How to Play EuroMillions from Germany: A German Player's Guide

Yes, German players can and do play EuroMillions. The honest caveat, which we set out in full below, is that the route into it is less clearly licensed in Germany than in most of its neighbours.

EuroMillions is run by the nine national lotteries of the EuroMillions consortium, and like most state lotteries it sells to whoever holds a valid ticket rather than to a particular nationality. What Germany lacks is a domestic outlet selling those tickets, so German players reach the game through a licensed lottery courier: the service buys a genuine ticket in a participating country, scans it into your account, and you hold that line for the Tuesday and Friday draw.

The ticket is real and the entry is identical to a local's. Everything that differs is around it, not in it.

German players should be straight with themselves here. Germany regulates gambling tightly under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag, supervised by the GGL (Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder), and lottery courier services occupy a genuine grey area inside that framework rather than a clearly licensed lane. Couriers do serve German customers and do buy an official EuroMillions ticket in a EuroMillions country, but you are relying on the operator's own compliance position rather than a German licence. Use only long-established operators, and understand that the regulatory picture here is less settled than in Britain or Ireland.

EuroMillions is one draw shared by nine national lotteries, so every ticket is bought in a specific country even though the numbers, the draw and the jackpot are common to all of them. For a player in Germany that has one real consequence: tax at source is decided by where the ticket was sold, not by where you live.

In most of the participating countries — the UK, Ireland, France, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg — EuroMillions prizes are paid without any deduction. In Spain the 20% gravamen especial applies above €40,000, in Portugal a 20% stamp duty applies above €5,000, and Switzerland withholds at a considerably higher rate. A courier will tell you which country it buys in; it is a fair question to ask before you open an account, and it is the sort of detail that is worth more than a promotional discount.

The game itself is identical wherever the ticket comes from: five main numbers from 1 to 50 plus two Lucky Stars from 1 to 12, drawn Tuesday and Friday at around 20:45 CET, 13 prize tiers, and a jackpot that rolls up to the €250 million (jackpot cap) ceiling before rolling down into the tiers below.

A note on the German audience for this game. EuroMillions is not one of the nine national games sold in Germany — Germany's own European entry is a different product — so German players reach it through couriers rather than at the Lotto-Annahmestelle. The attraction is the combination that Lotto 6aus49 cannot offer: a €250 million ceiling, euro settlement with no currency conversion, and no US tax layer.

For a player in Germany this is the unusual case where currency simply does not feature: the game is priced in euros and so is your account, so nothing is converted in either direction.

• Pick a licensed courier that serves Germany and actually carries EuroMillions — not every operator offers every game.
• Open an account and verify your identity. Expect a photo ID and a proof of address, usually cleared within a day or two.
• Choose your numbers: five main numbers from 1 to 50 plus two Lucky Stars from 1 to 12.
• Pay in euros (EUR). German cards and SEPA-based e-wallets generally work, though some German banks decline gambling-coded transactions and you may need to try more than one method.
• Check the ticket scan appeared in your account before entry closed. That scan is your proof of entry.
• After the Tuesday and Friday draw the operator checks your line and credits any win.

An official EuroMillions line costs €2.50 per line where the game is sold. Through a courier you pay that face price plus the operator's service fee, charged in euros (EUR) at the rate applied on the day, so your real cost per line always sits above the face price.

**A local benchmark.** In Germany, a 6aus49 line costs €1.20 plus the operator fee — so a courier-bought EuroMillions line is a visibly more expensive entertainment purchase than the game you can buy locally, before the odds are even considered. That is not an argument against playing it; it is the number to have in mind when you decide how many lines to take.

One quiet advantage of paying from the euro area: on a euro-denominated game there is no conversion spread at all, only the operator's fee.

Start with the country your ticket was bought in, because that — not where you live — decides what is withheld from a EuroMillions prize. In the UK, Ireland, France, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg, EuroMillions pays out with no deduction at all. Spain applies 20% above €40,000, Portugal 20% above €5,000, and Switzerland withholds substantially more. Ask your courier which country it buys in before you open the account; on a large prize that answer is worth more than any promotion.

Then there is Germany. Germany does not treat a lottery prize as taxable income — it is not one of the seven income categories in the Einkommensteuergesetz, so the prize itself is untaxed. What follows it can be taxed: investment returns fall under the Abgeltungsteuer, and passing a large prize to family can trigger Schenkungsteuer (gift tax).

None of this is tax advice, and rules change. For a prize large enough to matter, pay for an hour with a qualified adviser in Germany before you claim — not after.

Lower-tier wins are credited to your courier account and withdrawn to a bank account in Germany, converted into euros (EUR).

Larger prizes are paid by the nine national lotteries of the EuroMillions consortium in the country where the ticket was bought, not by the courier. For a top-tier win the operator transfers the official ticket into your name and handles the claim on your instruction, which means identity documents, the local tax paperwork, and — for the biggest prizes — sometimes a trip to collect in person. Ask how your operator does this before you play; the answer differs between them more than people expect.

Practical notes for Germany: travel within the EuroMillions countries is unrestricted for EU citizens. A large inbound transfer will be reported by your bank under the Außenwirtschaftsverordnung thresholds — routine, but expect the question.

