This page covers cars only (KBA tables FZ 2, 15, 17, 18, 27). For all vehicle kinds: overview “All vehicles” →
The answer in three numbers
As of 2022. In 2003 it was 7.4 years. German cars get older every year.
More than every fourth car (July 2026). In January 2021 it was only 20.8 %.
Of 100 cars of the same age, only 50 are still registered after this many years — the others were scrapped, exported or deregistered.
How old cars are today
All 49,696,710 cars by age, 1 July 2026. The longest bar shows where most cars are: at 5 to 9 years.
And what has changed since January 2021?
| Age | Jan 2021 | Jul 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| under 5 years | 31.9 % | 23.9 % | ▼ −7.9 pp |
| 5 to 9 years | 25.9 % | 26.6 % | ▲ +0.6 pp |
| 10 to 14 years | 21.4 % | 21.2 % | ＝ −0.3 pp |
| 15 to 19 years | 12.1 % | 15.2 % | ▲ +3.1 pp |
| 20 to 24 years | 5.0 % | 7.2 % | ▲ +2.2 pp |
| 25 to 29 years | 1.5 % | 2.7 % | ▲ +1.1 pp |
| 30 years and older | 2.0 % | 3.3 % | ▲ +1.2 pp |
How to read: the very young cars (under 5 years) are fewer, the cars aged 15 and over are more. The stock is ageing.
How long does a car last? Of 100 cars of the same age …
… are still registered after this many years. To read it: a car that is 10 years old today is one of the roughly 80 out of 100 that made it this far.
How it was calculated: until 2022 the KBA published the car stock by year of registration (table FZ 15). From it we followed each vintage year by year, measuring how many cars remain from one year to the next, and joined this into a curve. Starting at age 3, because the first years are distorted by late registrations. After about 28 years the curve flattens: those are classic cars with H plates.
The average age keeps rising — every year since 2003
Average age of all cars in years, on 1 January each (two-digit year). The scale starts at 5 years so the rise is visible. From 7.4 to 10.1 years in 19 years.
Makes: who grows, who shrinks?
How the car stock per make changed from 2014 to 2026 (KBA count, table FZ 17, from 100,000 cars). These are real stock figures, not an estimate.
📈 Growing most
📉 Shrinking most
The figure after the percentage is the 2026 stock. This does not say whether a make is “ageing” — only whether more or fewer cars are registered than in 2014.
What we do not know (yet)
- The build year per model. The KBA does not publish it anywhere. How old a Golf or a 3 Series is on average can only be estimated — we deliberately left that out here.
- The age per make. Stock per make is measured (see above); age per make would be a model calculation.
Sources: KBA FZ 15 (cars by year of registration, reference date 1 Jan 2022), FZ 27.7 (cars by vehicle age, quarters 1 Jan 2021 to 1 Jul 2026), FZ 17 (cars by make). Calculated from these tables; Data licence Germany – Attribution – Version 2.0.
Source, licence and notes
- Source: © Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, Flensburg — FZ 6.1 (HSN/TSN) mit Pkw-Zuordnung aus FZ 2.2, reference date 1. Januar 2026, published 13. April 2026.
- Licence: Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0 (dl-de/by-2-0).
- Changes: Table FZ 6.1 published by the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt was read in, summed by make and model and sorted; figures unchanged.
- All information without guarantee. The original KBA table is authoritative; this page is a private hobby project (presentation of public data) and not an offering of the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt.
- Privacy: only stock counts per type — no keeper, plate or individual vehicle data.
- Single types may appear under several trade names or make keys (e.g. corporate renamings); the analysis follows the KBA spelling.