You have gone, the car has not, and the register still says it is yours. Nothing about that is illegal. It is simply this job with every helpful thing taken away: the address, the post, the key, and somebody who can stand next to the car.
There is also a date on it now. The timing sits in the guide to selling before you leave, and what follows is for people already past that point.
The RDW has started ending registrations held by people who left
Read this part first. It carries a deadline, and the deadline is not yours to move.
On 22 October 2026 the RDW, the Dutch vehicle authority, published a notice titled Einde tenaamstelling na uitschrijving Basisregistratie Personen. It says that on 18 November 2026 the RDW ends the registration of vehicles still held in the name of somebody who is no longer registered at a Dutch address in the Personal Records Database (BRP). The group it names is people who were deregistered from the BRP on or before 30 April 2026, and the RDW says it has informed them.
The consequence is not administrative: from that moment the vehicle may not stand or drive on a public road, and the RDW says the police can seize it at a roadside check.
The notice lists what you can do before the date. Transfer the car, at rdw.nl, at a registration desk (kentekenloket), an RDW counter or an RDW inspection station. Register it for export if you took it abroad with you. Have it put into the name of somebody who is registered at a Dutch address. Register yourself with a municipality (gemeente) if you are in fact living here unregistered, asking about a correspondence address if you have no home address. Suspend it, accepting that a suspended (geschorst) car may not stand on a public road either. For a lease car, or a car under seizure, the RDW sends you to the lease company or the bailiff.
If the letter found you, the sale now has a date on it. If you left after 30 April 2026 you are outside this round, which is a reason to use the time.
What a machtiging can do, and what it cannot
A power of attorney (machtiging) is the first thing people reach for from abroad, and it is weaker than it sounds.
Start with what it genuinely covers. The RDW’s conditions for requesting a replacement registration certificate include authorising somebody else to file the request on your behalf. So a friend here can set a replacement document in motion for you.
Now the limits.
It does not move the post. A replacement certificate and the registration code that comes with it are sent to the address the municipality holds for the registered owner. If you deregistered, that address is a flat somebody else lives in now. A replacement registration code requested by post goes the same way.
It does not make somebody else the seller. The RDW’s authorisation forms for putting a vehicle into a name are built for companies: the page on transferring a registration to a company name describes a signed one off authorisation from an authorised signatory, the authorised person’s identification, a copy of the signatory’s identification and a recent Chamber of Commerce extract. None of it is built for one private individual standing in for another.
And it does not hand over your responsibility. The RDW’s instruction to sellers on its page about selling a vehicle is the same whoever is holding the keys: the buyer registers the car, you receive the proof of transfer (vrijwaringsbewijs), you check the register, and only then does the car leave. Until that sequence completes, you are the one the register names.
If you intend to lean on an authorisation for something specific, ring the RDW about your own case before anybody books a day off work.
Why we need you in the sale, and will say so
Our rule is short: the registered owner has to take part in the sale. A lease car or an employer car goes through the company that holds it.
That is not a formality we could waive. The transfer happens against your card and your nine digit registration code (tenaamstellingscode), the proof of transfer is addressed to you, and the payment goes to you. A neighbour with a spare key and a photograph of your card is not a seller, and a sale built that way leaves you holding a car you cannot account for.
So from abroad, a sale with us means a trip back, or a visit timed around something you were coming for anyway. Collection is free anywhere in the Netherlands, villages included, so the car does not have to be driven to meet us.
Your buyer has to live here, which closes the obvious shortcut
The two plans people suggest from abroad are a friend who is also leaving, and a buyer in the country they moved to. Neither is available.
The conditions the RDW sets for putting a registration into a person’s name are about residence: eighteen or over, registered in the BRP with a residential or correspondence address in the Netherlands, and holding valid identification. The RDW’s selling page adds the other half: a buyer who lives abroad means the car has to be exported, a different procedure with a different document at the end.
Why selling before the move is the short version
The rules were never the obstacle. Nothing the RDW publishes about a transfer concerns where the seller lives.
What goes wrong is everything around the rules. Deregistration from the BRP is required if you will live abroad for longer than eight months in a year, done in person at your municipality and no earlier than five days before departure. After that the post has nowhere useful to land. Your Dutch bank account may be closing. Road tax (motorrijtuigenbelasting) and insurance carry on being billed in a country you no longer live in. And now the register may end the registration outright.
Sell the car while you still have the address, the key and the week. If that is behind you, work backwards from the RDW notice and keep it to one appointment.
If a trip back is on the cards anyway, ask us for an offer before you book anything.
Frequently asked questions
Am I still allowed to sell my Dutch car now that I live abroad?
Yes. The RDW’s conditions for a transfer are about the buyer, who has to be registered at a Dutch address, and they say nothing about the seller. Allowed and able are different questions, and the second is about post, keys and the proof of transfer reaching you.
Can I give someone in the Netherlands a power of attorney to sell it for me?
The RDW accepts an authorisation for requesting a replacement registration certificate. For the sale itself our own rule applies: the registered owner takes part. For what the RDW will accept in your own situation, ask them directly before making arrangements.
What is the 18 November 2026 date about?
It is the day the RDW ends the registration of vehicles still in the name of somebody no longer registered at a Dutch address, where that person left the BRP on or before 30 April 2026. After it the car may not stand or drive on a public road, and the police can seize it. The RDW has written to those affected.
Can my buyer in my new country take the car over?
No. A Dutch registration cannot be put into the name of somebody living outside the Netherlands. A foreign buyer means exporting the car, which the RDW treats as a separate procedure.
Can I just suspend the registration and deal with it later?
Suspension is on the RDW’s own list of things to do before the deadline, and it keeps the car off the public road for as long as it lasts. It parks the problem without closing it.
Do you collect a car that has been standing for a year?
Yes. An expired APK is not a problem, and a car that does not start never has to move under its own power, because it goes onto a transporter. How quickly an offer comes back depends on how much detail came with the request.