SIM Card Registration in Cologne: What to Do When Video-Ident Rejects Your Foreign Passport
Germany has required identity verification for every SIM card, prepaid or contract, since July 1, 2017, and a foreign passport or residence permit is accepted in principle. In practice, though, the automated systems doing the checking, video-ident over a webcam call and PostIdent's document scanners at the post office, reject specific foreign documents for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the document is genuine. Some EU documents, newer Polish passports and UK national ID cards among them, simply don't carry a printed German address, and the verification software checks for one. Some passports get flagged as not meeting a forgery-security threshold the scanning software expects, Indian passports being a documented example at both PostIdent and video-ident. Paper-format residence permits without a machine-readable zone often can't be read at all, even when a passport from the same person would work fine. Video-ident providers reportedly cover around 50 countries but have never published which ones, so there's no way to check your specific passport in advance. This matters more than usual in Cologne, a city where, per the city's own statistical office, roughly two in five residents have a migration background, and where the insurance and media sectors alone draw in tens of thousands of international professionals every year, this is a first-week problem a lot of new arrivals actually hit. When it happens, the reliable fix is to buy and activate the SIM in person instead, at a phone shop, supermarket counter, or kiosk, Cologne's dense retail stretch around Hohe Straße and Schildergasse has no shortage of these, where a staff member checks your physical document by eye rather than running it through an automated scanner. Separately, don't expect to keep your home country's number: mobile number portability (MNP) in Germany only works between German providers, so you'll need a new German number regardless of which verification path gets you there.
The Official Rule
Every SIM card sold in Germany, prepaid or contract, has required identity verification since July 1, 2017. In principle, this is straightforward for anyone: German citizens present a valid ID card or passport, and non-German citizens present a passport, residence permit, or arrival certificate (Ankunftsnachweis). Three verification methods exist to check that document: video-ident over a webcam call, PostIdent at a post office, or in-person activation at a shop that scans your ID directly.
Where this breaks down in practice is that the automated versions of this check, video-ident and PostIdent’s document scanner, reject specific foreign documents for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the document is genuine. A documented pattern affects some EU nationals directly: newer Polish passports don’t carry a printed German address, since Polish authorities don’t add German address data and German registration offices aren’t permitted to write into a foreign document either, and UK national ID cards have the same gap. Video-ident systems check specifically for that address field, so the check fails before it ever gets to confirming who you are.
| Method | What happens when it rejects a foreign document |
|---|---|
| Video-ident (webcam call) | Rejected outright if your passport isn't on the provider's unpublished accepted-country list, or if it lacks a printed German address the check expects |
| PostIdent (post office) | Automated scanner sometimes rejects passports it flags as not forgery-secure enough, or paper residence permits it can't read at all |
| In-store activation (shop, supermarket, kiosk) | Staff check your physical document by eye, there's no automated scanner in the loop to reject it |
A second, separate failure pattern affects specific passports directly rather than an address field. Indian passports have been reported rejected by both video-ident and PostIdent at o2, with one community thread quoting Deutsche Post’s own explanation directly: “Die Software der Post lässt keine indischen Pässe zu, denn scheinbar gelten diese als nicht fälschungssicher” (Post’s software doesn’t accept Indian passports, since they’re apparently not considered sufficiently forgery-secure). This isn’t a rule published anywhere, it surfaces only when someone hits it and asks. Video-ident providers like WebID reportedly cover somewhere around 50 countries in total but have never published the list itself, so there’s genuinely no way to check your specific passport’s status before you try.
A third pattern is specific to the document type rather than the passport itself: paper-format residence permits often can’t be read by scanners at all. One documented case involved a customer whose paper Aufenthaltstitel and foreign national ID card were both rejected by a post office’s PostIdent reader in the same visit, “beides vom Leser nicht akzeptiert” (neither document accepted by the reader), as the postal employee put it. Switching to a passport instead resolved the verification within about three hours of requesting a new voucher.
This lands harder in Cologne than the national average would suggest. By the city’s own statistical office count, roughly two in five Cologne residents have a migration background, the single largest group with roots in Turkey, and the city’s insurance sector (Germany’s second-largest after Munich, over 70 companies) and its media and creative economy (tens of thousands of jobs, including public broadcaster WDR and private broadcaster RTL) together pull in a steady stream of international hires every year. A rejected SIM registration is a genuinely common first-week snag here, not an edge case.
When any of these automated checks reject you, the reliable fix is to stop retrying online and register in person instead. Buying a prepaid starter kit at a phone shop, a supermarket counter, or a kiosk means a staff member checks your physical passport or residence permit by eye rather than running it through a scanner or webcam system, which is exactly the step that failed online. Cologne makes this an easy fallback logistically: the pedestrian retail core around Hohe Straße and Schildergasse in the Altstadt has one of the densest concentrations of phone shops in Germany, and every one of the city’s nine districts has its own supermarkets and kiosks selling prepaid SIMs besides. PostIdent’s own process explainer confirms in-store activation exists as a standard alternative alongside video-ident and PostIdent specifically because not every situation suits the automated paths.
Separately, don’t expect to sidestep any of this by keeping your old phone number. Mobile number portability (MNP, Rufnummernmitnahme) in Germany exists only for switching between German providers, it has no mechanism for porting in a number issued abroad. This is confirmed clearly for anyone who asks: a foreign number carries a different country code than a German one, and that structural difference, not a policy choice, is why porting in isn’t possible. Whichever verification path eventually works for you, it will come with a new German number.
