ServiceStamp Is Live in Germany: Official Manufacturer Service History Checks for €9.99

We're launching in Germany today. servicestamp.de goes live in Berlin, bringing the same official manufacturer service history checks we've been running in the UK to the largest used-car market in Europe. Reports cost €9.99, cover 43+ brands, and are sourced directly from the same Original Equipment (OE) systems that franchised dealerships use to look up a vehicle's history.

If you've ever bought a used German car, whether a Bavarian import on a forecourt in Birmingham or a decade-old Volkswagen from a private seller in Bremen, you'll recognise the problem the German launch is built to solve.

Germany's service-book problem (and why it's ours too)

Germany is the home of the Scheckheft. For decades, every properly serviced car left a dealership with stamps in a paper service book that acted as a kind of vehicle passport. A full scheckheftgepflegt history was, and still is, one of the strongest signals of residual value in the German used-car market, routinely adding several hundred to several thousand euros to resale price depending on the segment.

Then, somewhere around Model Year 2012, the industry moved the book into the cloud. Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Porsche, Opel and the rest progressively switched from stamping paper booklets to writing service records directly to their own central databases. What was once a document you handed to the next owner is now a record sitting inside a manufacturer system that only authorised dealerships can read.

The result is a decade of otherwise excellent cars with genuine, complete service histories that are effectively invisible to the person buying them. A private seller can tell you the car was immer scheckheftgepflegt. A trader can say the same. Neither of them can prove it to you.

This is the same gap ServiceStamp was built to close for British buyers, and it's arguably a bigger gap in Germany, for the simple reason that Germany has a larger installed base of exactly the premium brands (Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Volkswagen) where servicing provenance moves the price the most.

What a servicestamp.de report shows

A German report returns the same type of data we've built the UK service around, pulled from the same manufacturer systems. For supported vehicles that typically means:

• Service dates and the mileage recorded at each visit
• The type of service carried out (inspection, oil change, brake service, major service)
• The dealership that performed the work, where the manufacturer records it
• Workshop remarks covering recalls and warranty work for brands whose data is structured that way

No paper book, no dealer phone call, no waiting for a seller to email you a PDF they "think they have somewhere". Enter a German registration or 17-character VIN, pay €9.99, and the report is returned instantly for supported vehicles.

Why this matters for UK readers

A lot of you will never buy a car in Germany. But a surprising number of cars on UK driveways were born there, or spent the first few years of their life inside a German manufacturer's network, or are being considered as personal imports right now.

The DE launch matters for three groups of UK readers specifically:

• Import buyers. German-market imports account for a meaningful share of the UK enthusiast market, particularly for higher-spec Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche variants. If you're considering one, you can now pull the vehicle's service history from the DE side before it lands.
• UK dealers sourcing stock abroad. Trade buyers who work the German auction circuit now have an on-demand way to verify servicing claims before committing to a bid, rather than relying on the vendor's description.
• Expat and relocation buyers. Anyone moving between the UK and Germany with a vehicle that's been serviced on the German network can now evidence the servicing they've already paid for, without having to chase the dealership that last stamped the record.

For everyone else, the German launch is simply a signal: the model that works for the UK used-car market works across the border too, and we'll be rolling out further European markets on the same template over the coming months.

How the German service works

The German flow mirrors the UK one exactly.

1. Enter a German registration or a 17-character VIN at servicestamp.de.
2. Pay €9.99 via the checkout.
3. Receive a digital service history report for supported vehicles, delivered instantly.

Coverage includes the core set of manufacturers that dominate the German market: Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Porsche, Opel, Škoda, SEAT, Cupra, Mini, Ford and more, with the full supported list published on the DE site. Availability of data varies by manufacturer and vehicle age, in the same way it does on the UK side.

What happens next

Germany is the first of several European markets we intend to open. Each one runs as its own fully local service, with its own domain, its own pricing in local currency, and its own manufacturer coverage tuned to the market, rather than a single pan-European storefront. The reason is practical: service history data is tightly tied to the country the vehicle was serviced in, and we'd rather launch each market well than launch a generic one badly.

If you're in Germany, or you're buying a car that is, head to servicestamp.de. If you're in the UK, nothing changes. This site is still the right place for a UK-registered vehicle, and the how it works and manufacturer coverage pages remain your starting points.

More countries are on the way.