Failing the test is not the same thing as forgetting about it. A car whose APK ran out quietly has no paperwork attached to it. A car that went in and was rejected now has a dated report naming every point it did not meet, the rejection is filed with the RDW, and your old inspection date is still doing its job in the background. That last part surprises people most.
So there is no emergency. There is a decision, and it is the one in the title: put the work in, or sell the car as the report describes it. Before you weigh that up, our guide to what decides what your car is worth explains why a repair and a price are not the same currency.
Reading the report you were handed
The APK report uses four kinds of entry. The RDW’s handbook for testers defines a rejection point as a defect in the vehicle by which it does not meet the APK requirements, and a repair point as a repair that is needed because of those requirements. The page setting out both also gives the lines the tester prints above each list, one saying which defects were repaired for the APK and one saying which defects were found.
Then there are advice points. The handbook defines these as items it expects to stop meeting the APK requirements before long, and they do not fail the car. They are a forecast.
Fourth, and narrowest, the repair advice point. The handbook’s list of them covers warning devices reporting a fault in the airbag, stability control, tyre pressure monitoring, power steering or braking systems of cars registered before 1 January 2018, plus excessive fluid leakage outside the fuel, brake, steering and suspension systems.
Read your sheet that way and it sharpens up. The rejection points are what the car failed on. The advice points are a letter from the future, and they matter to a buyer who is going to own the car next year.
The dates that run after a rejection
Three things happen to the calendar, and they are set out on the RDW’s page on the consequences of a rejection.
First, the inspection you already hold keeps running. The RDW states that you still meet the APK obligation until the date your APK expires, and that the rejection itself brings no fine. Going in early and failing shortens nothing.
Second, driving. The RDW puts that back on you: you judge for yourself whether it is sensible to drive a rejected vehicle, because the car no longer meets the technical requirements. It adds that your insurance company may decide not to pay out for damage after a collision or an accident. The police can act on the technical state of the car as well.
Third, standing still. Only if you do not drive it may the APK be at most two months expired. After that the vehicle has to have been inspected, and if it has not, a fine follows from the CJIB, the agency that collects Dutch fines. The way out of that is suspension (schorsen), which the same page describes as stopping the APK obligation along with the duty to insure and the road tax (motorrijtuigenbelasting), on the condition that the car neither drives nor stands on a public road.
Put together, that is your window. The remainder of the old APK, then two months of the car sitting still, and then either a passed inspection or a suspension. Weeks, in most cases, which is time enough to collect offers and hold them against a repair quotation.
If you believe the rejection was wrong
This one has a door that closes fast. The RDW’s page on disagreeing with a rejection requires you to say so at the test station, there and then, by signing the relevant part of the APK report, after which the tester contacts the RDW and an RDW inspector comes out to the garage to judge whether the rejection was correct.
Two conditions come with it. The vehicle must not have been moved after the inspection, and no repairs may have been carried out. The RDW also sets out who carries the cost: the garage, where the rejection turns out to have been wrong, and you, where it turns out to have been right.
So the decision belongs at the counter, while you are still standing in the workshop. Drive away and the route is gone.
Whether the repair earns its money back
Usually it does not, and when the plan is to sell we would honestly prefer you left it alone. The arithmetic is lopsided. You pay a garage the full price for the work, and the car then carries a valid inspection that a buyer values at less than you paid, because the buyer is pricing a car with a fresh APK and not reimbursing an invoice.
There is a second trap in it. The report lists what the tester found that day. Fix those points, send the car back in, and a car of that age sometimes collects something new on the second visit. You can pay twice over and arrive at the decision you were already looking at.
The case for the repair is narrow and real. It is worth doing where you are keeping the car for a while yet, where you need to keep driving it in the meantime, or where the work is already booked and paid for by somebody else. None of those is the situation of somebody who has decided to sell.
And when you do compare offers, check that they describe the same car. A figure that assumes a passed APK is not the same figure as one for the car as the report has it. Ask which of the two you are being quoted.
Selling the car with the rejection on it
Nothing in the report blocks it. A transfer runs on the registration card (kentekencard) and the registration code (tenaamstellingscode), and the RDW’s page on selling a vehicle asks for one thing more from a seller whose car has been inspected: give the buyer the report of the last inspection. In your case that is the rejection report. Hand it over.
Keeping it quiet would not work anyway. The APK history, with its repair and advice points, is in the free RDW vehicle report that an owner can request with DigiD, and a trade buyer sees the register before quoting. Describing the rejection accurately costs you nothing you were going to keep.
We buy cars that have just failed, with the points unrepaired. The APK does not need to be valid, the car is collected free anywhere in the Netherlands, and a car that cannot sensibly be driven goes onto a transporter so it never has to move under its own power. At the handover it is checked against your description, lifted out of your registration at the RDW on the doorstep, and paid for before it is loaded, with the proof of transfer (vrijwaringsbewijs) staying in your hand.
If that is the way you want to go, ask for an offer and list the rejection points from the report in the request. How soon the figure comes back depends on how much detail came with it, and a typed-out report is about the most useful detail there is.
Frequently asked questions
Is a car that has just failed its APK still saleable?
Yes. A transfer needs the card and both blocks of the code, and no valid inspection is part of it. The RDW does ask you to pass the last inspection report to the buyer, which here means the one listing the rejection points.
How long may I keep driving after a rejection?
The RDW leaves the judgement to you and points out that the car no longer meets the technical requirements. It also warns that an insurer can decline to settle damage from a collision. Your APK obligation itself runs to the original expiry date on the register.
What is the difference between a rejection point and an advice point?
A rejection point is a defect by which the car does not meet the APK requirements. An advice point is not a rejection at all. It flags something the tester expects to fall below the requirements before long, and the car passes with it noted.
Can I challenge the rejection later in the week?
No. The objection has to be raised at the test station, with the report signed on the spot, the car unmoved and nothing repaired. Once it has been driven away or worked on, that route has closed.
Do you want the car repaired before you collect it?
No, and we would prefer you did not spend the money. Tell us what the report says and let the offer account for it.