Checking Criminal Records in Germany

Criminal convictions in Germany are recorded in the Federal Central Criminal Register, which the Federal Office of Justice (Bundesamt für Justiz) keeps under Section 1 of the Federal Central Criminal Register Act (Bundeszentralregistergesetz, BZRG). The register has two parts. The Central Register (Zentralregister) holds convictions by German courts and certain administrative decisions.

The Educative Measures Register (Erziehungsregister) is for young people. It records measures imposed on juveniles (aged 14 to 17) and young adults (aged 18 to 20) under the Youth Courts Act (Jugendgerichtsgesetz, JGG), such as educational or disciplinary measures. It also holds certain decisions to drop proceedings and some family court decisions concerning minors (Section 60 BZRG). Youth custody sentences (Jugendstrafe) are the exception: they go into the Central Register.

Most convictions are deleted from the Central Register after five to twenty years, depending on the type and severity of the conviction. In many cases, the period is extended by the length of any prison sentence (Section 46 BZRG). Once this deletion period (Tilgungsfrist) expires, the conviction becomes due for deletion (Section 45 BZRG). It is then removed a year later, and during that final year, only you can be informed about it.

A conviction can also be deleted before its deletion period expires. On application or on its own initiative, the Federal Office of Justice can order early deletion, provided the sentence has been fully served and the public interest does not stand in the way (Section 49 BZRG). Before deciding, it should hear the court that handed down the conviction. If your application is refused, you have two weeks to lodge a complaint. Our lawyers can assess whether an application is worth making in your case and prepare it for you.

Some convictions are never deleted automatically. These are life sentences, orders for preventive detention (Sicherungsverwahrung) or placement in a psychiatric hospital, and certain convictions for the most serious forms of child sexual abuse.

Entries in the Educative Measures Register disappear once the person turns 24, unless a prison sentence, youth custody, or a custodial measure such as placement in a psychiatric hospital is still on the Central Register. The Federal Office of Justice can also remove entries earlier, on application or on its own initiative. It can do so once the sentence has been completed, provided this is not against the public interest (Section 63 BZRG).

A certificate of good conduct (Führungszeugnis) is an official extract from the Central Register. It is the document employers and public authorities usually ask for, for example in licensing procedures. It does not show everything. What appears depends on the conviction and the type of certificate, and convictions drop out after a set period, usually three or five years (Sections 33 and 34 BZRG). Serious sexual offenses stay on longer, particularly on the extended certificate of good conduct (erweitertes Führungszeugnis) required for work with children and young people.

A conviction that has dropped off your certificate has not been deleted. It stays in the register until its deletion period runs out, and courts, public prosecutors, and certain authorities can still see it.

To see everything the register holds about you, including entries your certificate no longer shows, you can request full disclosure under Section 42 BZRG. The procedure is different from applying for a certificate of good conduct, and it can also be arranged from abroad. Our criminal defense lawyers explain how it works in your case and what we can handle for you. We then assess what the entries mean and whether any of them can be corrected or removed early.

In most situations, no. If a conviction no longer appears in a certificate of good conduct, or would only appear in a certificate issued to a public authority, you may describe yourself as having no previous convictions and do not have to disclose the facts behind it (Section 53 BZRG). The same applies once a conviction is due for deletion.

There is one important exception. Courts and authorities with unrestricted access to the register, which include the immigration and naturalization authorities, can still take convictions into account that no longer appear on your certificate. If they have informed you of this, you cannot describe yourself as having no previous convictions with regard to entries that are still in the register. Toward them, the right only applies to convictions that are due for deletion.

Once a conviction has been deleted or is due for deletion, it can no longer be held against you or used to your disadvantage in legal or official dealings (Section 51 BZRG). This does not undo rights that others acquired as a result of the offense, legal consequences that followed from it, or decisions that courts and authorities already made in connection with it.

Convictions from courts outside Germany can end up in the German register too. Under Section 54 BZRG, this happens where three conditions are met:

• you are a German national, or you were born in Germany or live here,
• the conduct would also have been punishable under German law, and
• the conviction is final.

The Federal Office of Justice enters a foreign conviction once the convicting state has notified it (Section 55 BZRG). If your whereabouts are known, you should be given the chance to comment. If the conditions for entry are not met, the entry must be removed. If the Office refuses your application to remove it, you have two weeks to lodge a complaint.

Once entered, a foreign conviction is treated just like a German one (Section 56 BZRG). The same rules apply to the certificate of good conduct and to deletion, with the foreign sentence matched to the closest German equivalent. A foreign conviction also becomes due for deletion as soon as a comparable German conviction would, even if it was never entered in the German register (Section 58 BZRG).

EU member states also share criminal records through the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), a secure electronic network that connects their national registers. When a German court convicts a citizen of another member state, the conviction is passed on to the register of that person’s home country, even if they also hold German citizenship (Section 57a BZRG). Other member states can also request information from the German register, for example for criminal proceedings. If you apply for a criminal record certificate in another member state, that state can request your German entries to include in it.

