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nextbike is a German company that develops and operates public bike-sharing systems. The company was founded in Leipzig, Germany, in 2004. As of June 2025, it operates in 400 cities of 23 countries including Germany, UK, Poland, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland. The headquarters with about 100 employees are based in Leipzig. The bicycles and stations are maintained by local service partners. On 2021, nextbike GmbH was bought by TIER Mobility, adopting the joint branding nextbike by TIER until it was sold in April 2024 to a private equity firm.
The bike sharing schemes can be initiated by cities and franchise partners. The operating costs are financed by contracts with public transport providers & municipalities, rental fees and the sale of advertising space on the bikes themselves. nextbike also provides mobility programmes for colleges or universities and companies, integrating with urban and regional mobility.
KVB-Rad
Since 2015, the public transport company of Cologne offers around 1500 bikes for rent through nextbike. They are available everywhere within the flex zone and complement the public transport system. In 2021 the system was renewed with 3000 new-generation bikes after vandalism respectively theft, and the flex zone was complemented with stations outside of the city center.
Metropolradruhr
metropolradruhr was launched in 2010 as one of the biggest regional bike sharing system in Germany. It links ten cities such as Dortmund, Bochum, Essen and Oberhausen. Bikes can be returned in any of these ten cities.
VRNnextbike
In 2015 nextbike together with the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar launched another cross-city bike sharing system with more than 2000 bikes connecting Mannheim, Heidelberg, Ludwigshafen, expanding in 2016 to Bensheim and Speyer. nextbike cooperates with local universities and colleges offering special conditions for students.
In 2014, several bike sharing schemes were launched in the UK, including the cities of Bath, Glasgow, Milton Keynes and Stirling. In April 2015 a new public hire scheme was launched in Belfast, branded Belfast Bikes. A scheme was launched in Cardiff in May 2018. The contract for the Bath bike sharing scheme ended in February 2019, and the bikes were no longer available to hire from the 8 February 2019. Described as Nextbike's "flagship scheme" in the UK, the Cardiff bikes were used even more often during the pandemic in 2020. The scheme in Cardiff shut down on 31 December 2023 after Nextbike stated that 3000 bikes had been vandalised or gone missing.
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