally
An active cease-and-desist environment (Abmahnungen); unclear terms, badly structured marketing consent or a direct purchase appeal to children can trigger injunctions mid-campaign
No permit, no registration, no notary, and purchase-linked draws are permitted, which makes Germany look like the easiest market on this page. Read it as the least forgiving instead: because nothing is checked before launch, mistakes can surface later as legal disputes or competitor challenges (Abmahnungen). Unclear participation conditions, transparency gaps or badly structured marketing consent can trigger injunctions in the middle of a running campaign. The protection is craft: precise Teilnahmebedingungen, a clean consent architecture, a witnessed and documented draw protocol, and, where the audience includes minors, care with the per-se ban on direct purchase appeals to children. Here the paperwork is not a filing, it is the defence. Status: mid-2026.
What this means for your campaign
No lead time. The work sits in clear terms and clean marketing consent — in an active cease-and-desist environment that is the real cost centre, not the paperwork.
All 41 markets side by side
The permit check puts all 41 markets side by side and adds up the effort for your market selection. The full legal sources are on the market rules overview.
Planning a campaign in Germany?
Tell us the mechanic, the markets and the date. You get a fixed-price concept back within three business days, including the permit route per market.