A Strafbefehl does not look like a trial, and that is exactly what makes it dangerous. It arrives as a document, it gives you two weeks, and if you do nothing it becomes a criminal conviction — reached without a hearing, without your account of events, and without you ever standing in a courtroom.
1. What a Strafbefehl actually is
It is a criminal sentence proposed by the prosecutor and signed off by a judge on the papers alone, used for cases considered straightforward enough not to need a hearing. Nobody heard your side before it was issued.
If you do not object within the window, it takes full legal effect — the same standing as a conviction after a trial (§ 410 StPO). Not a fine, not an administrative penalty: a criminal conviction.
2. Two weeks, from service
You have two weeks from the day it was served on you to file an objection (Einspruch). This is among the shortest and most consequential deadlines in German law.
Service usually means delivery to your address — including the yellow envelope placed in your postbox with the date written on it by the deliverer. It counts even if you were away, and even if you did not open it. If you have been travelling, check the envelope date rather than the day you read it. Estimate your date here.
Where a document was never properly served, there are routes back in. They are narrow, and they are not something to rely on by choice.
3. What accepting it means
People let the window pass because paying looks cheaper and quieter than fighting. The payment is rarely the real cost:
- A criminal record. Once final, it goes on the federal register. Whether it then appears on the certificate of conduct (Führungszeugnis) employers ask for depends on the sentence — below a certain threshold it generally does not, above it, it does. That distinction decides a lot and is worth understanding before the deadline passes.
- Your residence status. For anyone who is not a German national this is often the most serious consequence. Criminal convictions feed directly into decisions on extending or granting a residence permit and on naturalisation. A penalty order accepted quietly in year two can surface in year five. If this affects you, read it together with our immigration guide.
- Your job. Some professions and licences require disclosure or a clean certificate.
Missing the two weeks normally makes the order final, and all of that follows. If you missed the deadline through no fault of your own, you can apply to have it restored (Wiedereinsetzung, § 44 StPO). The conditions are strict. The application has to be made within one week of the obstacle ending, the reasons have to be backed up, and the objection itself has to be filed within that same week (§ 45 StPO).
So if the deadline has already passed, get help immediately rather than assume nothing can be done. But restoration is a narrow exception, not a second deadline to plan around. Objecting in time is cheap; undoing a missed deadline is hard. That asymmetry is the whole reason to take the deadline seriously.
4. Reading the numbers
German fines are expressed as day rates (Tagessätze): a number of units, and a euro amount per unit. "90 Tagessätze zu je 40 €" means 3,600 euros.
The two halves mean different things. The number reflects how seriously the offence is treated and drives the consequences above. The rate is meant to track roughly a thirtieth of your monthly net income, so the same offence costs more for someone earning more.
This matters practically: if the prosecutor estimated your income — and estimates are common where no figures were supplied — the rate may simply be wrong on the facts. That alone can be worth challenging.
5. What an Einspruch does
Filing an objection in time stops the order becoming final and normally leads to a hearing, where the case is heard properly and you can be represented.
It can also be limited — for instance to the sentence alone, leaving the finding untouched (§ 410 StPO). That is the route where the allegation is not really in dispute but the number of day rates or the rate itself is. It is a narrower, lower-risk step than contesting everything.
An objection can also be withdrawn later. The practical consequence is that objecting keeps your options open, while silence closes all of them — which is why the deadline deserves more caution than the allegation.
6. Say nothing until someone has read the file
As a suspect in Germany you have the right to remain silent (§ 136 StPO), and using it cannot be held against you. Defence lawyers generally advise saying nothing about the substance until they have seen the file.
There is a concrete reason. A defence lawyer can obtain access to the file (Akteneinsicht) under § 147 StPO — the statements, the evidence, what is actually alleged. Someone without a lawyer also has a right to see the file, or copies of it, but a narrower one: it can be refused where it would endanger an investigation or where other people's interests outweigh it. Explaining yourself to the police or writing to the prosecutor before anyone has read the file is guesswork, and helpful-sounding clarifications routinely become the strongest evidence against the person who offered them.
Being cooperative and staying silent are not in conflict. Give your identity details, and nothing further. If the police have asked you to come in, see the police summons guide.
7. What to do today
- Find the service date — on the yellow envelope, or the delivery note.
- Count two weeks and put the date somewhere you cannot ignore.
- Do not pay yet. Paying can be read as accepting it.
- Do not explain yourself to the police or the prosecutor first.
- Photograph the whole document, including the envelope.
- Speak to a defence lawyer now — they need days, not hours, and file access takes time.
If the two weeks are nearly up
An objection can be filed to preserve the position and the substance worked out afterwards. If you are on day eleven, that is a reason to call someone today rather than a reason to conclude it is too late.