Public libraries in Berlin - library card, digital offers and places to work

Online (from age 16): sign up on the VÖBB website if your registered address is in Berlin or the surrounding area (fare zone C). You pay the €10 annual fee online by SEPA direct debit, credit card or PayPal and can start using the digital services within minutes. Reductions are not possible online and are not refunded later - if you qualify for a free or reduced card, go to a library instead.

In person: go to any VÖBB library with:

• a German ID card, or a passport plus an official registration confirmation (Meldebestätigung), or a valid residence document, as proof of a registered address in Germany;
• the fee, and proof of any reduction;
• for under-18s, a consent form signed by a parent or guardian.

Fees for one year (2026):

• Adults: €10
• Students, trainees and people in a voluntary service year: €5
• Children, young people under 18 and pupils over 18 with a school ID: free
• People receiving unemployment benefit or state transfer benefits - such as basic income support, social assistance, asylum-seeker benefits or housing benefit - with a berlinpass, the Berlin-Ticket S entitlement or a current benefits notice: free
• Replacement card: €2.50

Without a registered address yet? Refugees with a permission to stay during the asylum procedure (Aufenthaltsgestattung) or an accommodation certificate from the arrival centre can get a free refugee card, valid for three months and renewable once for three more. It allows up to ten items per district, the digital offers, and has no overdue fines (but no interlibrary loans). Anyone over 18 with a valid ID can also get a free reading-room card to use the collections on site and the library computers.

Since the end of 2025 you can also give someone a library card as a present for a year.

Renew the card at any library or online in your account if you gave an email address. Report a change of address in person with ID; if letters cannot reach you, the library may ask the registration office for your address and charge €15.

• Loan period: usually four weeks. You can renew up to three times (since January 2025) unless someone has reserved the item; renewing in your online account is free. Bestsellers and tablets cannot be renewed.
• How much: up to 60 items at a time in each district's libraries and at the ZLB, and up to 20 e-media items at a time from the ZLB.
• Reservations and deliveries: ordering an item from another Berlin library costs about €1 per item plus transport where applicable; home delivery costs €3.50 per item. Interlibrary loans from outside Berlin cost a small fee (about €1.50 to €3.50, depending on where you collect). Fees are charged even if you do not collect the item.
• Returns: you can return items at the library that owns them for free; returning at another VÖBB library costs €1 per item for transport.
• Late returns: €0.25 per item per day for adults (€0.10 for children and pupils). A reminder comes after 14 days and a warning after 60 days, each costing €1. At the ZLB your account is blocked for borrowing once you owe €10.
• Pay online with credit card or SEPA, at payment machines in the library, or by bank transfer.

Your card and password give single sign-on access to a long list of services (2026):

• E-books, audiobooks, e-papers: Onleihe (German-language e-books, audiobooks and magazines; the VÖBB lists titles up to 2025 there) and OverDrive with the Libby app (new e-books and e-magazines in German, English, Spanish, French and more).
• Newspapers from home: Pressreader gives access to more than 5,000 newspapers and magazines from 100 countries in over 50 languages; Genios covers German newspapers with full-text search.
• Films and music: filmfriend and AVA for films, series and documentaries; Freegal and Naxos for music streaming and audiobooks.
• Learning: LinguaTV online language courses, including German as a foreign language; LinkedIn Learning video courses; Brockhaus and Duden reference works and school learning aids.
• For children: Polylino has more than 300 stories read aloud by professional narrators in many languages - in a family's own language or another; TigerBooks for two- to ten-year-olds.

Many libraries run introductions to the digital offers. Questions go to the VÖBB service centre (hilfe-voebb@zlb.de); the ZLB also offers individual "media advice" appointments by email.

• LinguaTV German courses and German e-books and audiobooks are included with your card.
• The Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek (part of the ZLB) has foreign-language collections of over 45,000 items in Arabic, English, French, Italian, Kurdish, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, plus language courses in more than 80 languages.
• Conversation groups such as the ZLB's Sprachsalon, where people aged 16 and over practise German together in a relaxed setting; places are limited.
• Newspapers in German and in your own language, both in print and through Pressreader.

For courses and exams, see the guide on learning German.

Libraries are among the few warm, quiet, non-commercial places in the city where you can spend hours without buying anything.

• Wi-Fi is free; at the ZLB it is unlimited. Study spaces at the ZLB cannot be booked - arrive early at busy times such as exam periods.
• Computers can be used by card holders aged 14 and over (at the ZLB in one-hour sessions). Printing and copying at the ZLB cost €0.10 per A4 page in black and white and €0.20 in colour; scanning to your own USB stick is free.
• Digital help: several libraries run digital cafés and the award-winning Digital-Zebra advice service for questions about phones, tablets, apps and online services.
• Events: the VÖBB counted more than 38,000 events in 2025 - readings, games evenings, makerspaces, children's programmes, workshops and talks. In November 2026 libraries across Germany are invited to a themed month against loneliness, Gemeinsam in der Bibliothek (Together in the library).
• More than books: a growing Bibliothek der Dinge (library of things), board and video games and musical instruments in some districts, and at the ZLB an Artothek where you can borrow works of art, a cinematheque, a music library and a piano room you can book.
• Sundays: some district libraries have started opening on Sundays (in Mitte, for example, the Schiller-Bibliothek and the Hansabibliothek), and the ZLB opens the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek on Sundays for events only, without lending services.

Opening hours differ between libraries; check each library's page before you go.

The ZLB is Germany's largest public library, with over 3.5 million items and around 1.5 million visitors a year. It has two buildings:

• Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek (AGB), Blücherplatz 1, 10961 Berlin (Kreuzberg) - open Monday to Friday 10:00-21:00, Saturday 10:00-19:00, and Sunday 11:00-17:00 for events (October 2026). It also houses the children's and youth library.
• Berliner Stadtbibliothek (BStB), Breite Straße 30-36, 10178 Berlin (Mitte) - open Monday to Friday 10:00-21:00 and Saturday 10:00-19:00, with the Berlin Collections on local history.

Service desks close earlier than the reading rooms. The ZLB is closed on public holidays. Because of cuts to its budget since 2025, the ZLB has reduced service-desk hours, events and some subscriptions, and warns that digital services in the VÖBB are also being reduced - so check that a specific service still exists before you rely on it.