Is CBN legal in Germany?

Formal status

Cannabinoids including CBN have been classified as Novel Food across the EU since January 2019 (Regulation (EU) 2015/2283); no cannabinoid ingestible holds Union list authorisation anywhere in the EU.

Germany has no CBN-specific guidance. BVL treats hemp extracts concentrated in cannabinoids as novel food generally, and places the burden explicitly on the operator: safety assessment of cannabinoids other than CBD is for the party placing the product on the market.

The German medicines overlay does not extend here. The AMVV Annex 1 listing names cannabidiol, and neither of the two German court rulings on medicinal reclassification concerns CBN. CBN sits on the novel food baseline alone - with less agency guidance to rely on, not more.

Do we sell here?

Yes, for now: Sleep spray, Sleep capsules.

CBN sits under the same unresolved EU novel food position as CBD in Germany. One difference worth being straight about: Germany has a specific medicines rule that names CBD, and it doesn't name CBN - but that cuts both ways, because it also means there's no German guidance on CBN at all.

We treat the two together.

Outlook

CBN's real exposure in Germany is the absence of any reference value at all. Where CBD has a provisional figure that an operator can at least argue against, CBN has none, so a state lab assessing a CBN product has no benchmark short of refusing it.

The first German laboratory report to quantify CBN separately would be the thing to watch.

Timeline

April 2024

The KCanG enters into force. BVL confirms that the commercial hemp exemption at 0.3% THC applies only to trade without intoxication potential for commercial or scientific purposes, and does not make cannabinoid-containing foods marketable.

Bundesamt fuer Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL)

February 2025

Baden-Wuerttemberg's state laboratories report on 72 CBD and cannabinoid-extract products sampled in 2023-24: all 72 objected to as unauthorised novel food, and 46 additionally classed as injurious to health. Online shops are named as the main sales channel.

Untersuchungsaemter Baden-Wuerttemberg

April 2025

BVL updates its FAQ, restating that it knows of no configuration in which CBD in foods or food supplements would be marketable, and that safety assessment of cannabinoids other than CBD falls to the operator placing the product on the market.

Bundesamt fuer Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL)