Pets

A Tierhalter is the person who keeps an animal and is responsible for its care. Before bringing a pet home, clarify rental conditions, local dog-registration requirements and insurance cover. Before travelling, check the official entry requirements for the animal and route.

In short

• If you keep an animal, care for it or are responsible for its care, you must provide food, care and housing suited to its species and needs. You must not restrict its movement in a way that causes pain or avoidable suffering or harm.
• If an animal you keep kills or injures someone, or damages property, you as its keeper must compensate for the damage. An exception requires a domestic animal kept for the keeper’s profession, gainful work or subsistence, and the care test in section 833 must be met. A companion animal kept for none of those purposes is outside the exception.
• Read the lease and clarify the conditions with the landlord before bringing a pet into rented housing. Seek tenancy advice if a restriction is disputed.
• Anmeldung registers the dwelling, not the animal. Use the official dog-tax service below for your municipality and ask about any separate dog register, leash/muzzle and liability-insurance requirements.

What you need to know

Section 2 of the Animal Welfare Act says that a person who keeps an animal, cares for it, or has to care for it must feed, care for, and house it in a way that is appropriate to its species and its needs. The person must not restrict the animal’s opportunity for species-appropriate movement so as to cause it pain or avoidable suffering or harm. The person must have the knowledge and skill required for appropriate feeding, care, and species-appropriate housing.

Check the lease and clarify any pet conditions with the landlord. Whether a particular restriction is valid needs its own tenancy-law assessment.

Section 833 of the Civil Code says that if an animal kills a person, injures a person’s body or health, or damages a thing, the person who keeps the animal must compensate the injured person for the resulting damage.

The duty does not arise if the damage is caused by a domestic animal intended to serve the keeper’s profession, gainful work, or subsistence, and either the keeper observed the care required in the circumstances when supervising the animal, or the damage would have occurred even with that care. A companion animal that is not kept for profession, gainful work, or subsistence does not fall inside that exception. Read the sentence before you assume that careful supervision cancels the claim.

A private-liability policy is a separate contract. Confirm that it covers your animal and ask about any separate animal-keeper cover. Dog tax, registers, leash and muzzle rules, dangerous-dog categories and compulsory insurance depend on Land and municipal rules. Start with the official dog-tax registration service, select your municipality and ask the named authority which other registrations or conditions apply. Address registration does not register the animal.

For travel, Your Europe’s pet guide distinguishes EU and non-EU departure routes and lets you check the detailed rules. Its main dog/cat/ferret guidance concerns private journeys without a sale or change of ownership; other species and transport arrangements can follow different rules. Ask the vet about identification, health documents and timing for your exact journey, and check any additional destination-country restrictions.

What to do

1. House, feed, and exercise the animal as section 2 requires, and be able to show you have the knowledge that care needs.
2. Read the lease and clarify pet conditions with the landlord before bringing the animal home. If permission or a restriction is disputed, seek tenancy advice rather than assuming either a universal ban or unconditional permission.
3. If the animal injures a person or damages a thing, read section 833. Use the care exception only if the animal is a domestic animal kept for profession, gainful work, or subsistence and the care test is met.
4. Open the linked dog-tax service, select your municipality and check its deadline, documents and any exemptions. Ask the authority about separate dog-register, identification, leash/muzzle and insurance requirements. Confirm the animal’s actual cover with the insurer.
5. Before booking cross-border travel, open the linked official pet-travel guide and select the departure route and animal. Check documents and preparation time with the vet; do not use a local dog-tax registration as a travel document.

Common mistakes

• Treating Anmeldung as registration of the animal. It registers the dwelling.
• Assuming every Land requires the same liability policy for a dog. Check the local legal requirement and the cover in your own policy separately.
• Using section 2’s duty of care as if it replaced the compensation duty in section 833. They sit side by side.