A criminal record can affect the renewal of a residence permit, an application for permanent residence or citizenship, and even entry into Germany. The authorities that decide these matters can see considerably more than a certificate of good conduct shows. Under Section 41 BZRG, the following authorities can request information on entries that no longer appear in a certificate of good conduct:

• the local foreigners authority (Ausländerbehörde), which handles residence permits for people living in Germany,
• the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF),
• the authorities responsible for border control, and
• the naturalization authorities (Einbürgerungsbehörden).

They must state why they need the information and may only use it for that purpose. A conviction you assume is no longer visible can therefore still play a role in your residence or naturalization proceedings until it is due for deletion.

If you are planning to come to Germany, a criminal record can also affect a visa or residence permit application. In serious cases, there is a risk of being refused entry at the border or arrested on the basis of an existing wanted-person alert, stored either in the German police information system or in the Schengen Information System.

Whether you already live in Germany or are planning to come here, it makes sense to have your criminal record and police data checked before you apply for a permit, a renewal, or citizenship, or before you travel. Our criminal defense lawyers review what is recorded about you. Where your residence status is at stake, we work with our immigration lawyers to assess the risks and plan the next steps.

If you already live in Germany, a criminal record can affect the renewal of your residence permit (Aufenthaltstitel) or an application for a permanent residence permit (Niederlassungserlaubnis). In serious cases, it can lead to immigration consequences such as expulsion (Ausweisung), an order requiring you to leave Germany, or an entry ban (Einreisesperre).

Expulsion is not automatic. Under Section 53 of the Residence Act (Aufenthaltsgesetz, AufenthG), the authorities must weigh the public interest in your departure against your interest in staying, based on the individual circumstances of your case. These include how long you have lived in Germany, your personal and economic ties to Germany and to your home country, the consequences for your family, and whether you have otherwise abided by the law.

Stronger protection against expulsion applies to certain groups. These include holders of an EU long-term residence permit, people with a right of residence under the EU-Turkey Association Agreement, and people granted asylum or international protection in Germany.

How much a conviction weighs depends mainly on the sentence and the type of offense (Section 54 AufenthG). The longer the sentence, the more weight it carries. Certain violent, sexual, and property offenses weigh heavily even where the sentence is comparatively short. Conduct other than a criminal conviction can also count. Giving false or incomplete information to obtain a residence permit or visa can itself be grounds for expulsion, whether the application was made in Germany or abroad. If you are unsure how to answer questions about previous convictions in an application, our lawyers will brief you on your situation before you submit it.

EU citizens and their family members do not need a residence permit to live in Germany, but a criminal record can still affect their right to stay. Under Section 6 of the Freedom of Movement Act/EU (Freizügigkeitsgesetz/EU, FreizügG/EU), the authorities can only find that the right of entry and residence has been lost on grounds of public policy, public security, or public health. The same grounds apply to refusing entry.

A criminal conviction is not enough on its own. Only convictions that have not yet been deleted from the Federal Central Criminal Register can be taken into account. Even then, they only count where the conduct behind them shows a genuine, present, and sufficiently serious threat to a fundamental interest of society. Protection also increases with time spent in Germany. Once you have acquired permanent residence, serious grounds are required. After ten years of residence, and for minors, only imperative grounds of public security can justify the loss of the right to stay.

Not every conviction stands in the way of naturalization. Under Section 12a of the Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz, StAG), minor convictions are disregarded. These include educational and disciplinary measures under the Youth Courts Act, fines of up to 90 daily rates (Tagessätze), and prison sentences of up to three months that were suspended on probation and remitted after the probation period. In Germany, fines are set as a number of daily rates. The court bases the amount of each rate on the offender’s personal and financial circumstances, usually their average daily net income, so the number of rates, not the total amount paid, reflects how serious the offense is.

Several minor convictions are added together, and where the total only slightly exceeds the statutory limit, the authority decides case by case. This exception does not apply where a court has established that an offense was motivated by antisemitism, racism, or other contempt for human dignity.

Convictions handed down abroad also count, provided that three conditions are met:

• the offense would be a crime in Germany,
• the proceedings met rule-of-law standards, and
• the sentence is proportionate.

A foreign conviction can no longer be taken into account once it would have been deleted under the BZRG. Your naturalization application must list any foreign convictions, as well as investigations or criminal proceedings pending abroad. If you are under investigation in Germany when you apply, the decision on your application is put on hold until the proceedings have ended, or, if you are convicted, until the judgment is final.

Not everything the authorities know about you is in the criminal register. INPOL is the central database of the German police. The Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) runs it as a shared system for federal and state police, built to store, match, and analyze large amounts of data on people and objects. Anything entered is available to every connected authority within seconds. Alongside the BKA, the State Criminal Police Offices (Landeskriminalämter), the Customs Criminal Investigation Office (Zollkriminalamt), and the Federal Police (Bundespolizei) all have access. Because the Federal Police carries out checks at Germany’s borders and airports, an INPOL entry can come up when you arrive in the country, not only during a police check inside Germany.

