Listenhunde in Germany: Dangerous Dog Breeds, the Federal Import Ban and the 16 Länder Lists

Almost everything written in English about dangerous dog breeds in Germany makes the same mistake: it treats the country as if it had one list. It does not. Germany has a small federal rule that does one narrow thing, and then sixteen separate Land regimes sitting on top of it, some of which name up to nineteen breeds and some of which name none at all.

The practical consequence is blunt. A dog that is perfectly ordinary in law in Hannover can be a permit-only animal 200 kilometres south in Munich, and nothing about the dog has changed. This page separates the two layers, sets out what each Land actually says, and explains what a listing does and does not trigger.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Layer one: the federal import ban

The only genuinely nationwide breed rule is in the Gesetz zur Beschränkung des Verbringens oder der Einfuhr gefährlicher Hunde in das Inland, usually shortened to HundVerbrEinfG. Its § 2 Abs. 1 Satz 1 prohibits bringing into Germany or importing dogs of the breeds Pitbull-Terrier, American Staffordshire-Terrier, Staffordshire-Bullterrier and Bullterrier, together with their crosses with one another or with other dogs.

That is the whole of the federal breed layer, and it is narrower than most summaries suggest. It bites at the border. It does not, by itself, make it unlawful to keep such a dog that is already lawfully in Germany, and it does not set a Leinenpflicht, a muzzle rule or a permit requirement anywhere. Those questions belong to Land law.

The statute also contains a mechanism for dogs presumed dangerous under the law of the state they are coming from, which is why the practical position for someone relocating with a dog is governed as much by the paperwork the destination Land demands as by the four named breeds. Anyone planning to bring a dog into Germany should treat the federal ban and the destination Land's rules as two separate checks, because clearing one says nothing about the other.

Layer two: sixteen Länder, sixteen answers

Below the federal ban, each Land legislates for itself, either by statute (a Landeshundegesetz) or by ordinance (a Verordnung made under general police or public-order powers). The drafting styles differ as much as the content. Some Länder use a single flat list. Bayern and, until 2024, Brandenburg used two tiers, one irrebuttable and one rebuttable. A growing minority use no list at all.

The table below gives one row per Land, naming the governing instrument and the breeds treated as dangerous purely because of breed. Twelve of the sixteen rows were verified in full against the Land's own legislation portal, ministry or official service portal on 20 July 2026. Two rows (Hessen and Sachsen-Anhalt) are given at instrument level only, because the governing text sits behind a JavaScript-only legal portal that could not be read directly, and the breed list is therefore marked not verified rather than guessed. Two rows (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thüringen) could not be verified against an official source at all. Where a cell says not verified, treat it as an instruction to check the Land's own portal, not as a statement about what the law says.

Read across that table and the pattern is clear. The same four breeds sit at the core of almost every list, because they are the four the federal import ban names. What varies is how far beyond that core a Land goes, whether the presumption can be rebutted, and whether the Land has abandoned the list approach entirely.

What a Wesenstest actually is

A Wesenstest is a structured behavioural assessment of an individual dog, carried out by an assessor approved for that purpose, usually a veterinarian or a specifically certified Wesenstester. The dog is exposed to a standardised sequence of situations, encounters with strangers, with other dogs, with noise and with sudden movement, and the assessor records whether the animal shows aggression beyond the normal measure.

Its legal effect depends entirely on which Land the dog is kept in. In Sachsen, the presumption of dangerousness attaching to the three listed breeds can be rebutted by an officially recognised behavioural assessment. In the Saarland the same logic applies: the presumption is expressly rebuttable, and passing the test can take the dog out of the permit requirement. In Bayern, by contrast, the split matters enormously, because the Kategorie 2 presumption can be rebutted by proof to the competent authority while the Kategorie 1 presumption is stated as always applying.

So the honest general answer is that a Wesenstest exempts a listed dog from the restrictions in several Länder and in others does nothing at all for the top category. The test result is also not portable in the way owners often assume, because it is an outcome under one Land's procedure. Which Land's rules apply, and whether a test is even available, is a matter for the Land and for the local authority that administers it.

