Germany Now Has 474 Licensed Cannabis Clubs (Sept 2026)
Germany has now licensed 474 cannabis cultivation associations, the member-run groups the law calls Anbauvereinigungen. The figure comes from the associations' own federal body, which collects numbers monthly from the state authorities that issue the licences, and reflects the position in early September 2026.
The national total is the least interesting thing about it. What the state-by-state breakdown shows is that two and a half years after the same law took effect everywhere, whether you can realistically join a club in Germany depends almost entirely on which state you live in.
Where the licences actually are
Two states account for roughly half of every licensed association in the country. North Rhine-Westphalia has approved 138 and Lower Saxony 99. At the other end, Bavaria has approved 11 from 47 applications, and 25 of its applications were withdrawn before a decision was ever made.
- North Rhine-Westphalia — 138 licensed, from 246 applications
- Lower Saxony — 99 licensed, from 148 applications
- Baden-Württemberg — 38 licensed, from 121 applications
- Rhineland-Palatinate — 32 licensed
- Saxony — 29 licensed, from 37 applications
- Berlin — 16 licensed, from 43 applications
- Schleswig-Holstein — 12 licensed
- Bavaria — 11 licensed, from 47 applications
Nationally the picture is 474 licences from 908 applications, with 90 refused, 131 withdrawn and 9 licences revoked after the fact. No state has blocked the system outright; every one of them has issued at least some licences. But the distance between a state that approves more than half of what it receives and one that approves under a quarter is not a rounding error, and it is the single biggest thing shaping who can join a club in Germany.
Withdrawals now outnumber refusals
The most revealing number in the set is not the 90 refusals. It is the 131 applications that were withdrawn.
Groups are giving up more often than they are being told no. That points at attrition rather than rejection: paperwork requirements, fees, prevention plans, security specifications and long waits that exhaust a volunteer association before anyone rules on its application. A refusal is a decision. A withdrawal is usually just tiredness.
A second hurdle has emerged on top of the licence itself. A Hamburg administrative court held in July 2026 that a cultivation licence does not replace building permission, so an association that has cleared the cannabis rules may still need separate planning consent to use its premises. That is a whole second approval process, with its own timetable, that nobody anticipated when the law passed.
Why 474 clubs is fewer than it sounds
Each association is capped at 500 members by law, and nobody may belong to more than one. Even if every licensed club in Germany were completely full, the entire system would cover a fraction of the country's cannabis users. The government's own evaluation, looking at the position in late 2025, put the theoretical ceiling at a few per cent of them.
That is the practical reason waiting lists are normal. It is not disorganisation; it is arithmetic built into the law.
The law itself has not moved
Despite a change of federal government and continued political argument, the cannabis law has not been amended since June 2024. No rollback has been enacted. The coalition agreement committed only to an open-ended evaluation rather than repeal, and that evaluation has now reported twice.
Its second interim report, in April 2026, was not comfortable reading in either direction. It found that referrals of young people into early-intervention programmes had fallen sharply, because police and prosecutors no longer have the enforcement trigger that used to generate them, and that the illegal market has continued to grow with high-strength products marketed online in breach of advertising rules. The evaluators also questioned one of the law's own design choices: the ban on consuming cannabis inside club premises, which they argued pushes use into unsupervised settings when clubs are the one place where age and membership are actually checked at the door.
What this means if you are looking for a club
If you live in Germany, the practical advice has not changed: check what exists near you, expect a waiting list, and expect the process to take longer in the south than in the west or north. You can see the associations and CBD shops we track across 73 German cities on the HiMap map, including 23 listings in Berlin.
If you are visiting Germany, none of this applies to you. Club membership requires proof of residence in Germany, checked with official photo identification, and there is no other legal route to cannabis in the country. Our guide for visitors to Germany explains what that means in practice, and the German club guide covers how the association system works.
How many cannabis clubs does Germany have?
474 licensed cultivation associations as of early September 2026, from 908 applications. The number rises most months.
Which German state has the most cannabis clubs?
North Rhine-Westphalia, with 138 licensed associations. Lower Saxony is second with 99. Bavaria has the fewest relative to its size, with 11.
Why do so few applications become licences?
More applications are withdrawn than refused. The process is long and document-heavy, and a July 2026 court ruling confirmed that associations may also need separate building permission on top of the cannabis licence.
Can I join more than one club?
No. German law allows membership of one cultivation association at a time, and each is limited to 500 members.
Has Germany reversed legalisation?
No. The law has not been amended since June 2024. The government committed to evaluating it rather than repealing it, and that evaluation is ongoing.
Figures reported by the federal association of cultivation associations, September 2026. HiMap is an independent directory and is not affiliated with any association. General information only, 18+.