Bundestag schedules 12 November vote on customs and financial-crime bill

Germany’s Bundestag has scheduled a vote for 12 November 2026 on the Federal Government’s proposed customs and financial-crime bill, document 21/8282. The vote follows the Finance Committee’s public hearing on 2 November and will come after a one-hour debate. The Finance Committee is to issue its recommendation, while the Budget Committee will report under section 96 of the Bundestag’s rules on the bill’s financial feasibility.

For compliance teams, the bill remains a proposal, not an enacted AML or financial-crime requirement. It would reorganise the General Customs Directorate into the specialist areas “Customs and Taxes” and “Security and Enforcement”, combine investigation and enforcement units, create specialised units for international money laundering and expand the investigative powers of the Financial Control of Undeclared Work. It would also improve cooperation and data exchange involving the Central Office for Financial Transaction Investigations, Germany’s financial intelligence unit.

The proposed asset procedure

The most consequential new tool would be an administrative procedure to investigate and secure significant assets where there are justified doubts about their lawful origin, outside a conventional criminal proceeding. The government’s stated rationale is that the state is often unable to prove unlawful origin using proportionate and constitutional means, while the holder can disclose information already available to show how the asset was lawfully acquired.

The bill’s explanatory reasoning says significant assets will generally be worth more than €100,000, and that an ordinary law-abiding person should usually be able to explain their source or the funds used to acquire them.

The proposal is designed around the government’s “Follow The Money” approach to organised crime and illegal financial flows. It implements coalition-agreement priorities on administrative asset investigation, strengthening internal security and consolidating federal administration. Its immediate effect would instead be to increase the investigative and information-sharing capacity of federal authorities if enacted.

The boundary between administrative asset action and criminal confiscation remains contested. Prof Kilian Wegner of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg said protection of confidence in the legal order should ordinarily be handled through criminal law and criminal confiscation, questioning why the proposed task should fall within the prevention of danger by police authorities. He nevertheless described the approach as a “workable compromise”, in translation.

Hearing gave broad support, with reservations

The German Customs and Finance Trade Union (BDZ) called the draft an important step towards strengthening customs as a federal security and financial authority.

The General Customs Directorate said the professionalisation of international crime required organisational change, larger units and more flexible deployment of staff. Customs representatives also welcomed the proposed additional powers for the Financial Control of Undeclared Work. The Association of German Financial Judges supported giving the financial courts jurisdiction over the proposed work and said they had sufficient capacity.

The hearing therefore supplied support for the bill’s institutional direction, rather than resolving its constitutional or operational questions. Atlas reads the disagreement as centred less on whether customs should receive stronger financial-crime capabilities than on the safeguards, evidence standard and institutional boundary for acting outside a criminal prosecution.

The opposition is seeking measures that go beyond the government’s draft. The Greens want a fully digital register covering all property transactions, an extension of the existing cash restriction on property purchases to forced sales, and stronger federal direction of tax audits involving serious tax evasion. They also want the Joint Platform for Combating Organised Crime established in law.

Die Linke wants the planned Joint Centre against Tax and Financial Crime to become an independent customs investigation unit with authority to conduct its own proceedings. Its motion also calls for a central money-laundering register and for confiscated assets, particularly property, to be transferred to municipalities and non-profit organisations. Both opposition motions are due to be considered alongside bill 21/8282 on 12 November.

The Bundestag will vote on bill 21/8282 and the two opposition motions on 12 November 2026.