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I am driving to Germany today and just noticed that I am traveling to a city which requires a so called "Umwelt-plakette" or environmental badge to enter. Normally you need to order them in advance. Is it possible to buy them somewhere while on the road?

unor
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  • Please add your country. Especially neighbouring European countries (like mine) have companies providing these. –  Aug 11 '16 at 10:03
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    @Jan The question's from 2012 and the user has deleted their account, so you might be waiting a while... :-) but that's a useful piece of information to add – user56reinstatemonica8 Aug 11 '16 at 10:04

2 Answers2

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According to Wikipedia you can buy it at various certification agencies (TÜV, DEKRA) and theoretically any auto repair shop that's certified for doing emission tests (though apparently many don't offer this service). You need to show them the vehicle license and registration papers, from which they determine whether your car can get such a badge, and which one.

Here's detailed information in English from a TÜV website, and here are lists of branch offices where you should definitely be able to get the badge:

Michael Borgwardt
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  • @Andra: not impossible, I hope... – Michael Borgwardt Mar 09 '12 at 22:55
  • It was. I ended up just taking my chances. The penalty is 40 Euro's for not having the umwelt plakette and I was lucky –  Mar 11 '12 at 07:14
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    @Andra: OK, I've adjusted the answer. – Michael Borgwardt Mar 11 '12 at 11:49
  • I guess that the best thing is still to just buy it on the Internet if you live in a neighboring country. –  Mar 11 '12 at 13:14
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    I did get one by just showing up at DEKRA, showing the car's paper, waiting 15 min and paying about 5€ so ordering in advance or making an appointment is not always necessary. It's not as convenient as stopping on a motorway petrol station though. – Relaxed May 21 '13 at 15:17
  • You can get it also from the city government "Bürgeramt". – Shuangistan Apr 28 '16 at 08:51
  • When they introduced it, a lot of gas stations sold them. They had a manual or software to cross-reference the emission values of your car by HSN/TSN if your car papers have those, or by some other identification number in the car papers that identify the make, model, year and subtype. They can then decide which of the three colors (red, yellow, green) you would get, though by today it's essentially obsolete because afaik there is no city left that allows anything but green if they participate in that whole thing. – simbabque Jun 07 '17 at 09:43
  • Just to add: I also got the sticker from a TÜV today. It might be cheaper this way, for example: the Dutch ANWB charges €13.95 and takes ~5 working days, at the TÜV they charged me €5.85, and it took < 5 minutes. – Lg102 Jul 23 '20 at 18:44
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You can order it for various countries from https://umwelt-plakette.de/sprachauswahl_foreignshop.php.

The site has also some details, e.g. for which cities do you need the sticker at all.

eckes
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