What must be on a restaurant menu in Germany?

If you run a café, bar or restaurant in Germany, your menu has to follow rules spread across several regulations. Here they all are in one place, with section numbers and links. Everything below applies to Germany as of November 2026. Other countries, including other EU countries, have their own rules on prices and VAT.

What must be on a restaurant menu in Germany? The checklist

A menu in Germany needs final prices, the quantity for drinks, and information on allergens and additives, which may also sit outside the menu. If you serve alcohol, at least one soft drink must also match your cheapest alcoholic drink on price.

A warning about older guides: many still cite section 7 PAngV for restaurants and an older additives regulation called the ZZulV. Today the restaurant rule is in section 13 PAngV, section 7 covers deposits, and additive labelling sits in section 5 LMZDV.

How must prices appear on a German menu?

Prices on a German menu must be final prices, exactly what the guest pays. The price list must be displayed legibly, laid out on tables, or handed to each guest before ordering and again on request when paying. You also post a list of your main food and drinks next to the entrance. Food on open display, such as a cake counter, gets price tags or goes on a price list (section 13(1)).

The Dortmund chamber of commerce (IHK) names three things that aren't allowed:

• "From", "approx." or price ranges
• Wording such as "price by weight or size"
• Drinks with no quantity

Paid extras need a price too. You can't add a service charge or cover charge on top, because section 13(5) says listed prices must include all surcharges. The trade guide G wie Gastro calls charging for a cover explicitly not allowed. If you want one anyway, ask your IHK first.

What VAT applies to restaurants in Germany in 2026?

Since 1 January 2026, restaurant and catering services in Germany have been taxed at 7 percent permanently, while drinks stay at 19 percent. That's section 12(2) no. 15 of the VAT Act (UStG), added by the 2025 Tax Amendment Act (Steueränderungsgesetz 2025). The IHK Cologne confirms there's no end date.

Your menu still shows only the final price, and section 13 PAngV doesn't ask you to show the tax rate. The law lowers the tax, but it doesn't set your prices, so whether you pass the cut on is your choice. Here's what changes inside a price, with round, made-up numbers from Restaurant Laterne:

What about a breakfast buffet with coffee included?

For food and drink sold together at one price, the tax authorities accept allocating 30 percent of the price to the drinks, according to the Federal Finance Ministry letter of 22 December 2025. On a made-up €20.00 buffet at Café Morgenrot, that's €6.00 at 19 percent and €14.00 at 7 percent. You can calculate it more precisely if your real share differs, so check with your tax adviser.

And takeaway?

Drinks generally stay at 19 percent. The exception, per the IHK Cologne: milk and milk drinks with at least 75 percent milk and no alcohol are taxed at 7 percent for takeaway and delivery, and at 19 percent on site. Check that your till handles this correctly.

Which additives have to be labelled in Germany?

You must label the classes in section 5(1) LMZDV using the exact German wording it sets. Additives in bought-in products count too, such as sausages, sauces and soft drinks. The most common cases:

A guidance sheet from Lower Saxony's food authority adds two cases for drinks: "chininhaltig" (contains quinine), as in bitter lemon, and a high-caffeine warning with the amount for soft drinks above 150 mg of caffeine per litre. Numbers for additives and letters for allergens are the usual key. See our guide to allergens on the menu for how that works.

What's the rule on soft drink prices?

If you may serve alcohol in Germany, you must serve soft drinks on request, and at least one must cost no more than your cheapest alcoholic drink, also compared per litre (section 6 GastG). An example with made-up numbers from Bar Kobalt: the cheapest alcoholic drink is a beer, 0.3 l for €3.60, so €12.00 per litre. A water, 0.25 l for €2.50, is €10.00 per litre, which meets the rule.

This law isn't identical in every German state. Hesse, for example, has its own provision in section 11(4) of its restaurant act. If in doubt, ask your IHK or the local public order office (Ordnungsamt) which version applies.

What isn't required, and what's unclear?

• Calories and nutrition values: The rules on unpacked food above don't require them.
• Photos: Not required. If you use them, they must not mislead.
• Alcohol content: G wie Gastro lists percent by volume as required, and Lower Saxony's sample menu shows it. We found no explicit basis for open drinks in the rules linked here. Simply print it, or ask your food inspectors (Lebensmittelüberwachung).
• Meat origin: Section 4b LMIDV covers origin for unpacked fresh, chilled and frozen pork, lamb, goat and poultry. Ask your food inspectors whether and how it affects your menu.

What can't you say in names and descriptions?

You can't use names that mislead guests about the food. That's section 11 LFGB together with Article 7 of the EU Food Information Regulation. Only write "homemade" if it's true. Protected names apply only to the real product. G wie Gastro gives feta as its example, so if it's another cheese, call it something else.

What does a breach cost?

Breaches of section 13 PAngV are administrative offences (section 20 PAngV), with fines of up to 25,000 euros under section 3(2) of the Economic Offences Act (WiStG). For allergen information under section 4 LMIDV, the ceiling is 50,000 euros. Those are maximums, and the authority decides the amount in each case.

How do you get all of this onto a digital menu without retyping it?

With NFCeez it works like this. In the app you take photos of your menu or upload a PDF, up to 20 pages, and answer three questions about descriptions, recommendations and photos. The AI reads every page twice and asks you if a price stays unclear. Dishes, prices, sizes and extras go where they belong, so a drink in two sizes becomes one item with two prices. The AI suggests allergens from the ingredients, and you confirm them before you publish. Whatever it can't place shows as a note to ask your staff. If a price changes later, you adjust it in the app and publish, and the next guest sees it.

The limits: before publishing, you still go through the menu line by line with the checklist above. A menu on a phone doesn't replace the price list by the entrance, and your till handles the VAT rates, because NFCeez isn't a till. The digital menu page shows what it looks like.

Your next step

Put your menu next to the checklist today and mark every gap. Drink quantities, the entrance price list and the additive key are what's most often missing. If you're redoing the menu anyway, see our guide to designing a menu.