Germany🇩🇪

For a Schengen visa, yes. German missions will only issue a short stay visa if you show travel health insurance of at least 30,000 euros that is valid in all Schengen states for the whole trip and covers emergency treatment, hospital care and repatriation. Compare compliant plans at Schengen visa insurance; our Germany visa insurance article lists what the certificate must say.

If you are visa exempt, as US, Canadian, British, Australian and Japanese citizens are, Germany lets you stay up to 90 days in any 180 without proof of insurance. The Federal Foreign Office nonetheless advises visitors to arrange health insurance that covers transport home. Your entry is recorded in the EU Entry/Exit System, fully operational since April 10, 2026 according to the European Commission. ETIAS, the planned online travel authorization, had not started as of early October 2026 and is not an insurance rule.

Staying longer than 90 days to study or work is a different matter: residence permits require full German health insurance, which travel medical plans do not replace. For a visit, you can compare travel medical insurance for Germany on Ombrela.

The State Department describes medical care and facilities in Germany as generally high quality, with ambulances widely available.

• Billing: residents are covered by statutory or private insurance. A visitor without either is treated as a self paying private patient and billed under the official fee schedules for doctors and hospitals. Expect to pay a practice directly and to be asked for a deposit or insurer guarantee before a planned admission.
• EU and UK visitors: a European Health Insurance Card or UK Global Health Insurance Card is accepted by doctors and hospitals that work with the statutory system.
• After hours care: 116 117 is the medical on call service for problems that are urgent but not life threatening.
• Medication: the State Department notes that medicines are widely available but under different brand names. Prescription drugs are sold only in an Apotheke, and one in each district stays open overnight.
• Medicare: medicare.gov says it usually does not cover care outside the US.

We do not list German hospital prices. For a general sense of scale, use the medical cost estimator.

• Ticks: tickborne encephalitis and Lyme disease are present. The Robert Koch Institute, Germany's public health agency, maps the encephalitis risk districts each year, concentrated in Bavaria and Baden Württemberg. The CDC suggests the vaccine for travelers with extensive outdoor exposure.
• Cycling and traffic: bike lanes are everywhere and visitors often step into them. Sections of the Autobahn have no speed limit, and crashes at those speeds are severe.
• Crowded events: the State Department advisory cites terrorism and names markets, transport hubs and public gatherings.
• Weather: winter windstorms disrupt rail travel, and the July 2021 floods in the Ahr valley showed that summer river floods can be deadly.

• A policy maximum comfortably above 30,000 euros. Private patient billing for surgery and intensive care can pass the visa minimum.
• Repatriation and emergency medical evacuation. This is the item the Federal Foreign Office singles out, because a medical flight home is rarely paid by any home health plan.
• Outpatient and prescription cover, since most minor illness in Germany is handled at a doctor's practice that you pay directly.
• Acute onset of preexisting conditions. The international plans compared on Ombrela, such as Atlas International, Patriot International Lite, Patriot Platinum International and Safe Travels International, exclude preexisting conditions and cap acute onset benefits by age.
• Sports rider for skiing or mountaineering in the Alps.
• Zero deductible and a visa letter for Schengen visa applications.

No international plan in our catalog excludes Germany as a destination. Some cannot be bought once you are already in Germany, so purchase before you fly. See the glossary for terms such as deductible and policy maximum.

One Schengen compliant policy also covers onward travel to France, Italy or Spain. Once your dates are fixed, compare plans on Ombrela for the whole trip.

Call 112 for an ambulance in an emergency. For something urgent that can wait a few hours, call 116 117 to find the on call doctor, or go to a hospital emergency department, the Notaufnahme.

• Phone your insurer's assistance line early. They can confirm cover to the hospital in writing, which German administrators generally expect before a planned admission.
• At a doctor's practice, say you are a self paying patient with travel insurance. You will receive an invoice, often by post, itemized under the medical fee schedule.
• Keep invoices, the doctor's letter and pharmacy receipts.

Then follow how to file a claim.