Germany’s legal position on kratom rests almost entirely on a single criminal appeal decided in Cologne in 2015.
German kratom shops cite that ruling constantly. Very few of them quote what it actually says, and there is a reason for that.
Not a narcotic
The Betäubungsmittelgesetz, the German Narcotics Act, works on a positive list. Only substances explicitly named in its Anlagen (schedules) are controlled. Neither Mitragyna speciosa, nor mitragynine, nor 7-hydroxymitragynine is named in Anlagen I to III.
We read those schedules from the ministry’s own machine-readable copy of the Act rather than from a web page about it, most recently on 17 October 2026, in the version last amended by an ordinance of 19 May 2026. Cannabis, heroin and carfentanil are in them, so we were looking at the substance lists. So are isotonitazene, bromazolam and JWH-018, so we were looking at a current version of them rather than an old one.
The 2015 prosecution is itself evidence of this. The shop operators in that case were charged under the Medicines Act and food law, not under the Narcotics Act. Had kratom been a controlled narcotic, that is the charge prosecutors would have brought. They did not bring it, because it was not available to them.
Kratom is likewise not caught by the Neue-psychoaktive-Stoffe-Gesetz, the New Psychoactive Substances Act. That Act works differently from the Narcotics Act, and the difference matters. Its Anlage 1 does not name substances at all. It defines nine families of chemical structure, and anything falling inside a definition is caught whether or not anyone has heard of it. A structure is a structure, so being a plant alkaloid is no defence in itself. Its Anlage 2, added in January 2026, does name individual substances, and holds three: 1,4-butanediol, gamma-butyrolactone and nitrous oxide.
The definition worth arguing about for mitragynine is number 5, indol-3-alkylamines, because mitragynine has an indole ring with a two-carbon chain running to a basic nitrogen. On our reading it is not caught. The definition allows that nitrogen to sit inside a pyrrolidine, piperidine or morpholine ring, but it has no clause for a ring that closes back onto the chain itself, which is exactly what mitragynine’s does. It also limits substituents on that chain to small alkyl groups, and mitragynine carries a fused ring system and an ester there.
That is a reading of a chemical definition rather than a court’s determination, and we would rather you knew it was a reading. Possession and purchase are not criminal offences in Germany.
The ruling everyone cites, and nobody quotes
In OLG Köln, 1 RVs 131 und 136/15 (11 September 2015), two shop operators had been convicted of distributing questionable medicinal products and marketing unlicensed finished pharmaceuticals. The Oberlandesgericht Köln overturned the convictions and acquitted them.
The court held that kratom is not a medicinal product (Arzneimittel) under § 2(1) of the Arzneimittelgesetz, and that no criminal liability arose under food law either.
Now read why.
The court relied on European Court of Justice authority holding that substances whose effects are confined to mere modification of physiological function, without benefit to human health, fall outside the definition of a medicinal product. Applied to kratom, it found that there is no reliably established scientific evidence of therapeutic efficacy, and that in the Western context the substance functions exclusively as a psychostimulant, consumed for its intoxicating effect rather than for any therapeutic purpose. That last point was dispositive.
Sit with the structure of that argument, because it is the opposite of what it is usually made to mean.
Kratom is lawfully sold in Germany precisely because a court found that it does not work as medicine. Its legal status is not a vindication. It is a judicial finding that the substance has no demonstrated health benefit and is taken to get high. That finding, and only that finding, is what keeps it outside the reach of the Medicines Act.
Every German shop that leans on this ruling to reassure customers is citing a judgment which says, in terms, that their product has no proven therapeutic value. We have yet to see one mention it.
Still not a legal food
The acquittal disposed of criminal liability. It did not make kratom sellable as food.
Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 applies directly in Germany. Kratom is an unauthorised novel food, no authorisation has ever been granted, and it therefore may not be placed on the market as a food, a tea or a food supplement.
This is why German kratom is sold as incense, as a botanical specimen, as a “research chemical,” or with explicit “nicht zum Verzehr geeignet” labelling. The wording is a compliance device. Everyone involved knows what the product is for.
A seller who makes consumption or health claims steps out from behind that protection, and, given the reasoning in the Cologne ruling, does so onto notably thin ice.
What the federal regulators now say
Two federal bodies spoke in 2025, and their position is considerably less relaxed than the 2015 ruling.
On 4 September 2025 the Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (BfR), Germany’s federal risk assessment institute, published Mitteilung 032/2025. Reviewing the scientific data, it reported case findings of neurological effects (dizziness, seizures, drowsiness, confusion, hallucinations), cardiovascular effects (palpitations, tachycardia), respiratory disturbance, and liver and kidney damage up to and including organ failure. It noted signs of dependence and withdrawal after cessation of regular use. It recorded several deaths internationally associated with kratom preparations, and the first reported death in Germany, in 2024.
The BfR also stated plainly that manufacturers’ health claims for kratom are not scientifically substantiated, and that the present data do not permit a conclusive risk assessment.
The same statement records that in early July 2025 the BfArM, the federal agency responsible for approving medicines, had warned patients against using kratom for medical purposes, noting that its safety and efficacy have not been adequately tested and that no kratom preparation is approved as a medicine. We cite that warning as the BfR reports it; we have not read the BfArM’s own notice.
The position is less settled than the shops suggest
Here we have to correct an impression this page could easily leave, and which German retailers actively cultivate: that the 2015 acquittal settled the matter.
It did not. The BfR states directly that how these products are to be classified in law is currently not conclusively clarified (nicht abschließend geklärt), and that the question falls to the supervisory authorities of the individual Bundesländer. It observes that classification as an unauthorised, and therefore non-marketable, medicinal product would come into consideration. Alternatively, treated as a food, kratom preparations would likely be regarded as unauthorised novel foods or unsafe foods, either of which would bar lawful marketing in the EU.
So the honest picture is not “legal, settled, move along.” It is this: not a narcotic, not criminalised to possess, unsellable as food, acquitted once on medicines charges in 2015 on a specific evidential record, and now the subject of an open classification question that a federal institute says remains unresolved, with sixteen state authorities free to reach their own view.
Where this is heading
Kratom’s German position is legal by omission. Not because anyone decided it should be available, but because it was never added to a list, and because a court once found it too pharmacologically unimpressive to count as a medicine.
Positions held that way tend not to hold indefinitely. The EU Drugs Agency records kratom as controlled in at least twelve European countries, and France prohibits purchase and possession outright. Germany’s federal risk institute has now put liver failure, dependence and a domestic death on the record, and has said the legal classification is open.
We re-check this page on a schedule. The verification date at the top is the date we last read the sources ourselves. Not the date we last thought about it.