No speed limit on the German Autobahn?
But where?

On around 64.7% of the German Autobahn network there is no general speed limit, which is roughly 17,287 of the 26,705 kilometres of directional carriageway. A further 10.6% has a variable limit: gantries there display a limit or release the road, depending on traffic and weather. 23.2% has a fixed limit. The basis is our own analysis of OpenStreetMap data.

64.7% is permanently without a speed limit, a further 10.6% has a variable limit. Together that makes 75.3% of the network not permanently restricted. The figures refer to directional carriageway kilometres, meaning each direction of travel is counted separately.

The A20 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein leads with 91.8% unrestricted road over 690 kilometres. Behind it come the A38 with 91.2%, the A19 with 90.6%, the A31 with 89.0% and the A24 with 87.9%. All Autobahnen of 200 kilometres and longer were analysed.

No German Autobahn is entirely unrestricted. Even the freest routes have sections with a limit – at interchanges, at junctions, in roadworks, and wherever noise protection or bends demand it. The A20 comes closest at 91.8%.

At autobahn-tempolimit.de/karte you enter start and destination and choose “most unrestricted Autobahn” as your objective. The planner then suggests the route with the largest share of unrestricted road, even if it is a few kilometres longer, and gives the driving time for the speed you have set.

A variable speed limit system is a series of digital display boards above the Autobahn that changes the speed limit according to traffic, weather and time of day. In Germany around 2,826 kilometres of Autobahn are equipped this way, which is 10.6% of the network. In German they are called Streckenbeeinflussungsanlagen, colloquially Schilderbrücken – sign gantries.

If a gantry displays no speed limit, no limit applies on that section – the system has released the road. That is the normal state at night, on Sundays and outside peak hours. A limit is typically switched on during rush hour between 7 and 9 and between 16 and 19, in rain and fog, and at night near towns for noise protection.

Whether a stretch of road carries a gantry appears on no ordinary map and is hard to find out in advance. On autobahn-tempolimit.de these sections are drawn as a blue-and-white dashed line, so that before setting off you can see where free driving may be suspended at times.

Both, depending on what is switched on – which is why they are counted separately rather than simply reported as free. Anyone planning driving time should treat them as uncertain: at night and at weekends they are usually open, in rush hour usually set to 100 or 120.

The advisory speed of 130 kph is a recommendation, not a speed limit – driving faster is not an offence and is not punished. It is laid down in the Autobahn advisory speed regulation and applies on Autobahnen and similarly built roads that have no limit of their own.

In an accident above 130 kph the doctrine of operating risk can lead to shared liability, even if you did not cause the accident. How large that share turns out to be depends on the individual case, and courts decide it differently. Anyone who regularly drives faster should discuss it with their insurer.

On sections without a speed limit there is no statutory maximum speed, provided the vehicle, the weather, the traffic and visibility allow it. The requirement to be able to stop at any time and to endanger no one applies regardless.

Over 100 kilometres of continuously unrestricted Autobahn, 180 instead of 130 kph saves around 13 minutes. In practice the gain is smaller, because hardly any route is unrestricted the whole way – how much it really is on your own route is what the planner works out for any speed you choose.

The usual navigation services use an average speed close to the advisory speed, regardless of how fast you actually drive. Drive faster on unrestricted sections and you arrive earlier than stated; hit roadworks and you arrive later. A planner that includes your chosen speed and the current roadworks comes closer to reality.

That depends on the ratio between the extra distance and the unrestricted share: a 20-kilometre detour can pay off if it adds 80 kilometres without a limit. The planner puts both routes side by side with length, driving time and unrestricted share, so the decision becomes arithmetic rather than a hunch.

No. What is accounted for is the speed you set, the actual speed limits and the time lost to current roadworks. Live traffic and congestion are not included – the driving time is a calculation, not a forecast.

Die Autobahn GmbH des Bundes, the federal Autobahn operator, publishes all current roadworks through an open interface. autobahn-tempolimit.de reads it and draws the roadworks on your planned route, with length, the speed limit in force and the estimated time lost. Full closures are flagged separately.

That depends on its length and the speed limit imposed: an eight-kilometre site with a limit of 80 costs around four minutes compared with driving through freely at 180 kph. The planner works out the loss for every site on the route individually and has already included it in the driving time shown.

Planning routes, viewing the speed limit network and calculating the driving time for any speed is permanently free and possible without signing up. Premium costs €1.99 a month or €9.99 once with no subscription, and additionally offers the exact locations of roadworks, the variable-limit sections, the three-lane stretches, the trip tracker and the best departure time.

Not for planning. An account is only needed for Premium, so that access is kept when you change browser or device. Signing in works through a link sent by email; there is no password.

There is no advertising, no tracking and no analytics. All that stays in the browser is the language you chose, the places you last searched for and – for signed-in users – the sign-in token. That is why the site needs no cookie banner.

Yes, the site is built for the phone and can be added to the home screen. It then starts without an address bar, like an app. No app store installation is needed.

The monthly subscription can be cancelled at any time in your account and runs to the end of the period already paid for. The one-off purchase at €9.99 is not a subscription and does not expire, so there is nothing to cancel.

The road network and speed limits come from OpenStreetMap, the roadworks from Die Autobahn GmbH des Bundes through their open interface. Map background, routing and address search all run on our own server. No third-party services that could track visitors are embedded.