Prepositions with Accusative, Dative, and Genitive

German prepositions govern specific cases — each preposition requires the following noun (or pronoun) to be in a particular case. This is one of the most systematic (and initially challenging) aspects of German grammar. This lesson gives you the complete picture of which prepositions take which cases.

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The Three Groups

Group	Case	Examples
Accusative prepositions	Always accusative	durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, bis, entlang
Dative prepositions	Always dative	aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu, außer, gegenüber
Genitive prepositions	Always genitive	während, wegen, trotz, statt, innerhalb, außerhalb

There is also a fourth group — two-way prepositions (Wechselpräpositionen) — which take either accusative or dative depending on meaning. We cover those in the next lesson.

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Accusative Prepositions

These prepositions always require the accusative case: