A food truck costs less than a restaurant, but more than most people realise. The initial purchase is the smaller part of the problem – the crucial factor is whether the day-to-day costs add up.
Factors affecting the price
DE Germany
AT Austria
CH Switzerland
Is your food truck profitable?
Enter your figures. At the bottom, you’ll see how many portions you need to sell on a working day to break even.
Procurement
Fixed monthly fee
A day’s work
And your own pay, too, if you do the maths honestly.
A rough estimate excluding tax and depreciation. It is no substitute for a consultation with a tax adviser – but it does show whether such a consultation is worthwhile.
How much it costs to purchase
| Next | Range |
|---|---|
| Second-hand trailer, easily converted | 8.000 – 20.000 € |
| Second-hand food truck, ready for use | 25.000 – 70.000 € |
| New trailer from the fit-out specialist | 30.000 – 70.000 € |
| New food truck, ready to use | 60.000 – 150.000 € |
| Self-fit-out (vehicle plus equipment) | 25.000 – 50.000 € |
In addition, the following apply once only, regardless of the vehicle:
- Business registration, itinerant trade licence, certificate of good conduct: €250–500
- Information in accordance with Section 43 of the IfSG: €20–40 per person
- Initial equipment for crockery, tools and cleaning: €1,000 – €3,000
- POS system with TSE: €400 – €1,500
- Text and vinyl graphics: €1,500 – €5,000
- Website, logo, photos: €500 – €3,000
- Initial budget: €500 – €2,000
And the most important item: Savings for the first few months. Allow for at least three months’ worth of budget where your income is lower than planned.
Running costs
This list forms the basis of any honest calculation. Example monthly figures for a single-truck operation:
| Posts | Month |
|---|---|
| Stall hire | 400 – 2.000 € |
| Fuel and gas | 200 – 600 € |
| Insurance | 100 – 300 € |
| Vehicle tax | 20 – 60 € |
| Maintenance and repair reserve | 150 – 400 € |
| Parking space, storage area, wash-up area | 150 – 600 € |
| Packaging and napkins | 150 – 500 € |
| Accountancy, tax adviser | 100 – 300 € |
| Contributions (IHK, BGN, GEMA) | 30 – 100 € |
| Marketing | 50 – 300 € |
Without staff and without the cost of goods, this brings you to around 1,400 to 5,000 euros per month. If you take on a part-time assistant, expect to pay between 15 and 20 euros per hour, including ancillary costs.
Cost of goods and pricing
In the catering industry, the cost of goods sold is calculated as a percentage of net turnover. Typical figures:
- Food: 25 to 35 per cent
- Non-alcoholic drinks: 20 to 30 per cent
- Coffee: 10 to 20 per cent
Example: Ingredients costing €2.20 net, with a 30 per cent cost of goods sold, result in a target price of around €7.33 net. At an applicable tax rate of 7 per cent, this amounts to around 7.85 euros gross. Staff costs, stall hire and other expenses must be covered from the remaining margin.
Please note VAT: From 1 January 2026, the reduced tax rate on food will generally apply to restaurant and catering services in Germany. Drinks are excluded from this. Check the tax classification of your items and combo offers before setting up the till.
The calculation you do before making a purchase
Don’t base your calculations on turnover, but on costs. Example:
- Fixed costs per month: €2,500
- Your withdrawal, a fee you can live with: €2,500
- Loan instalment For the food truck: €700
- In summary: €5,700 required funding
With a 30 per cent cost of goods sold, you’re left with 70 per cent of your net turnover. So, to cover 5,700 euros, you’ll need around €8,150 net turnover per month – for 20 trading days, around 410 euros net per day.
With an average receipt total of 9 euros net, that amounts to around 45 customers a day. This figure is the real litmus test: do you reckon you can handle 45 customers at your location on a normal Tuesday in November?
Season and weather
Most food trucks generate the bulk of their annual turnover between May and September. A rainy summer can ruin a season. So make sure you plan ahead:
- Reserves from the peak season for the winter
- Second line of business: catering, corporate events, Christmas markets
- Fixed weekly locations in industrial estates – less affected by the weather than city centre locations
Where mistakes are most commonly made
- Forgot to include my own fee. If you don’t factor yourself in, you’re working for free and won’t realise it until a year has gone by.
- Operating hours underestimated. Set-up and dismantling, travel, shopping, cleaning: for every six hours of trading, you can easily expect a further five hours of work.
- No maintenance reserve fund. A faulty cooling system in the middle of August not only costs money, but also the week’s turnover.
- Estimated stall fees. Good pitches at festivals can sometimes cost several hundred euros a day or involve a share of takings.
- Capitalisation ignored. The truck loses value; at some point, it will need to be replaced.