What actually follows from a listing

Being listed is not a single consequence. It is a bundle, and Länder assemble the bundle differently. The common elements are these.

Erlaubnis. Most Länder with a list require a permit from the local Ordnungsbehörde before the dog may be kept. Baden-Württemberg requires it for a Kampfhund over six months old, and conditions it on a legitimate interest in keeping the dog, on the applicant's reliability and on their expertise. The Saarland requires the keeper to be at least eighteen, resident in the Land, and to hold a Sachkundebescheinigung tied to that specific dog.

Leinenpflicht und Maulkorbpflicht. Listed dogs are commonly required to be on a lead and muzzled outside enclosed private property. Rheinland-Pfalz requires both outside secured property and inside multi-occupancy buildings. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern applies a two metre maximum lead length to dogs classified as dangerous.

Sachkundenachweis. Proof of the keeper's competence, typically a theory examination and in some Länder a practical assessment with the dog.

Insurance, chipping and registration. A Hundehaftpflichtversicherung is standard for listed dogs, and increasingly for all dogs. Bremen's 2025 statute sets minimum cover of 500.000 EUR for personal injury and 250.000 EUR for property damage. Brandenburg's 2024 reform introduced chipping and registration for every dog from eight weeks old, whether or not it is dangerous.

Hundesteuer. This one is municipal, not Land level. Many municipalities levy a sharply higher rate on a dog classified as a Kampfhund, sometimes several hundred euros a year against a double-digit rate for an ordinary dog. Because it is set by Satzung in each Gemeinde, the figure for any given address has to come from that municipality.

Breeding and trade restrictions. Bremen prohibits breeding and trading in the four listed breeds outright, and prohibits keeping them subject to narrow exemption.

The trap: moving between Länder

Because every element above is Land or municipal law, a dog's legal status attaches to where it is kept. Cross a Land border with a permanent move and the dog is assessed afresh under the destination Land's rules. Nothing in federal law carries a status, a permit or a Wesenstest result across that border automatically.

A worked scenario. Take a five year old American Staffordshire Terrier kept in Hannover. Under the Niedersächsisches Hundegesetz the Land runs a breed-neutral regime, so the dog is not dangerous by breed. Its keeper holds the Sachkundenachweis every Niedersachsen dog keeper needs, has the dog chipped and registered in the central Land register, and holds liability insurance. In practical terms the dog walks, on the ordinary local rules, like any other dog.

The keeper now takes a job in Munich and moves. Under the Bayern Verordnung of 10 July 1992, the American Staffordshire Terrier sits in Kategorie 1, the category in which the fighting-dog characteristic is always presumed. The dog has done nothing. Its behaviour is identical. But it has moved from a Land with no breed list into a Land whose top category is not rebuttable by proof about the individual animal, and the Niedersachsen Sachkundenachweis was issued under a different statute for a different purpose.

The same move in reverse produces the mirror image, a Kategorie 1 dog in Bayern becoming an unlisted dog on arrival in Hannover. The lesson is not that one Land is right and another wrong. It is that the question is never what German law says about this breed, but what the law of the specific Land, and the Satzung of the specific municipality, say for the address where the dog will live. That is a question for the destination Ordnungsbehörde before the move, not after it.

Why the picture keeps changing

Breed lists have been under sustained pressure since Niedersachsen dropped its list in 2011. Schleswig-Holstein followed with a breed-neutral regime from 1 January 2016. Brandenburg abandoned its two-tier classification on 1 July 2024, and its Innenministerium described the change as a move from breed to individual behaviour, owner competence and specific incidents. Bremen went the other way in 2025, replacing its 2001 statute entirely with a stricter one after a serious bite incident.

That churn is exactly why a table like the one above carries a verification date. A page that lists breeds without saying when the list was checked is not usable for a decision, because the list may have been rewritten since. For the wider map of this area, including how the leash and liability rules interact with all of this, see the Germany dog law hub and the page on leash requirements. For German law more broadly, see German law explained.

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