How does the identity check work in post offices?

  • You will receive your POSTIDENT coupon either from the contracting party on whose behalf we are performing your identification check or via the POSTIDENT portal.
  • The employee at the post office takes the information from the coupon and will verify the ID document you present.
  • After you confirm your identification data, it is transmitted digitally to your contracting party.

The following items are required:

Valid ID document with photo (ID card, passport)

Printed POSTIDENT coupon from your contracting party

Recommended without a paper copy: Simply open the POSTIDENT coupon digitally within the POSTIDENT app.

Frequently asked questions about the identity check procedure in a post office

Our identity check service with POSTIDENT by post office is free of charge.

Your identity cannot be verified through POSTIDENT by post office without a coupon. You have the following options:

  • Contact the contracting party for whom you want to your identity confirmed – a bank or an online retailer, for example – and have them send you a new coupon.
  • Select a different POSTIDENT procedure that is accepted by your contracting party.

 

The following documents are accepted

  • Valid German ID cards (including provisional cards)
  • Valid German passports (including provisional ones)
  • Official foreign identity cards and passports equivalent to German ID cards and passports. The documents must contain a photo and a machine-readable zone (MRZ).

Please visit our comprehensive help area if you have any additional questions

Additional information on POSTIDENT by post office:

This procedure permits personal and reliable identity verification in our Germany-wide post office network. All forms of ID with a photo are usually accepted. To further enhance the security of this process, ID readers have been introduced in over 8,500 post offices to automatically verify the ID security features.