The flat-rate expense allowance is a fixed amount for small expenses after a traffic accident, such as phone calls, postage and trips. You do not need to prove each item. It is paid in addition to repair costs, diminished value (Wertminderung, the drop in market value caused by the accident) and the expert's fee.
In German it is also called Auslagenpauschale or Kostenpauschale. It is a fixed part of every damage report (Schadengutachten). Its amount is between €20 and €30, depending on the court.
The allowance covers phone costs, postage and travel costs, for example to the repair shop, to the expert or to your lawyer. No individual receipts are needed. The basis is § 249(2) sentence 1 of the German Civil Code (BGB). It says that the injured person receives the money needed to restore the damaged property. Such very small items are hard to prove in a reasonable way. So case law has accepted a flat amount that saves this effort.
So the allowance is a separate item of damage. It applies whether the car is actually repaired or settled by fictitious settlement (fiktive Abrechnung). This means you get the calculated amount paid out instead of repairing the car. The allowance stands next to the other items of the claim. It does not replace them and is not subtracted from them. This also applies to lawyer's fees. They are a separate claim. If a case goes to court, the court counts the allowance as part of the main claim. It counts the lawyer's fee from before the lawsuit as an additional claim.
Included in the allowance
Billed separately, not in the allowance
In practice, reductions (Kürzungen) often happen at this boundary. A review company working for the insurer sometimes treats a trip to the repair shop or to the expert twice. It counts the trip once in the allowance and once as supposedly included in the expert's fee. The two items are separate. One is not subtracted from the other. So it is worth checking the settlement. If the allowance does not appear as its own line, or if it is deleted because travel costs are supposedly covered already, this is a pattern of reductions. It is not a legal exclusion.
Case law
In case law, the amount ranges from €20 to €30, because no decision of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) sets a fixed amount. The basis for the amount of damage is § 287 of the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO). It lets each court estimate the amount itself. The BGH has only said that such a flat amount is allowed, because accident claims are very common and a simple flat rule is practical. The BGH did not set an amount itself. The result is a real range between courts, not one nationwide value.
Five decisions that we checked one by one against the court data show this range:
| Court | Date | Case number | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kammergericht Berlin (Berlin Higher Regional Court) | August 16, 2010 | 22 U 15/10 | €20 |
| Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) Saarbrücken | May 8, 2014 | 4 U 61/13 | €25 |
| Local court (Amtsgericht) Brandenburg an der Havel | January 8, 2016 | 31 C 111/15 | €25 |
| Local court Potsdam | February 6, 2020 | 24 C 234/19 | €30 |
| Higher Regional Court Celle | June 16, 2021 | 14 U 152/20 | €25 |
The Kammergericht Berlin has kept the amount at €20 for years. In its own decisions, it says that its traffic divisions have decided this the same way for many years. Most of the decisions we checked set €25. Some local courts now award €30. The local court in Potsdam said that €25 is no longer up to date. But this does not show a uniform trend upward among the higher regional courts. The Higher Regional Court Celle expressly confirmed €25 only in June 2021. Which amount applies in a dispute depends on the competent court. Your traffic law lawyer handles the legal assessment and the claim against the insurer.
In detail: In 2010, the Kammergericht Berlin rejected the appeal of a person who had asked for more than €20. It left the amount at €20. In 2014, the Higher Regional Court Saarbrücken confirmed €25 as appropriate for mass claims settlement after accidents. In 2016, the local court in Brandenburg an der Havel cut a request for €35 to €25. It said that lower phone and internet costs are balanced by higher travel costs. In 2020, the local court in Potsdam went above the usual amount and awarded €30. In 2021, the Higher Regional Court Celle rejected the attempt of the other party's insurer to reduce the amount. It confirmed €25. So two of the five decisions, Berlin and Brandenburg, went against the higher amount that was requested. The other three confirmed or raised the allowance.
In practice, the amount used also depends on which court would be responsible in a dispute. In our reports for Erlangen, Nuremberg and Fürth, we use €25 as the standard. Most of the decisions we checked support this value.
The usual attempt to reduce the amount rests on one argument. Phone calls and mail are much cheaper today because of flat rates, email and online banking. So the allowance should be lower. The Higher Regional Court Celle expressly rejected this argument in June 2021. The allowance does not only cover phone and postage. It also covers travel costs to the repair shop, to the expert and to the lawyer. These costs have risen rather than fallen because of higher fuel and energy prices. In the court's view, both effects balance out.
There is also the purpose of the flat amount itself. It should prevent disputes over very small sums in mass claims settlement after accidents. A court that recalculates every single type of cost removes exactly the benefit that the allowance should give.
There are also regional differences. The Kammergericht Berlin keeps its lower line. Most lower courts in Bavaria support €25 in practice. This includes the local courts responsible for Erlangen, Nuremberg and Fürth. A general reference to "case law" is therefore not enough. What counts is the line of the competent court.
