The cleanup and reuse of contaminated land carries many risks. The cleanup may be incomplete so that some pollution goes undetected. Some ubstances in the ground may not be known to be pollutants at the time but turn out to be later. Areas that have been properly decontaminated may still have a depressed market value due to ‘stigma’, i.e. the psychological fear of some negative impact or remaining cost. The phenomenon of stigma on contaminated land has been widely debated in the United States but received little scholarly attention in Europe, although accounting for stigma is a legally approved best practice of appraisal in European countries. This paper surveys international approaches to accounting for stigma on contaminated land, introduces the German setting and procedures, and presents a case study validated risk scoring method of accounting based on a survey of German appraisers.