In 2025 a total of 2,814 people died in German road‑traffic accidents, according to provisional data released by Destatis on Wednesday. That represents a 2 % increase, or 44 more fatalities, compared with 2,770 deaths recorded in 2024.
The number of injured people stayed roughly the same as in the previous year, with 366,000 reported injuries. Light‑injury cases rose by about 3,000 to 318,000 (+1 %), while severe injuries fell by 4 % to 48,400-a decline that is the lowest figure since 1991, when injuries were first categorized as severe or light.
Polic units logged just over 2,500,000 traffic accidents in 2025, virtually unchanged from the year before (down 0.2 %). Of those, 2,200,000 involved property damage, a figure that likewise remained steady (down 0.3 %). Accidents that caused either injuries or deaths increased by 1 % to roughly 293,000.
When expressed per million residents, Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern had the highest fatality rate in road traffic at 60 deaths per million, followed by Brandenburg at 50. In contrast, the city‑states of Berlin and Hamburg (10 and 11 per million, respectively) as well as North Rhine‑Westphalia (26) and Saarland (27) were well below the national average of 34 per million. No separate figures were available for Bremen for November and December 2025, so Bremen’s numbers were estimated for the national total.
Detailed data for January through November 2025 show that almost every category of road‑traffic participant experienced higher fatality counts than in the corresponding period the year before.
From January to November 2025, car and bicycle users combined suffered 37 more deaths (a 4 % rise). Motorcycle users with vehicle registration plates were killed 11 more times, an increase of 28 %. Freight vehicle occupants also saw a rise of 7 deaths (7 %). Users of e‑scooters had 6 additional fatalities, a jump of 25 %, and pedestrians accounted for 4 more deaths (+1 %).
Conversely, fatalities among privately licensed motorcycle users-including mopeds, scooters, and motorbikes-fell by 41 deaths (-8 %) during that same period.
In December 2025, roughly 25,300 people were injured in road‑traffic accidents, 800 more (3 %) than in December 2024. The month also recorded 220 deaths-a rise of 5 fatalities. Police logged a total of 208,600 traffic incidents, which is 7,900 more (4 %) than the December of the previous year.
