The cash register mandate protects honest merchants; the retail association is fighting the wrong battle

On 23 September, the German federal cabinet adopted something that is taken for granted in every other area of economic life: anyone turning over more than 100,000 euros a year is to record their takings from 2028 in an electronic system that cannot be altered after the fact. The German retail association, Handelsverband Deutschland (HDE), rejects this cash register mandate in its current form. My thesis: the cash register mandate protects the honest merchant, and whoever fights it is defending a competitive advantage that should never have existed. Now is the moment to say so, because the draft is heading to the Bundestag, where the associations will try once more to water the mandate down. Their energy would be better spent elsewhere.

What has been adopted

According to the federal government, from 1 January 2028 businesses with annual revenue above 100,000 euros must use an electronic cash register system. Anyone with less than 12,000 euros in cash sales a year is exempt, plus exemptions for individual sectors such as agriculture. The government estimates that there are around 115,000 open cash drawers in Germany, meaning businesses that record cash takings by hand or not at all. At the same time, the paper receipt becomes the exception: receipts are issued via QR code, download link or customer account, with paper only on request. The government puts the reduction in red tape at around 106 million euros in compliance costs per year.

According to PwC’s summary, the draft adds a mandatory technical security device (TSE) for every business subject to the mandate, a duty to notify when changing the TSE, new administrative offences for failing to provide a receipt and a dedicated criminal offence for manipulation software. The Bundestag and Bundesrat still have to deliberate. The details are in our report on the cabinet decision.

The retail sector’s objection, taken seriously

The HDE published its position on 19 August, and it is not unreasonable. It acknowledges that tax evasion has to be tackled. It criticises the revenue threshold for also catching companies that take hardly any cash despite six-figure revenues. It considers 2028 too early for the technical adjustments. It wants to abolish the receipt requirement entirely and issue receipts only on request. And it calls for more checks on deliberate fraud instead of costly requirements for everyone. On top of that comes a political point: by its own account, the association only accepted the cash register mandate on condition that the receipt requirement would be dropped completely in return. That it now lives on as a digital receipt requirement is, in its view, a broken promise.

I understand that last point. The others do not hold up.

The argument about a low share of cash is answered by the draft itself. Anyone with less than 12,000 euros in cash sales a year, so on average under 1,000 euros a month, is exempt according to the federal government. Anyone above that does not take “hardly any” cash but takes it regularly. And that is exactly where the problem at stake arises: a sale that was never rung up cannot be found in any set of books.

That is why the argument for checks does not hold either. A cash audit (Kassennachschau) at a business with an open cash drawer examines notes the business wrote itself. More inspectors will not find more in a drawer. Checks need data, and the cash register mandate is what creates the data in the first place. Whoever demands “checks instead of a mandate” is in truth demanding checks without a basis.

And the timing argument: more than 15 months lie between the cabinet decision and the deadline. Austria has had a cash register mandate since 2016 and since 1 October this year has allowed digital receipts via display, app or e-mail, as our report on the Austrian rule shows. The technology is proven; it simply has not been bought across the board in Germany yet.

Whom the drawer really protects

This is the heart of the matter. The open cash drawer is not breathing room for small businesses but a competitive edge for those who don’t ring everything up. The restaurateur with a certified register and TSE reports every coffee. The neighbour with a drawer can do the same, but does not have to. If the second one can therefore charge a euro less, the first loses customers for being honest. An association that represents both should decide whose interest it is protecting.

Full disclosure: I sell card terminals and POS integrations myself, and a cash register mandate is good business for my industry. That is precisely why I also know where the law can become expensive for merchants, and it is not the mandate itself.

The real cost trap lies in purchasing

It gets expensive when businesses buy under time pressure in 2027. They end up with a register from one provider and a terminal from another, with two contract terms, two hotlines and no connection between them. Staff key in the amount twice, every typo becomes a cash discrepancy, and the register with TSE now documents that discrepancy in an audit-proof way. How a clean link via ZVT, O.P.I. or a cloud interface works is explained in the guide on POS integration, and the relationship between TSE and card terminal in the guide on the KassenSichV (German cash register security regulation).

For sales, this means: anyone selling registers or terminals will argue with the mandate over the next 15 months. That is legitimate, as long as it is true. But it must not go the way of the supposed mandatory card acceptance, which has been used for years to sell contracts nobody needs in that form, as I described in September. This time the mandate is real. All the more reason the offer has to fit.

What I am calling for

From the legislator: keep the 100,000-euro threshold and word the cash-sales exemption so clearly that no business has to guess. In the published summaries I found no clarification of whether card sales count towards it; Austria treats the Bankomat debit card as a cash sale. That must be stated unambiguously in the law before it is passed. This includes a uniform, open format for the digital receipt, so that customers do not need a separate app for every shop.

From register and terminal providers, including my own trade: POS integration as standard, not as a surcharge. No bundling of a mandatory register with a terminal contract running five years. And open disclosure of the prices for TSE, receipt module and interface.

From the associations: they are entitled to denounce the broken promise on the receipt requirement. But they should not fight the cash register mandate itself; they should help their members make the switch, with joint purchasing, model contracts and clear checklists. That protects honest members more than any exemption.

And from merchants with an open cash drawer: plan now, not in December 2027. Register and terminal belong in one tender, and current contracts should end so that both can be renegotiated together.

A mandate that treats everyone equally is no burden for the honest business but its insurance against unfair competition. The retail sector should argue about how the cash register mandate is implemented, not about whether it comes.