Have film developed: film labs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

As a rough guide per roll (35mm, 2026): C41 color negative development costs around EUR 3–7, S/W around EUR 6–10, and E6 slide film around EUR 9–13. Scans (depending on resolution) and prints cost extra. Medium format and large format cost more. Exact prices are listed on each lab’s page.

C41 is the standard process for color negative film (most color films). E6 develops slide film (color reversal, e.g. Provia, Velvia, Ektachrome). S/W means black-and-white and is often done by hand. ECN2 is the cinema film process (e.g. Cinestill, rewound motion-picture film). Use the filter above for the process your film requires.

Shipping (mail-in) works nationwide: send in your film well padded and with sufficient postage, and you’ll receive the results as a scan download and/or as prints plus developed negatives. In person is faster and more personal, but limited to your region. Use the »Shipping only« filter if you don’t have a lab nearby.

You can give each lab card 1–5 stars. The average and number of votes are displayed; you can sort the list by rating using »Best rating«. Each person can submit one rating per lab. You can change it at any time (click a new star) or remove it (click the same star again).

Why do I need to log in for this? Ratings are only honest if no one can manipulate them. Without registration, bots or individuals could push a lab up or down with hundreds of fake votes. That’s why every rating is linked to a real customer account in our shop: log in or register for free, rate, and you’re done. We only see your account ID; nothing personal appears on the card.

The green checkmark means: The lab has reviewed and confirmed its own listing. Contact details, processes, and services have been approved by the lab. It is not a quality seal and says nothing about how well a lab works. That’s what the star ratings are for.

We researched the labs without a checkmark ourselves; to the best of our knowledge, their details are accurate, but they have not yet been verified by the lab. Do you run a lab and want the checkmark? Send a short email to info@ausgeknipst.de.

A large lab (e.g. CEWE, dm, Rossmann) develops film industrially in large quantities: inexpensive and reliable for standard color film (C41, 35mm), but without individual service. This generally means a fixed scan resolution with no choice, no push/pull or special processing, special formats usually aren’t possible, and your film goes through the branch’s consolidated shipping system (longer turnaround time, no direct contact with the lab).

A specialist lab develops film in small batches, often by hand: selectable scan quality, push/pull, cross-processing & co. on request, advice on problem films, and direct contact with the people operating the equipment. It is usually a little more expensive. In the list, you can identify large labs by the gray Large lab badge. Use the “Without large labs” filter to show only specialist labs.

This business accepts your film but does not develop it itself. It sends it to another lab. That is perfectly legitimate and exactly right for many people: You have a point of contact in your city, can stop by in person, and don’t have to send anything by mail.

You should still know this, because it changes three things: It takes longer because your film travels one extra step. Special requests such as push/pull, cross-processing, or a specific developer are harder to arrange because the business has to pass them on. And if something goes wrong, the person who handled the film is not at the counter.

Where we know which lab the film is sent to, this is stated in the listing. The services the business performs itself—often prints, enlargements, or scans—are shown by the features on the map; we do not assign a feature for film development itself.

Use the “Own development only” filter to hide these businesses and see only labs that develop film themselves.

Simply enter your postal code in the search bar. The list will then show labs within the selected radius, sorted by distance, and the map will zoom in on your area. The distance is as the crow flies; the lab’s position is the address or the center of the town/postal code area. On the map, green dots indicate listings verified by the lab.

Austria and Switzerland: Postal codes there have four digits. Simply enter the four digits. However, around a thousand of these numbers exist in both countries (1010 is in Vienna and Lausanne). In that case, we’ll ask you to specify: enter A-1010 for Austria or CH-1010 for Switzerland.

Privacy: Your ZIP code is compared locally in your browser with a ZIP-code table and is not sent anywhere.

And remember: mail-in labs accept films from across the country. A lab 300 km away may still be the best choice for your film. Many labs also accept shipments across the border; however, customs duties and import tax apply to shipments to and from Switzerland, so it is best to clarify this with the lab beforehand.

The price is a comparison value: the lab’s lowest price for developing + scanning a 35mm film (35mm, lowest scan resolution, including VAT), excluding shipping. This allows you to sort the list above by price. Higher scan resolutions, prints, medium format, large format, and express service cost more. Prices change. The current status is shown for each lab; the lab’s price list is binding (link “Source”). “On request” means that no public online price was found.

Swiss labs charge in francs and are therefore marked with CHF; German and Austrian labs charge in euros. When sorting by price, we compare the figures themselves. The franc and euro have been close in value for years, so this is sufficient for a rough ranking, but it is not an exact exchange-rate comparison.