The analysis of income risk is the basis for farm risk management. However, comprehensive overall risk analyses are often scarce, e.g. for Germany. The present study analyses risk exposure for more than 3,000 farms in Germany in the period 1996/97-2015/16 on the basis of the national FADN data. We use the coefficient of variation, variance decomposition and robust regression techniques to quantify risk exposure and its drivers. Our results show that (i) risk exposure is heterogeneous, (ii) farm income risk increased in the period after 2007 for many farms, especially arable and dairy farms, and (iv) the return on sales decreases farm income risk substantially.