Driving into Germany from a neighbouring country — France, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and others — generally means crossing open internal Schengen borders, with no routine passport or customs checkpoint the way there is at an external EU border. That absence of a visible checkpoint doesn't change the underlying pet-travel requirements at all: the same microchip, rabies vaccination given at least 21 days beforehand, and valid EU pet passport or health certificate apply exactly as they would arriving by plane or train.

Random spot checks by German federal police (Bundespolizei) do happen at or near internal borders, particularly on major autobahn routes, and officers are entitled to ask for a pet's documentation the same as at any other entry point — so the paperwork needs to be genuinely in order and accessible in the car, not just technically correct somewhere in a folder at home.

Germany's autobahn network has no general vignette or toll requirement for cars the way Switzerland and Austria do, which makes a long driving leg genuinely straightforward logistically — the planning that matters for a dog is less about the border crossing itself and more about building in rest stops, water and shade on a long autobahn stretch, since sections without a speed limit mean longer driving days feel different from a stop-and-start route through smaller roads.