A Local Footnote: Cologne’s Own Court Already Weighed In
One detail that’s genuinely specific to this city: the identity-verification framework behind all of this has already been tested in court, right here. On December 1, 2020, the Verwaltungsgericht Köln ruled that part of the Bundesnetzagentur’s implementing regulation was unlawful, specifically a requirement that mobile providers collect and forward a copy of the customer’s ID document (found to conflict with the Personalausweisgesetz and Passgesetz) and a double-verification duty the court said had no basis in the underlying telecommunications law. The ruling didn’t touch the identity-verification requirement itself, that’s set at the federal level and still applies in full today, it just narrowed how the Bundesnetzagentur can implement the check’s mechanics. It’s a useful thing to have heard of if a provider or shop ever asks you for something that sounds like it goes beyond a standard document check.
What Real People Say
The pattern that comes up repeatedly in real accounts is discovering the rejection only after expecting the hard part to already be behind them, having a valid, genuine passport and still hitting a wall that has nothing to do with the document’s authenticity. Cases involving Polish and UK documents describe the frustration of an address field that simply doesn’t exist on their ID being treated as if it should.
The practical response that resolves things fastest, according to documented cases, is not retrying the same online method repeatedly but switching paths entirely: going to a physical retail location where a person, not software, checks the document. In the paper-Aufenthaltstitel case, switching from the residence permit to a passport, rather than retrying the same document, is what actually fixed it.
Step by Step
- Try video-ident or PostIdent first, most passports do go through without any issue, and this is the fastest path when it works.
- If it’s rejected, don’t keep retrying the same method with the same document. Note whether the rejection message mentions an address, this points to the EU-document address gap rather than a passport problem.
- Switch to in-person activation at a shop, supermarket, or kiosk as your reliable fallback, Cologne’s Hohe Straße/Schildergasse retail core is a convenient starting point if you’re near the Altstadt, but any district’s supermarkets and kiosks work too.
- If you only tried a paper residence permit, bring a passport on your next attempt if you have one, paper documents without a machine-readable zone are a more consistent failure point than passports.
- Don’t expect to keep your home country’s number. Plan on a new German number regardless of which verification path succeeds, MNP only covers switching between German providers.
Compliance Note
This page explains general, documented patterns in Germany’s SIM card identity verification requirements as of August 2026. It is not legal advice. Provider-specific policies, accepted document lists, and verification software can change, confirm current requirements directly with your chosen provider if you hit a rejection this page doesn’t cover.
FAQ & Common Pitfalls
Is there a published list of passports that actually pass video-ident?
No, and that's the core frustration with this whole process. WebID, a video-ident provider several networks rely on, reportedly covers somewhere around 50 countries but has never released which ones. What is documented in real cases is more specific: newer Polish passports and UK national ID cards commonly fail because those documents don't carry a printed German address, and the verification check looks for one. Separately, Indian passports have been reported rejected by both video-ident and PostIdent for an unrelated reason, a support forum thread quotes Deutsche Post's own explanation that their scanning software doesn't accept them, apparently treating them as not meeting a forgery-security threshold the software expects. None of this guarantees your own passport will fail, it means you shouldn't assume online verification is guaranteed to work either.
Our passport or ID just got rejected by video-ident or PostIdent online. What's the actual fix in Cologne?
Buy and activate the SIM in person instead, at a phone shop, a supermarket counter, or a kiosk that sells prepaid starter kits. Cologne's central shopping streets, Hohe Straße and Schildergasse, are dense with exactly this kind of retail, and every district has its own supermarkets and kiosks too, so this fallback is rarely more than a short trip away. Staff there check your physical passport by eye rather than running it through an automated scanner or webcam system, which is exactly the step that rejected you online. This is a documented, generally reliable workaround, though not a guaranteed one: in a real case involving an Indian passport that failed both o2's online video-ident and PostIdent, an in-person attempt at an o2 shop and at three different post offices failed too, and other users in the same thread suggested trying a large electronics retailer or switching providers instead, though the thread itself doesn't confirm whether that actually worked.
PostIdent rejected our paper residence permit (Aufenthaltstitel). Now what?
Try again with your passport itself if you have one available. A documented o2 community case involved exactly this scenario, a paper-format residence permit and a foreign ID card that a post office's scanner couldn't read, in the same visit. The customer requested a new PostIdent voucher through the provider's support chat and returned with a passport instead, and the verification succeeded within about three hours. Paper documents without a machine-readable zone are a more consistent failure point in these systems than passports themselves tend to be.
Has anyone actually challenged this identity-check framework in court?
Yes, and the ruling came from Cologne's own administrative court. The Verwaltungsgericht Köln decided on December 1, 2020 (cases 9 K 573/18, 9 K 574/18, and 9 K 1378/18) that part of the Bundesnetzagentur's implementing rules for prepaid SIM identity checks was unlawful, specifically the requirement that mobile providers collect and transmit a copy of the customer's ID document, which the court found violated the Personalausweisgesetz and Passgesetz, and a double-verification duty the court said went beyond what the underlying telecommunications law actually requires. That ruling narrowed how providers are allowed to implement the check, it did not remove the identity-verification requirement itself, which remains federal law and still applies in 2026. It's a useful thing to know if a provider asks you for something that sounds like more than a standard document check.
Can we just bring our old phone number with us instead of dealing with any of this?
No. Mobile number portability (MNP, Rufnummernmitnahme in German) in Germany only applies when switching between German providers, it has no mechanism for porting in a number issued abroad. Your home country's number carries a different country code than a German one, and that structural difference is the reason, not a policy that might change with the right request. You'll need a new German number attached to whichever SIM you end up successfully registering, regardless of which verification path gets you there.