distance contract

Which translation, when

Why

Distance contract is the Fernabsatzvertrag of § 312c BGB, and the definition rewards close reading. The provision covers contracts between a trader and a consumer concluded exclusively through means of distance communication, which the statute understands broadly, letters, catalogues, telephone calls, e-mails, text messages, websites and apps all qualifying. The decisive word is exclusively: if the parties met physically at any stage between the beginning of negotiations and the conclusion of the contract, the regime does not apply, because its purpose is to compensate for the consumer being unable to inspect the goods or the counterparty before contracting. The definition carries a second, negative element that is easy to miss: the type does not apply where the contract was concluded outside a distribution or service system organised for distance selling, so the occasional sale by e-mail falls outside it, and the Bundesgerichtshof has held that simply keeping a letterbox, electronic mailboxes or telephone and fax lines available does not by itself establish such a system. A customer who views a car at the dealership and signs at home afterwards is therefore usually outside the regime, while one who orders the same car online is inside it. German law places the type alongside the contract concluded away from business premises, § 312b BGB, which covers the doorstep, the workplace and the coach-trip sale; both give the consumer the withdrawal right of § 312g Abs. 1 BGB, so for most practical purposes the question is not whether a right exists but when its period begins and which information duties bind the trader. Those duties are the part translators most often go looking for in the wrong place: they sit in the Introductory Act to the Civil Code, Art. 246a EGBGB, together with the model instruction and the model withdrawal form, and the model instruction was adjusted in June 2026 for the electronic withdrawal function, which the right of withdrawal entry holds.

Typical mistakes

• The regime requires conclusion exclusively at a distance, § 312c Abs. 1 BGB, so a single meeting in person during negotiations takes the contract out of it.
• Contracts concluded away from business premises are a separate type, § 312b BGB, so treating every consumer contract outside a shop as a distance contract misclassifies it.
• The information duties and the model instruction sit in Art. 246a EGBGB rather than in the BGB, so looking only at the code misses the trader’s actual obligations.

What matters

Assessing whether a German consumer contract falls under the distance regime: the analysis should ask whether any physical meeting occurred before conclusion, name the type as Fernabsatzvertrag or as außerhalb von Geschäftsräumen geschlossener Vertrag, and route the information duties to Art. 246a EGBGB.

Examples