Here is what you are actually buying. The jackpot needs the full set — five main numbers from 1 to 50 plus two Lucky Stars from 1 to 12 — at odds of about 1 in 139,838,160. There are 13 prize tiers in total, and the overall chance of winning something is roughly 1 in 13. Draws are held Tuesday and Friday at around 20:45 CET.

**How that compares with playing at home.** Lotto 6aus49 gives German players jackpot odds of 1 in 139,838,160 — once the Superzahl is included, Germany's own game is about twice as easy as US Powerball — and, unlike it, pays out in euros with nothing withheld. Set against EuroMillions's 1 in 139.8M, the trade is explicit: you are accepting materially worse odds in exchange for a materially larger ceiling (€250 million (jackpot cap)). That is a legitimate thing to want. It is not a better bet, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

No selection method shifts those odds; the realistic outcome of ordinary play is a lower-tier prize, converted into euros (EUR).

Three separate things decide what playing EuroMillions from Germany is really like, and only one of them is usually written about.

**The prize is not taxable income.** German income tax works on a closed list: the seven Einkunftsarten in §2 of the Einkommensteuergesetz. A lottery prize is not one of them, so it is not income and there is nothing to declare. This holds whatever the amount and wherever the lottery is.

**The route in is a grey area, and we are not going to soften that.** Germany regulates gambling under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag, with the GGL licensing a defined set of categories since 2021: sports betting, online poker, virtual slots, and the state lottery block that runs 6aus49. Lottery courier services — which buy a foreign ticket abroad on your instruction — are not a licensed category. They are also not a listed prohibition. They sit in the gap between the two. Established operators do serve German customers and do pay out; what you do not have is a German regulator to complain to, German deposit-limit protections, or German dispute resolution. If an operator failed to pay, your recourse would be wherever it is licensed. That makes trading history and payout record the only real protection available, so weigh them far more heavily here than a British or Irish player would need to. Expect too that some German banks decline gambling-coded transactions outright, which is an inconvenience and also a signal about how the transaction is read.

**What the euro game removes.** EuroMillions is priced and paid in euros, so the EUR/USD spread that is charged twice on an American game — once funding the account, once converting the prize — is simply absent. There is also no IRS in this picture at all: no 30% non-resident withholding, no W-8BEN before payment, no ITIN, no US return afterwards. What is withheld depends only on which country sold the ticket.

**And what is waiting afterwards.** Two German taxes attach to a prize once it is yours. Investment returns fall under the Abgeltungsteuer, withheld at source by German institutions above the Sparer-Pauschbetrag. More significantly, Schenkungsteuer applies to gifts: sharing a large win with family is a gift-tax event, with allowances that vary sharply by relationship — generous between spouses and to children, considerably less so to siblings, nieces, nephews and friends — and rates that climb with both the amount and the distance of the relationship. Allowances refresh on a ten-year cycle, which is exactly why staged giving over time is the standard German approach and why this is worth planning before the money moves rather than after.

For context at home: Lotto 6aus49 with the Superzahl runs at 1 in 139,838,160 and a line costs €1.20 plus fee — cheaper, and tax-free at both ends, like this one.

EuroMillions is a single draw operated jointly by nine national lotteries. The numbers, the jackpot and the draw are common to all of them — but the ticket is always sold by one specific national operator, and that operator's country decides what is deducted before you are paid. From Germany this is the most consequential detail in the whole transaction and almost nobody asks about it.

**Where nothing is withheld.** Tickets sold in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg pay prizes in full. No deduction, no paperwork, no reclaim.

**Where something is.** A ticket sold in Spain falls under the gravamen especial: first €40,000 exempt, 20% on the excess. A ticket sold in Portugal attracts 20% stamp duty above €5,000. A ticket sold in Switzerland is withheld at a substantially higher rate.

**Why this is not academic.** On the €250 million (jackpot cap) ceiling, the gap between a ticket bought in Austria and one bought in Switzerland is tens of millions of euros — vastly more than any difference in courier fees, sign-up bonus or exchange rate that might have influenced which operator you chose. It is the single highest-value question you can ask before opening an account, and a reputable operator will answer it plainly.

**What to ask, exactly.** "Which national lottery do you buy EuroMillions tickets from, and does that change?" Some couriers buy consistently from one country; some vary. Get the answer before you deposit.

**And then your own country.** Germany does not tax lottery winnings, so if your ticket comes from a no-deduction country the prize reaches you whole — which is close to a best case in international lottery play.

The game itself does not vary at all: five main numbers from 1 to 50 plus two Lucky Stars from 1 to 12, drawn Tuesday and Friday, 13 prize tiers, jackpot odds of 1 in 139,838,160, rolling to a €250 million (jackpot cap) ceiling before rolling down.

Three rules protect you more than any system for picking numbers: you cannot win a draw you never entered, no legitimate operator ever charges a fee to release a prize, and a licence should be verified on the regulator's own register rather than trusted from a badge.

Be sceptical of German-language sites claiming domestic licensing for foreign lottery products; the GGL register is the only thing worth trusting on that.

We would rather you played less than played badly. If it stops feeling like entertainment, the BZgA gambling helpline can help, and our [responsible-play page](/responsible-play/) lists the practical limits worth setting.