The contract ended early, the posting changed, the plan you bought the car for has gone. You have owned it for three months and you are about to sell it.
Procedurally this is an ordinary sale. There is no minimum period you must hold a Dutch registration before passing it on, and the RDW does not ask why. What is different is the money, and the one or two pieces of paperwork that a short ownership puts under a brighter light. If part of the car is still being paid for, start with selling a car that is on finance or lease, because that decides whether a sale is even available to you yet.
The transfer itself is indifferent to the date
The car moves on the registration card (kentekencard) and all nine digits of the registration code (tenaamstellingscode), the same as it would after ten years. You receive a proof of transfer (vrijwaringsbewijs) and the register stops naming you.
Road tax sorts itself out. The Belastingdienst states that when you sell, the motor vehicle tax you have overpaid is refunded automatically from the moment the vehicle is no longer registered in your name at the RDW, including where you pay by direct debit. There is a small floor below which nothing is paid out, published on that page. If an invoice arrives after the sale, the Belastingdienst tells you to pay it anyway and let the refund follow.
One exception appears on the same page. A vehicle running under the transitional arrangement for classic cars does not produce a road tax refund on sale.
Where the gap comes from
You will get less than you paid, and the shortfall will look wrong for the mileage you added. It is worth understanding why, because the reason is structural and says almost nothing about your car.
A retail price has several things folded into it that a resale price does not contain. The seller’s margin. What they spent preparing the car and photographing it. Their warranty provision. The cost of the months it stood on their forecourt. Sell the same car on and none of that comes back to you, because you are not selling it to a retail customer with a guarantee attached.
Then there is the register. The RDW’s free vehicle check reports the number of owners a car has had, so a car sold twice inside a year shows an extra owner to anybody who looks. Buyers read that as a question to be answered, and a question in a listing costs something.
And a car registered new falls fastest in its first stretch, which is a fact about the market and not about how you drove. A trade buyer works backwards from what they can sell it for, less what selling it will cost them. That calculation does not include your purchase invoice.
None of this is worth arguing with. It is worth knowing before you set an expectation you then have to climb down from.
BPM was settled before you, and it stays with the car
BPM is the Dutch registration tax on cars and motorcycles. The Belastingdienst lists the cases in which you pay it, and they are about bringing a vehicle into the Dutch register or changing it: importing a car or motorcycle from abroad, importing and registering a van, converting a van into a car or a camper, driving a foreign-plated vehicle here while living here, and having modified your car so that its CO2 emission is now higher.
Buying a Dutch-registered car from a Dutch dealer is not on that list. The tax was dealt with when the car first entered the register, long before you, and it is part of the price you paid. Selling the car on inside the Netherlands returns none of it to you. The tax belongs to the vehicle’s history and stays there.
The only route by which BPM comes back is export, and the conditions are specific. The Belastingdienst requires that the vehicle had a Dutch plate first registered on or after 16 October 2006, that the vehicle is not damaged, that it holds the status Export at the RDW, that it is permanently registered in another EU country or in Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, and that the registration abroad happens within 13 weeks of the RDW giving it Export status. That claim sits with whoever exports the car, and a damaged car is excluded outright.
If you imported it yourself, the import effort does not come home
People who moved here and brought a car, or bought one abroad and registered it here, feel this one hardest. You had the vehicle inspected by the RDW, filed the BPM declaration, paid, and waited for the plate. A few months later you are leaving.
That work stays with the car. A domestic sale does not unwind it, and the buyer is not paying you for having done the administration. The export refund route exists, as above, and it requires the car to leave the country again and be registered somewhere else inside the window. For most people with a short posting and a flight booked, that is a bigger project than the refund justifies, and it falls away entirely if the car is damaged.
What you can do is keep the import file together. The inspection paperwork, the declaration, the date of first registration abroad and the date of first registration here. An imported car with its own documentation in one envelope is an easier car to describe, and a described car is a car somebody will price.
A finance agreement a few months old
Get the settlement statement (aflosnota) before you discuss a price with anybody. In the early part of an agreement the outstanding balance is still close to where it started while interest has been running from day one, so the figure to close the contract can sit above what the car will now fetch. That difference does not disappear because the sale happens. It has to be funded, by you, and it is far better known in week one than in week three.
The other thing the contract decides is whether you can sell at all. Where a lease or finance company owns the car, the RDW posts the registration code to that company. No code means no transfer, whatever you and a buyer agree. Work out who owns the car from the contract, then ask that owner what it needs from you.
What to do with it now
Describe the car as it is and get a number in writing. Our offer is free, no fee comes out of it afterwards, and nothing binds you until you accept. The whole sale runs in English, including the person who collects the car, and collection is free anywhere in the Netherlands.
You can also come back with your own figure and get a reasoned yes or no, which is a useful thing when you are trying to work out how far the gap really goes. If you want that number, ask us for an offer.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a minimum time I must own a car before selling it?
No. A Dutch registration can be transferred again as soon as it is yours. The card and the full registration code are what the transfer needs.
Do I get any BPM back when I sell the car here?
No. The Belastingdienst only provides a refund of BPM on export, and then only where the vehicle has Export status at the RDW, is undamaged, was first registered on a Dutch plate on or after 16 October 2006, and is registered in a qualifying country within 13 weeks.
Will my road tax be refunded?
Yes, automatically, from the moment the vehicle is no longer registered in your name at the RDW. There is a small floor below which nothing is paid out, and classic cars under the transitional arrangement do not produce a refund.
Why is the offer so much lower than what I paid a few months ago?
A retail price carries the seller’s margin, preparation, warranty provision and standing time. A resale price carries none of those, and the register now shows an additional owner.
I imported the car myself. Does that count for anything in the price?
The administration does not. The specification, the condition and the mileage do. Keep the import paperwork together so the car is easy to describe.