German road signs, explained in English
Shape and colour encode the category before the pictogram says anything. Learn the four rules below and a sign you have never seen still tells you what kind of instruction it is.
prohibition
Round with a red ring. Constrains you — a limit, or something you may not do.
| Sign | English | German | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zeichen 267 | No entry | Verbot der Einfahrt | The red disc with the white horizontal bar closes this entrance to all vehicles — you may not drive past it into the street, from this side. That last clause is the point: Zeichen 267 regulates a direction of entry, not the street itself. You will most often meet it at the exit end of a one-way street: traffic already inside flows towards you, which is exactly why you may not enter against it. Do not confuse it with Zeichen 250 (a plain red-ringed white disc), which bans vehicles from the road as such, from every side. A frequent modern variant: a small white panel below reading 'Radverkehr frei' opens the street to cyclists in the forbidden direction — so when turning into a one-way street, expect a bicycle coming at you even where no car can. | Zeichen 267 · § 41 Abs. 1 StVO, Anlage 2 |
| Zeichen 274 | Maximum speed limit | Zulässige Höchstgeschwindigkeit | A red ring always constrains — that is the first thing to read, before the number. Whatever sits inside a red-bordered circle is prohibited or capped: here, driving faster than the figure shown. The limit is a ceiling, not a target and not a suggestion: it binds during overtaking, downhill, and when everyone around you is faster. It applies from the sign onwards and does not lapse just because the road opens up — it ends where an end-of-limit sign or a general cancellation lifts it, or where the signed stretch ends. Slower is always allowed (though § 3 Abs. 2 StVO forbids obstructing traffic by crawling without reason). One family resemblance worth fixing: Zeichen 274 with a red ring caps speed; the same number on a plain blue disc (Zeichen 275) would command a minimum — colour and shape carry the grammar, the number only fills it in. | Zeichen 274 · § 41 Abs. 1 StVO, Anlage 2 · § 3 StVO |
warning
Triangle, point up, red border. Warns of a danger; it commands nothing and, with one exception, assigns no priority. The exception is Zeichen 301 (Vorfahrt), a point-up triangle that grants priority at the next junction — the only place in the system where the shape does not settle the category.
| Sign | English | German | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zeichen 102 | Crossroads with right before left | Kreuzung oder Einmündung mit Vorfahrt von rechts | The red-bordered triangle standing on its base is the warning shape: danger ahead, adjust now. This one — a black upright cross — announces a junction where right before left applies. Read what it does NOT say: it grants nobody priority and takes nobody's away; it only tells you which rule will govern when you arrive, because the junction itself will carry no signs. Your response is behavioural: come off the speed, cover the brake, and look right early, since anyone appearing there goes before you. It is posted where the junction would otherwise surprise you — hidden by buildings, hedges, or a crest. Inside built-up areas most unmarked junctions get no warning at all; the rule applies regardless, sign or no sign. | Zeichen 102 · § 40 StVO, Anlage 1 · § 8 Abs. 1 StVO |
mandatory
Solid blue circle. An instruction you must follow. The opposite of the red ring.
| Sign | English | German | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zeichen 237 | Cycle path | Radweg | A plain blue disc commands — where the red ring says 'must not', the blue disc says 'must'. The white bicycle makes this path compulsory for cyclists: § 2 Abs. 4 StVO says a duty to use a cycle path exists only where Zeichen 237, 240 or 241 orders it, so a path without the blue sign is optional, and a path with it is not. The command cuts both ways: it reserves the path for cycles, so cars, motorcycles and pedestrians stay off it. For you as a driver the sign is mainly a prediction: where it stands, cyclists are channelled alongside the carriageway, and every right turn you make will cross their line — § 9 Abs. 3 StVO makes you let them through. Siblings in the same grammar: Zeichen 239 (footpath), 240 (shared foot-and-cycle path), 241 (segregated foot-and-cycle path). | Zeichen 237 · § 41 Abs. 1 StVO, Anlage 2 · § 2 Abs. 4 StVO |
priority
Yellow diamond, downward-pointing triangle, or octagon — shapes used by nothing else, so they read from behind and under snow. Settles who goes first. Zeichen 301 is the odd member: it borrows the point-up warning triangle.
| Sign | English | German | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zeichen 205 | Give way | Vorfahrt gewähren | Priority signs you meet constantly have a silhouette shared with nothing else — Zeichen 301 is the narrow exception, borrowing the warning triangle's shape to assign priority instead. This one is the only downward-pointing triangle on German roads, so you can identify it from behind, at distance, or under snow. It subordinates your road: at the junction ahead, traffic on the crossing road goes first, from both directions. What it demands is judgement, not ritual — approach at moderate speed, ready to stop, and stop only if someone is actually coming. That is the working difference from Zeichen 206 (stop), whose octagon demands a full halt every time, traffic or none. On the other arms of the same junction, the mirror signs (301 or 306) tell the crossing road it has priority; the pair always describes one junction from two sides. | Zeichen 205 · § 41 Abs. 1 StVO, Anlage 2 · § 8 StVO |
| Zeichen 306 | Priority road | Vorfahrtstraße | The yellow diamond is another single-purpose silhouette in the priority family — no other German sign shares it, so it reads at a glance in the mirror-image world of a snowstorm. It declares your road a priority road: you have priority not just at the next junction (that is Zeichen 301's narrower job) but at every junction that follows, until Zeichen 307 (the diamond struck through) ends it or a give-way or stop sign hands you a new answer. Two things it does not do. It does not raise any speed limit — priority and speed are separate systems. And it does not excuse you from the turning rules: turning left off your own priority road, you still wait for oncoming traffic under § 9 Abs. 3 StVO. One attached obligation surprises learners: outside built-up areas, parking on the carriageway of a priority road is prohibited — traffic there is fast, and a parked car on the Fahrbahn (carriageway) is an obstacle at 100 km/h. | Zeichen 306 · § 42 Abs. 2 StVO, Anlage 3 · § 9 Abs. 3 StVO |