You drive it every day. The fuel card is in the door pocket, the insurance was arranged by somebody in HR whose name you have forgotten, and the first registration card you ever held came through the post with your own name on it. Then the posting ends, or you buy something of your own, and you discover that nobody in the building can tell you whether the car is yours to sell.
This is one of the most common tangles for people who came to the Netherlands for work, and it is answerable. Two questions settle it: what the register says, and what the contract says. For the procedure once you have the answer, the guide to selling a car on finance or lease walks through it. This article is about getting to the answer.
Three arrangements that all look the same from the driving seat
A car paid for by an employer is usually registered in one of three ways, and the daily experience of driving it is identical in all three.
It may be in your own name as a private person, which happens when the company gives you an allowance and leaves the buying to you, or when a car was signed over to you at some point in the arrangement. It may be in the employer’s name, if the business owns its fleet. Or it may be in the name of a lease company, which is what sits behind most company cars in this country.
The third is the one that catches people out, because a lease car still arrives with a registration card and a set of keys, and it still shows up on your payslip as something you are taxed on. Being taxed on a car is not the same as being registered as its keeper, and neither of those is the same as being free to sell it.
What the register says, and how to look
Start with the registration card, because the answer is printed on it.
The RDW’s description of the data on the registration document lists the name of the holder, the initials and the address of the holder among the required fields on the front of the card, along with a field for the designation of ownership. So take the card out of the folder and read the name. If it is a company name, the car is not registered to you, and that is the end of the first question.
Then confirm it against the register itself. The RDW page on viewing the vehicles registered in your name explains that you log in to Mijn RDW with DigiD and see the vehicles currently in your name, and that you can request a free overview covering the vehicles you were registered for going back several years. If the car you drive to work does not appear in that list, it is not in your name, whatever the folder in the glovebox suggests.
A third check is useful when the papers are missing. Road tax follows the registration. The Belastingdienst page on road tax (motorrijtuigenbelasting) explains that putting a vehicle in your name is itself the tax return, because the Belastingdienst receives the data automatically from the RDW, and that the charge applies whether the vehicle is used on the road or standing on private land. If those bills have never reached you, somebody else is the registered keeper.
The registration code decides who can act
Even where the card carries your name, there is a second object you need, and on a company or lease car it may never have been sent to you.
A Dutch transfer runs on the registration card plus the complete registration code (tenaamstellingscode). The RDW is explicit about where the code goes on a leased vehicle. Its English page on transferring a registration to a company says that if you have a leased vehicle, the leasing company will receive the registration code, and you will receive the registration card either from them or from the RDW.
That single sentence explains most of the confusion. You hold the card. Somebody in an office you have never visited holds the code. Neither of you can complete a sale alone.
The same page is worth reading if the car sits in a company name and you are the person who would have to arrange things. It says the company must be registered with the Chamber of Commerce and be a legal entity, and that somebody acting for it without signing authority needs a copy of their identity document and an authorisation from the authorised signatory. In other words, an employee cannot sell a company car on a handshake from a manager.
What the contract controls
The register tells you who the keeper is. The contract tells you what you are allowed to do, and it is the document to read next.
Stay with what is actually written in yours, because the arrangements vary widely and a guess here is expensive. The clauses that usually matter are the ones naming the owner of the vehicle, the end date, what happens to the car when your employment ends, whether there is a purchase option, and who carries the cost if the arrangement is ended early. Some employment contracts deal with the car directly. Some refer to a separate car scheme, which is where the detail lives. Some leave it to a lease contract between the employer and the lease company, which you may never have been shown and are entitled to ask about.
Two questions to HR get you most of the way. Who is the registered keeper of this car. If the arrangement ends, what am I supposed to do with the vehicle. Ask them by email, so that the answer is written down.
If the car turns out to be in your own name and was bought with a company loan or an allowance, the car is yours in the register and the money is a separate agreement between you and your employer. The sale works like any other, and settling what you owe is a conversation you still have to have.
What we do with an employer or lease car
Our rule is short: the registered owner takes part in the sale, and a lease or employer car goes through the company.
We apply it because a transfer cannot happen any other way. The figures it runs on sit with whoever holds the registration code. If the car is in your own name and the arrangement is finished, you are the seller and there is nothing unusual to do. If it is in a company name, the company has to be the party selling, and we are happy to deal with the lease company or the employer directly once you have made the introduction.
Either way, an unfinished arrangement is not a reason to wait before asking. Tell us the plate, the mileage and what you know about who holds the papers, and we will tell you plainly whether there is a sale to be had. Ask for an offer and mention the employer or lease company in the notes.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out who owns the car I drive for work?
Read the name on the registration card, then log in to Mijn RDW with DigiD and look at the vehicles registered in your name. The RDW also lets you request an overview of the vehicles you were registered for in past years, which is free.
My name is on the registration card. Does that make the car mine?
It makes you the registered keeper, with the obligations that come with it, including road tax and insurance. Whether you own the vehicle, and whether you may sell it, is a question for your contract with the employer or the lease company.
The code never arrived with my registration card.
On a leased vehicle that is normal. The RDW states that the leasing company receives the registration code while the card comes to you. Ask the lease company what it needs from you, because the transfer cannot start without the code.
Can I sell a company car if my manager agrees?
Not on a verbal agreement. Where a car is registered to a legal entity, the RDW requires the company to be registered with the Chamber of Commerce, and anyone acting for it without signing authority needs an authorisation from the authorised signatory and a copy of their identity document.
I am leaving the Netherlands and the car is in my name. What now?
Then the car is yours to deal with, and the choices are a sale, an export or a suspension of the registration. Sort out what you owe your employer separately, and do not leave the country with the vehicle still registered to you.