Complete German translation table for care instructions, washing labels, and textile symbols. Copy-ready translations for your Shopify product labels.
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: