Cigarette machines & chip cards - 2007 law change

The smokers amongst you may have noticed new stickers on street cigarette machines with pictures of an ATM/cashpoint card.

That's for a good reason - from January 1st 2007, all street cigarette machines will be refitted to only accept payment with an ATM/cashpoint card fitted with a chip, otherwise known as a Geldkarte, to act as age verification.

Why? Well, it is all to do with a change to the Jugendschutzgesetz.


So, the "technical Vorrichtungen" are the use of the chip cards which make the machines still legal.

Here's how to find out if your card will work:

1. Only chip cards linked to a bank account will work.
2. Is your card invalid before 2007? Only later chip cards have the "over 16" information.
3. So your card is still valid in 2007, but who do you bank with?

Not all banks automatically add the "over 16" information. Sparkassen, Volks- & Raiffeisenbanken, HVB and comdirect all add this information automatically. Not with one of these banks? Ask if the "over 16" information is on your chip. Some banks (Deutsche, Commerz and Sparda) will charge you for adding the information.

You are not forced to pay with the Geldkarte, you can still pay in cash - but you do have to prove your age.
At certain machines, some new style EU drivers licences will also be accepted - but you now have 81 days to find out and order a new card if necessary. Some machines are being changed already so look out for them.

Work in a bar? You can apply for a Ziggi card, a chip card with the over 16 information to allow your customers without chipcards to buy cigarettes if you do the age check. The onus is on the staff to do the age check.

If you are visiting Germany or do not have a Geldkarte, you will have to actually involve someone else when you buy cigarettes - either by someone actually selling them to you or by asking bar or waiting staff to use a Ziggi card or their own card to get the cigarettes out of the machine.

Here's the information campaign - Karte rein, Packung raus, kindly not in English or Turkish or any other languages.

man am amazed at how many of the smokers here at work (all german) had no idea about this!

This is the first I've heard about this, but it's great news -- Germany is finally entering the 1970s! It's crazy that a supposedly age-restricted product is available on every street corner in exchange for a bit of pocket money. I guess all the 13-year olds will have to get their older siblings to buy them their fags now.

The next step is to remove the buggers completely; I'm not entirely sure why cigarettes are the single easiest thing to buy in Germany. I would have thought food or drink or even condoms would be a greater priority, but apparantly not.

Anyone see ZDF Frontal last night? One item concerned how anti-smoking legislation was smoke-screened out of the Bundestag through subtle "lobbying", impying pay offs by the tobacco industry to the MPs concerned. It seems there`s more political corruption in this country than there is in your average banana republic.

Could fall foul of EU free market legislation?
Though I suspect the cig machine companies have tried that.

Of COURSE there is political corruption in Germany, same as in any other country.

It is interesting to note that the people who run these machines are moving into other areas, like sweeties retailing or phone card retailing.

Who buys full priced German taxed cigs anyway?

This has been implemented by my local council quite a long time ago (end of last year or early this year). About time too, though tbf, the cost of fags has been going up pretty quickly here... but they're still behind the UK in making it an unfashionable (aka unhealthy) lifestyle.

Dunno if it's been mentioned elsewhere, but you can now use an EU driving license as well as a bank card to verify your age in the cigarette machines. Perhaps this has been the case for a while, but I've never noticed it.

It has been possible in the newest machines since the beginning but not all.