Germany’s Bundestag advances customs and financial-crime reform

Germany’s Bundestag held the first reading of Federal Government bill 21/8282 on 9 October 2026, proposing a customs reorganisation and expanded powers for international money-laundering investigations.

After the half-hour debate, the bill was to be referred to committees alongside Die Linke’s motion, document 21/8391. The Finance Committee is the lead committee. The Bundestag notice records a legislative proposal, not enacted law.

A customs reorganisation and new investigative tools

The bill would reorganise the General Customs Directorate into specialist areas for 'Customs and Taxes' and 'Security and Enforcement'. It would also bring investigation and enforcement units together. The stated objective is to support targeted financial investigations under the 'Follow The Money' approach.

The Financial Control of Undeclared Work would remain a separate organisational unit. Its inspection duties under Paragraph 2 of the Act to Combat Undeclared Work would continue, alongside planned staffing and budgetary strengthening and expanded investigative powers.

The proposal also addresses the machinery for investigating financial crime. Customs would receive strengthened tasks and powers for combating international money laundering, including specialised investigation units and an administrative procedure for examining assets where there are justified doubts about lawful origin. The notice also proposes improved cooperation and data exchange involving the Central Office for Financial Transaction Investigations.

Those measures are proposed as part of the bill’s administrative and investigative design. The Bundestag notice does not resolve the final scope of the powers, their procedural safeguards or their interaction with criminal proceedings.

A separate motion would widen the reform

Die Linke’s motion would establish the Joint Centre against Tax and Financial Crime as an independent investigative unit within customs. It would also give the unit authority to conduct proceedings itself, create a central register to address deficiencies in money-laundering statistics and permit seized assets, including real estate, to be allocated to municipalities and non-profit organisations.

The bill and the motion should not be treated as one legal instrument. The government bill proposes a customs reorganisation and administrative asset-investigation arrangements. The motion seeks additional institutional powers, data infrastructure and asset-allocation measures.

The source records Die Linke’s criticism that the proposed administrative procedure may not reach complex tax-fraud structures associated with Cum-Ex and Cum-Cum arrangements. That is a parliamentary position, not an adjudicated finding about the bill’s eventual reach. The notice also does not establish any relationship with EU anti-money-laundering or customs architecture.

The next identified step was referral of both documents to the committees, led by the Finance Committee. The committee text and any amendments are the official records to monitor before the proposed powers, institutional allocation or implementation timetable are treated as operative.