Complete German translation table for care instructions, washing labels, and textile symbols. Copy-ready translations for your Shopify product labels.
Germany is the largest e-commerce market in the European Union. If your Shopify store sells clothing, textiles, or any product with care instructions to German customers, your washing labels must be in German. German consumers have high expectations for product information accuracy, and care labels in any other language are a common reason for returns and negative reviews. This guide provides a complete German translation of care symbols and washing instructions. To automate German care label translation across your entire Shopify catalogue, the Translate Product Images app for Shopify handles it without manual work.
TL;DR: Need to translate washing labels and care instructions to German for your Shopify store?
Here’s a complete translation table plus tips for the Germany, Austria, Switzerland market.
If you sell clothing, textiles, or any products with care labels to German-speaking customers, you need translated washing instructions. Customers expect to see care information in their language – and in many markets, it’s legally required.
Here’s every standard washing label instruction translated to German (Deutsch). Copy these directly or use them as reference:
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Machine wash cold | Maschinenwäsche kalt |
| Machine wash warm | Maschinenwäsche warm |
| Hand wash only | Nur Handwäsche |
| Do not wash | Nicht waschen |
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Do not bleach | Nicht bleichen |
| Bleach when needed | Bei Bedarf bleichen |
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Tumble dry low | Trockner niedrige Temperatur |
| Tumble dry medium | Trockner mittlere Temperatur |
| Do not tumble dry | Nicht im Trockner trocknen |
| Dry flat | Liegend trocknen |
| Hang to dry | Hängend trocknen |
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Iron low heat | Bügeln niedrige Temperatur |
| Iron medium heat | Bügeln mittlere Temperatur |
| Iron high heat | Bügeln hohe Temperatur |
| Do not iron | Nicht bügeln |
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Dry clean only | Nur chemische Reinigung |
| Do not dry clean | Keine chemische Reinigung |
Germany is Europe’s largest e-commerce market with over €90 billion in annual online sales. Austrian and Swiss German markets add another €15 billion combined.
Properly translated care labels signal that you take the German-speaking market seriously. It builds trust and reduces returns from customers who couldn’t understand washing instructions.
German creates long compound words (Maschinenwäsche, Pflegekennzeichnung) that require more space on labels. Umlauts (ä, ö, ü) must render correctly.
When translating product images for your Shopify store, keep these language-specific requirements in mind. Your translations need to display correctly on the actual product labels.
You have several options to display translated care instructions:
For stores with many products, manually translating each care label is time-consuming. Our bulk translation features let you translate all product images and labels to German in minutes instead of hours.
Care labels are just one type of product label that needs translation. Consider also translating:
Now you have all the German care instruction translations you need. For a complete solution that handles all your product image translations automatically: