The card in your hand says one name and your passport says another. Start with the plain answer: the RDW does not ask you to fix it, and in most of these cases there is nothing to fix at all. The name printed on a registration card is a snapshot of the register on the day the card was made, and the RDW is explicit that an old name may stay there.
What matters for a sale is the register, and the register does not get its names from you. Who does what in a transfer is laid out in the RDW transfer guide. This piece deals with the mismatch.
The card prints a name, the register holds one
Both of those are true and they drift apart.
A Dutch registration card (kentekencard) carries the holder’s surname, initials and address as mandatory fields on the front, which the RDW lists in its table of the data on the registration certificate. The card is printed once, when the car goes into your name, and then it sits in a drawer while your life carries on.
The register behind it is live. The RDW has an automated link to the Personal Records Database (BRP), the municipal record of who lives where, and its page on changing the name and address on the registration card says what follows: tell your municipality (gemeente) about the change and the RDW adjusts the data by itself. You report nothing to the RDW.
The same page is unusually relaxed about the plastic. Your old particulars may remain on your registration card, so you do not need to do anything. A new card showing the new details is something you may apply for, not something you are required to have. The RDW repeats the point on its page for reporting an error on a registration certificate: a move or a change of name does not have to be reported, and an old name or address is allowed to stay on the document.
Marriage probably did not change your surname
This is where half of these cases dissolve.
Getting married or entering a registered partnership in the Netherlands gives you the right to use your partner’s surname. It does not replace your own. The government’s own wording is that you may use your partner’s surname, possibly combined with yours, but not in official documents such as a passport or a driving licence, where your own surname is the one that has to appear.
That registered preference has a Dutch name, naamgebruik, and your municipality can record it in the BRP without your partner’s permission. Your legal surname is untouched, so the register still has you under the name you were born with, which is also the name on the card. Nothing is out of step. The card looks wrong to you and looks correct to the RDW.
A divorce runs the same way in reverse. Dropping the use of a surname changes how you are addressed, not who the register says you are.
A real name change goes through the municipality, and the car follows
If the change is genuine, meaning your legal surname or first name is now different, the route runs outside the RDW entirely. The Dutch government explains that a request to change a surname goes to Justis, with strict conditions attached, and that a first name is changed by a court on a petition filed by a lawyer. Once it is done and the municipality has it, the BRP feeds the RDW and the register catches up without a form from you.
So the order is fixed and it is short. Municipality first. The register second, on its own. The card last, and only if you care.
Selling before any of it is sorted out
Yes, on the RDW’s published conditions for a transfer.
The RDW’s conditions for putting a registration into a person’s name are worth reading literally, because they are all about the buyer: eighteen or over, registered in the BRP at a Dutch address, holding valid identification, and holding the DigiD app with the identity check if they want the online route. What you supply is a valid registration card and the complete nine digit registration code (tenaamstellingscode). A name on the card matching the name on your passport is not among them, and the RDW’s free card check runs on the plate, the document number and the code, with no name involved.
The honest edge of that: the RDW publishes no rule either way for a clerk who reads a card and an identity document and sees two surnames. The seller is not the person at the counter, so it rarely comes up. If your case is unusual, a foreign marriage not yet registered here or a name change part way through, ask the RDW before a handover date is agreed. One phone call beats a wasted trip for your buyer.
Do not order a fresh card in the week you plan to sell
This is the mistake with a real cost attached.
The RDW’s route to a card showing your new name is the same application as the one for a lost or damaged registration certificate. Read what that does: you receive a new registration certificate and automatically a new registration code, and the old code stops being valid. The documents go by post to the address your municipality holds for you. The request cannot be cancelled and the payment is not refunded.
So you would swap a card that works for a card that reads better, and in between you hold a dead code, a live code somewhere in the post, and a waiting buyer. The old card with the old name sells the car. Leave it.
The exception is a genuine error, which is a different request. The RDW corrects mistakes in the register or on the certificate free of charge, and says your registration code stays valid. That is the form to use if the register has your name spelled wrong, as opposed to out of date.
If the paperwork has reached the point where you would rather someone else handled it, ask us for an offer and say what the card shows.
Frequently asked questions
My card has my maiden name on it. Is it still valid?
Yes. The RDW states that old particulars may remain on a registration card and that you need do nothing about it. If you married in the Netherlands, your legal surname very likely did not change anyway, so the card and the register agree with each other.
Do I have to tell the RDW about my new name?
No. You report it to your municipality. The RDW has an automated connection to the Personal Records Database and updates the register from there, which is why its own page tells you not to report a name change to them.
Will the buyer be turned away because the names do not match?
The buyer is the one doing the transfer, using your card and your code, and the RDW’s conditions for a transfer say nothing about the seller’s name. If anything about your case is unusual, ring the RDW first. It is a short call and we would rather you made it than guessed.
Should I get a new card with the correct name before selling?
No, and the reason is the code. Applying for a new registration certificate also issues a new registration code and kills the old one, the post goes to your registered address, and the request cannot be undone. A sale does not need the name on the card to be current.
The register has my name spelled wrong. Is that the same problem?
No, that is an error, and the RDW handles errors separately and without charge. Report it through the error form, and the RDW assesses it, corrects it and sends a new certificate if the mistake was printed on one. Your registration code survives that process.
Can I sell a car that is in my former partner’s name?
Not as the seller. The registered owner has to take part in the sale, and on a Dutch transfer that means they supply the card and the code. If the car should have moved into your name as part of a separation, do that first, then sell it.