Recreational craft will pay nothing to transit the Kiel Canal from 1 January 2027. The measure is Artikel 6 of the Verordnung für Bürokratierückbau und Vereinfachungen in der Seeschifffahrt, signed on 7 September 2026 by Germany's federal transport minister Steffen Bilger and published in the Federal Law Gazette on 10 September as BGBl. 2026 I Nr. 257. The package took effect on 11 September, the day after publication, and the canal article was deferred to 2027. The ministry announced it on 14 September.
Artikel 6 rewrites the exemption list in the fee regulation to cover vessels serving sport and leisure purposes (Sportfahrzeuge), then strikes out the transit rates, the annual flat rates, the assessment by overall length and the duty to pay at Kiel-Holtenau before locking. Nothing of that tariff stays in the regulation. No cap on length or tonnage survives, so a 30-metre private motor yacht qualifies on the same sentence as a nine-metre sloop. On charter the act says nothing; the canal authority's guidance for recreational skippers defines a Sportfahrzeug as a vessel that is not commercially operated and serves sport and pleasure purposes only.
What a transit costs until the end of 2026
The current tariff, one direction, full transit, by overall length:
| Length | Fee |
|---|---|
| Up to 10 m | €12 |
| Over 10 m up to 12 m | €18 |
| Over 12 m up to 16 m | €35 |
| Over 16 m up to 20 m | €41 |
| Over 20 m | €43, plus €1 for each metre started above 20 m |
The €12 to €43 range quoted in the German press is for a full transit, and the top band is open-ended: a 30-metre boat pays €53. A part transit costs roughly half.
The ministry's draft of the regulation, dated 24 August 2026, gives the reason in euros. In 2025 the waterways administration collected €180,473.50 from recreational craft and spent €279,322.00 collecting it, a shortfall of about €98,800 for the year; the draft adds that federal IT hosting costs are left out of that sum. Bilger told dpa on 14 September: "We want to cut back bureaucracy where it brings people no added value. That is exactly what we are doing at the Kiel Canal, concretely and noticeably."
The ministry says about 10,000 recreational craft use the canal each year; the operator's annual report gives 10,685 through the locks in 2025 against 11,542 in 2024. Commercial shipping keeps its own tariff in full. The Suez Canal moved the other way this year and nearly doubled its surcharge on yachts.
How a yacht passes the canal
The canal runs about 98 km from Brunsbüttel on the Elbe to Kiel-Holtenau on the Baltic, a lock group at each end, and saves around 250 nautical miles against rounding Denmark by the Skagerrak, by the usual German reckoning. Ten hours is the normal allowance for a yacht, locks included. The rules below come from the Merkblatt für Sportbootfahrende Nord-Ostsee-Kanal, the WSA edition of April 2026.
Daylight decides the timetable. Without a pilot aboard you may transit only inside the published Tagfahrzeiten, and never in reduced visibility. In midsummer the window runs about nineteen and a half hours, ample for a ten-hour passage. In December it is nine and a half hours, from 07.30 to 17.00 Central European Time, shorter than the transit itself, so an overnight stop on the canal is the winter norm.
The rest of the rules:
- Maximum speed 12 km/h over the ground for every vessel, in force since July 2023 after damage to the banks.
- Sailing is prohibited, except in the forebay ahead of the small locks at Kiel-Holtenau and outside the fairway on the Borgstedter See, Audorfer See and Flemhuder See. A boat under engine may set sail as an aid, showing a black cone point down forward.
- Autopilot is not permitted. Boats over 20 m must run a Class A or B AIS transponder, hired in the entrance locks.
- A pilot is compulsory above 3.1 m draught; sport multihulls are exempt up to 12.0 m beam and 20.0 m length.
- Listen out throughout: VHF 13 in the Brunsbüttel lock area, VHF 2 to Breiholz, VHF 3 on to Kiel-Holtenau, VHF 12 in the Kiel-Holtenau lock area.
At the locks, one interrupted white light on the signal masts means the approach is free, and the same light on the middle-wall masts opens the forebay and the chamber.
Where you may stop
Seven moorings are designated for recreational craft, only for an overnight stop or waiting time connected with a canal passage:
- Brunsbüttel recreational mooring, km 1.8 north side, behind the guide wall — 72 hours
- Dückerswisch passing basin, km 20.7 north side, draught up to 2.40 m — 24 hours
- Ahead of the Gieselau lock, entrance km 40.5, draught up to 2.40 m — 24 hours
- Obereidersee mit Enge, entrance km 66 — 24 hours
- Borgstedter See, entrances km 67.5 and km 70 — 24 hours
- Flemhuder See anchorage, entrance km 85.4 — 24 hours
- Kiel-Holtenau mooring, km 98.5, east of the lock — 24 hours
Plan the passage so you can reach a designated mooring before the daylight window closes. The Merkblatt gives this as the operative instruction, and in winter it decides whether the transit works in a day.
The locks, and what is being built
The small locks at Kiel-Holtenau have been out of service since June 2014, so yachts in Kiel lock through the large chambers with the commercial ships. The replacement small lock in Kiel and a fifth chamber at Brunsbüttel, 330 m by 42 m, are both expected at the end of 2026, the Brunsbüttel chamber after trial operation. The operator states both dates as expectations.
What the abolition does not touch
Every operational rule above survives 1 January 2027. The fee regulation is a money instrument; the traffic rules sit in the shipping traffic order and the authority's notices. Licence requirements are unchanged, marina and mooring charges are unaffected, and commercial traffic keeps its tariff.
Until the end of 2026 the fee still applies. The April 2026 Merkblatt lists the payment terminal at Kiel-Holtenau as an option, while the operator's website says it is temporarily out of service and points skippers to the WSV webshop, so it is better to buy the ticket online, in advance. The full rules are in the Merkblatt für Sportbootfahrende.
Photo: Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsamt Nord-Ostsee-Kanal (© WSA/NOK); Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons). Source: BGBl. 2026 I Nr. 257; BMV Referentenentwurf of 24.08.2026; GDWS annual traffic figures for 2025; Merkblatt für Sportbootfahrende Nord-Ostsee-Kanal (WSA NOK, April 2026); dpa; float; blauwasser.de; de.wikipedia.org.