If the allowance is deleted or reduced to €20 in your case, we review the technical basis of the reduction as independent vehicle experts. We document the basis in the report again. Your traffic law lawyer handles the legal assessment and the claim against the insurer. You can find more about how such a review works under Report review (Gutachtenprüfung) and expert statement (Stellungnahme).
No, you do not need individual proof. This is the real purpose of the flat amount under § 287 ZPO. The allowance is added to the claim as a fixed item without a receipt. You do not submit phone bills or trip logs for it.
In a single case, proof of higher actual costs remains possible. This applies if you can show that the effort was higher than the allowance covers. In practice, this only pays off if the effort is much higher. Otherwise the extra payment is smaller than the effort needed to justify it.
If you still want to prove individual costs, you must collect the receipts from the start. Phone bills, postage receipts and trip lists are hard to rebuild later. In most cases, collecting individual proof takes more effort than the extra money is worth.
In a typical case, the allowance is one of several items that together form the claim. Here is an example from our practice in Erlangen. A VW Golf is damaged at the rear in a rear-end collision that was not the driver's fault. The damage report lists the following items side by side.
| Net repair costs | €3,180.50 |
| Diminished value | €350.00 |
| Loss-of-use compensation, 6 days at €55 | €330.00 |
| Flat-rate expense allowance | €25.00 |
| Subtotal of these four items | €3,885.50 |
The expert's fee is added as a further item. The report shows it individually, based on the actual effort. So no amount is given for it here. The allowance always appears as its own line next to the other items. It does not replace any of them and is not offset against them.
If the accident was not your fault, the liability insurance of the driver who caused it pays the whole claim, including the allowance.
Legal context
If the allowance is reduced in your case, we check the technical basis again as independent vehicle experts. Your traffic law lawyer handles the legal assessment and the claim against the insurer. Now we look at the legal situation itself. No BGH decision sets the amount of the allowance for traffic accidents. The basis for the claim is § 249(2) sentence 1 BGB. The lower courts decide the amount. They estimate it under § 287 ZPO. We checked the five decisions listed above one by one against the court data, from the Kammergericht Berlin with €20 to the local court in Potsdam with €30. We checked the court, the date and the outcome. One case number from the old content of this page could not be confirmed in this check. We removed it and replaced it.
A case number that is often named on this topic is a BGH decision of March 6, 2012, case number VI ZR 167/11. Contrary to what is sometimes stated, it does not concern the allowance. That decision is about a different question. It asks whether you may ask a court to confirm a claim (Feststellungsklage) when part of the damage can already be counted in euros. So we deliberately do not cite it here as proof for the allowance.
The BGH commented on the system in a decision of May 8, 2012, case number VI ZR 37/11, but in a different situation. A network operator asked a construction company for a flat amount for damaged lines, based on the standard for traffic accidents. The BGH rejected this use of the traffic-accident standard, because large, established companies handle claims differently from private persons after a traffic accident. In the end, the decision confirms that the flat amount is meant for private accident settlement as a mass business. It does not set an amount for this case itself.
Legal information, not legal advice. This overview is a technical classification of case law by the expert. Your traffic law lawyer handles the legal assessment of your specific case and the claim against the insurer. CleverCrash prepares the technical damage report as an independent vehicle expert.
The injured person is paid first when they share fault. This matters if items such as the flat-rate expense allowance are paid only in part.
Confirmation of a professional repair after a fictitious settlement. It is also part of complete damage documentation.
Separating repaired and unrepaired earlier damage in the report. This is another common point of reduction.
A drop in market value that stays on the car even after a professional repair. Like the flat-rate expense allowance, it is paid in addition to the repair costs.
Payout of the damage based on the report, without a repair. The flat-rate expense allowance is still due in this case.
Case law ranges between €20 and €30. The Kammergericht Berlin keeps €20. Most of the decisions we checked set €25. Some local courts now award €30. The BGH does not set one amount for all of Germany.
The usual argument is lower phone and postage costs because of flat rates and email. The Higher Regional Court Celle rejected this argument in 2021. The allowance also covers travel costs, and these have risen rather than fallen because of higher fuel costs.
In claims settlement practice, yes. These are three separate items of the claim. The allowance is not offset against the expert's fee or the lawyer's fees.
No. This is exactly the purpose of the flat amount under § 287 ZPO. Individual proof only pays off if much higher actual costs arose in a single case.
With shared liability, the allowance is paid in part like any other item of damage, according to the liability share. You can find more under the term priority right.
Covered are phone calls, postage and trips to the repair shop, to the expert or to the lawyer. Not covered, and billed separately, are the expert's fee, lawyer's fees, towing costs, rental car costs and loss-of-use compensation.
Direct contact with your expert
For accidents that were not your fault, you do not pay in advance. The other party's liability insurance usually pays the costs of the report. Not sure whether an inspection is worth it in your case? Our free initial assessment does not obligate you to anything. We come to you, all over Erlangen, Nuremberg, Fürth and the surrounding Nuremberg Metropolitan Region.
