Rhine low water: Germany relaxes Sunday HGV driving bans into September

Rhine low water has pushed most of Germany's 16 federal states to suspend the Sunday and public holiday driving ban for lorries carrying freight displaced from barges, following weeks of falling levels on the Middle Rhine and a package of immediate measures announced in early August by federal transport minister Steffen Bilger. The first lorries ran under the new rules on Sunday 2026-08-09. On 2026-08-26 several states pushed their exemptions from 2026-08-31 out to 2026-09-30, which makes the next few weekends a live dispatch question on the German north-south corridors.

Why the Rhine stopped carrying Germany's bulk freight

The Kaub gauge in the Middle Rhine gorge decides how much a barge can load. Its previous record low was 25 cm, set on 2018-10-22. Daily minima at Kaub have been under that mark every day since 2026-08-03, and on 2026-08-17 the gauge read 5 cm, according to PEGELONLINE data reported by netz-trends.de .

The payload effect is severe. At the Dutch end of the corridor, Nieuwsblad Transport reported on 2026-08-03 that Port of Rotterdam Authority figures showed Rhine volumes to and from Rotterdam running 10% below normal, with roughly 100 extra vessel calls a week arriving to carry lighter loads. The gauge had recovered to 71 cm by 2026-08-25 on the WSV ELWIS reading , still far short of the 208 cm mean for the 2010 to 2020 reference period.

Industry moved before most of the states did: swissinfo.ch reported on 2026-08-11 that Evonik Industries shifted freight to rail and road, while EnBW estimated on 2026-08-07 that the disruption would cut earnings by a low double-digit million EUR figure.

Which states lifted the ban, and for which loads

By 2026-08-13, VerkehrsRundschau counted most of Germany's 16 federal states with an exemption in place, with Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt among the states that had not moved. Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland ran their orders to 2026-09-30 from the outset, the rest to 2026-08-31. Berlin, Brandenburg and Hesse tie the exemption to transports connected with the low water and the associated empty runs; Thuringia lifted the Sunday ban outright, and Bavaria narrowed its version to strictly necessary deliveries.

The standing rule being suspended is the one that keeps lorries over 7.5 t and lorries with trailers off the road between 00:00 and 22:00 on Sundays and public holidays. Everything else in the German restriction calendar still applies, and the German public holiday and driving restriction calendar is worth checking before every weekend dispatch while the orders keep moving.

Road freight cannot absorb the whole shortfall

The IRU, the world road transport organisation, was blunt about the limits. "Germany already faces a severe driver shortage. And driving and rest time rules remain unchanged even where Sunday driving restrictions have been relaxed," said Prof. Dr. Dirk Engelhardt, spokesman of BGL, the German road haulage association, in the IRU statement of 2026-08-26 . ASTAG's Fabien Produit, of the Swiss road transport association, was quoted in the same release: "Road transport provides this essential flexibility, but it too has its limits."

The arithmetic backs that up. Covestro told Bloomberg that it takes 60 lorries to replace a single barge with a 1,500 tonne load capacity, so swapping waterway tonnage for road tonnage one for one is not realistic at short notice. Extra weekend running also costs more per kilometre, so it is worth checking live German diesel prices before committing to a substitution run.

What to check before 2026-09-30

The picture has already shifted once. On 2026-08-26 North Rhine-Westphalia extended its suspension to the end of September, and Berlin and Brandenburg did the same , with the Berlin order now also covering abnormal and heavy transports and the Saturday restriction under the holiday travel regulation. Other states let their orders lapse on 2026-08-31 instead, so a Sunday movement that was legal in Duisburg last weekend may not be legal in a neighbouring state this one. Confirm the current general order for each state on the day, keep documentation on board that links the load to the low water, and plan rest breaks as usual.

Running a substitution load into or out of the Rhine corridor? Logifie can confirm the routing, the restriction calendar and the ETA before the lorry leaves. Get a quote .