INPOL is not limited to convictions. It holds data on offenders and accused persons, suspects, and people the police consider potential offenders and their contacts, as well as witnesses, informants, victims of crime, and missing persons. You can therefore appear in INPOL without ever having been convicted, or even charged. Entries are deleted automatically once the time limits set by data protection law run out.

You have the right to find out whether the police hold any data about you in INPOL, and if so, what it is. This right comes from the Federal Criminal Police Office Act (Bundeskriminalamtgesetz, BKAG) and the Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, BDSG) (Section 84 BKAG and Section 57 BDSG). It covers more than the data itself. You are also entitled to know:

• where the data came from,
• why it is being processed, and on what legal basis,
• who it has been passed on to, and
• how long it will be kept.

The BKA answers these requests in agreement with the authority that entered the data. In some cases, the law allows the information to be restricted or withheld. If that happens, you must be told in writing. You can then ask the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information to exercise your right of access on your behalf.

At Schlun & Elseven Rechtsanwälte, our criminal defense lawyers can make the request for you. With your written authorization, we find out what INPOL holds about you and check whether it is being stored lawfully. We also assess how it could affect your residence status, a naturalization application, a visa, or a planned trip to Germany. If data is inaccurate or should no longer be stored, we can apply for it to be corrected or deleted.

Because INPOL data is so sensitive, the authorities only release it to you or your authorized representative, and they check identity carefully. To act for you, we need:

• an informal request for information,
• a current written power of attorney with your handwritten signature, setting out the request and confirming that we are acting on your behalf, and
• a certified copy of a valid identity document.

The whole process can be handled remotely, so there is no need to travel to Germany. If you are abroad, we will tell you which forms of certification the authorities accept for documents prepared there. Once we have your documents, we submit the request and review what comes back. We pay particular attention to how the data could affect residence, naturalization, or visa proceedings, which is where our experience across administrative, data protection, and immigration law comes in.

The Schengen Information System (SIS) is the shared search and information system of the Schengen states and one of the most important tools for police cooperation in Europe. It works in a similar way to INPOL but operates across the Schengen Area. This makes it highly relevant to anyone who wants to enter, travel within, or live in a Schengen country.

The SIS stores alerts on people and objects, for example in connection with criminal investigations or immigration decisions. Each alert tells authorities throughout Europe what to do if they come across the person or object concerned. These range from arrest and extradition to refusal of entry and the seizure of evidence. The SIS is a search database only, and it does not store investigation or case files. Further information about a person is only exchanged once there is a specific hit. This happens through the SIRENE Bureaus (Supplementary Information Request at the National Entries), the national contact points each participating state maintains for exchanging information on alerts. In Germany, the SIRENE Bureau is part of the BKA.

All EU member states have access to the SIS, as do Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland. Alerts can affect anyone. An alert for arrest, for example, applies regardless of nationality. For third-country nationals (people who are not citizens of an EU member state, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, or Switzerland), an alert refusing entry has particularly serious consequences, because it applies not only to Germany but to every participating state. Checks against the SIS are a routine part of border controls and other police checks within the Schengen Area. An alert can therefore come up when you travel, even if another Schengen state issued it.

Under the EU regulations governing the SIS, you have the right to find out what data about you is stored in the system. You can also have inaccurate data corrected and unlawfully stored data deleted. You can make the request in any Schengen state, including Germany. If another state issued the alert, the authorities you contact must give that state an opportunity to state its position before releasing any information. Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you must be informed of the outcome without undue delay and in any event within one month, which can be extended by up to two further months where necessary. This also applies if you live outside the EU.

Access can be restricted or refused where necessary, for example to avoid obstructing an ongoing investigation or to protect public or national security. You must then be informed in writing. You can lodge a complaint with the data protection supervisory authority, seek a remedy in court, or have your rights exercised through the supervisory authority instead.

At Schlun & Elseven Rechtsanwälte, our criminal defense lawyers can make SIS requests on your behalf, review the information released, and apply for inaccurate or unlawfully stored data to be corrected or deleted. Like the INPOL request, this can be handled entirely remotely. Where an alert affects your residence status or travel plans, we work with our immigration lawyers on the next steps.

The criminal register records convictions, while a certificate of good conduct shows only part of it. INPOL holds police data that can include people who were never convicted, and the SIS holds alerts that apply across the Schengen Area. The table compares the four in more detail.

Whether you need to know what your record shows, want an entry corrected or deleted early, or are unsure how a conviction will affect a permit or naturalization application, our criminal defense lawyers can review your situation and explain your options. We advise in English, work remotely with clients in Germany and around the world, and treat every inquiry confidentially. Where your residence status is at stake, our immigration lawyers are involved from the start. After a brief initial assessment, you receive a cost offer and can then decide whether to instruct us. Contact us to have your situation reviewed.