Apply for an exemption from the lorry driving ban during holiday periods

If you urgently need to drive a lorry with a maximum permissible mass of more than 7.5 tonnes or a lorry with a trailer on certain sections of motorway and main roads between 7.00 a.m. and 8.00 p.m. on Saturdays from 1 July to 31 August inclusive, you must apply for a special permit.

For lorries with a maximum permissible mass of over 7.5 tonnes and lorries with trailers, a driving ban applies on all Saturdays from 1 July to 31 August from 7.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. on the following motorway sections and the following federal roads outside built-up areas in both directions:

• A 1 from the Erfttal motorway junction via the Leverkusen-West motorway junction, Wuppertal, Kamener Kreuz, Münster to the Lotte/Osnabrück junction
• A 2 from motorway junction Oberhausen to motorway junction Bad Oeynhausen
• A 3 from motorway junction Oberhausen to motorway junction Köln-Ost, from Mönchhof Dreieck via Frankfurter Kreuz to motorway junction Nürnberg
• A 4 from Kirchheimer Dreieck motorway junction to the Thuringia state border near Herleshausen
• A 5 from Hatterbacher Dreieck to Bad Homburger Kreuz, from Darmstädter Kreuz to the Karlsruhe-Süd junction and from the Offenburg junction to the Neuenburg motorway junction
• A 6 from the Schwetzingen-Hockenheim junction to the Nürnberg-Süd motorway junction
• A 7 from junction Schleswig/Jagel to motorway junction Bordesholm, from junction Soltau-Süd to motorway junction Hannover-Ost, from motorway junction Schweinfurt/Werneck via motorway junction Biebelried, motorway junction Ulm/Elchingen and motorway junction Allgäu to the end of the motorway at the federal border Füssen
• A 8 from the Karlsruhe motorway junction to the Munich-Obermenzing junction and from the Munich-Ramersdorf junction to the Bad Reichenhall junction
• A 9/E 51 Berliner Ring (Leipzig motorway junction/Potsdam motorway junction) to Munich-Schwabing junction
• A 10 Berliner Ring, from Werder motorway junction via Potsdam-Nord junction to Berlin-Spandau junction
• A 45 motorway from Dortmund-Süd junction via Westhofener Kreuz and Gambacher Kreuz to Seligenstädter Dreieck junction
• A 61 from motorway junction Meckenheim via motorway junction Koblenz to motorway junction Hockenheim
• A 67 from Darmstädter Kreuz motorway junction to Viernheimer Dreieck motorway junction
• A 81 motorway from the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen junction to the Gärtringen junction
• A 92 from the Munich-Feldmoching motorway junction to the Oberschleißheim junction and from the Neufahrn motorway junction to the Erding junction
• A 93 from motorway junction Inntal to junction Reischenhart
• A 99 from motorway junction München Süd-West via motorway junction München-West, motorway junction München-Allach, motorway junction München-Feldmoching, motorway junction München-Nord, motorway junction München-Ost, motorway junction München-Süd and motorway junction München/Eschenried
• A 831 from the Stuttgart-Vaihingen junction to the Stuttgart motorway junction
• A 980 from the Allgäu motorway junction to the Waltenhofen junction
• A 995 from Sauerlach junction to Munich-South motorway junction
• B 31 from the Stockach-Ost junction on the A 98 motorway to the Sigmarszell junction on the A 96 motorway
• B 96/E 251 from the Berlin state border to the B 104 in Neubrandenburg.

The following may drive without a special licence

• Tractors used exclusively to tow other vehicles
• Tractors and articulated lorries with an auxiliary loading area whose payload is not more than 0.4 times the permissible total mass
• Vehicles in which the transported objects are part of the inventory, such as exhibition, film and television vehicles as well as showmen's vehicles (showmen's vehicles also with trailers)
• self-propelled machinery (e.g. harvesters, combine harvesters)
• combined road-rail transport of goods from the consignor to the nearest suitable loading station or from the nearest suitable unloading station to the consignee
• combined road-port transport between the place of loading or unloading and a port located within a maximum radius of 150 kilometres (arrival or departure)
• Recovery, towing and repair vehicles in use as well as empty journeys in connection with these journeys
• Transport of live bees and empty journeys in connection with these journeys
• Caravan trailers and trailers towed behind lorries with a maximum permissible mass of up to 3.5 tonnes for sports and leisure purposes.

The following may be transported without an exemption licence

• fresh milk and fresh dairy products
• fresh meat and fresh meat products
• fresh fish, live fish and fresh fish products and
• perishable fruit and vegetables
• Category 1 material in accordance with Article 8 and Category 2 material in accordance with Article 9(f)(i) of Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 laying down health rules concerning animal by-products not intended for human consumption and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1774/2002 (Animal by-products Regulation) (OJ L 300, 14.11.2009, p. 1; L 348, 4.12.2014, p. 31)
• as well as empty journeys in connection with the above-mentioned journeys

You require a special authorisation for all other commercial journeys.