What the letters and digits are doing
Start at the first letter, because that is where the RDW sorts vehicles by type. A car begins with one of G, H, J, K, N, P, R, S, X or Z. Older cars can also start with L or T, two letters the RDW dropped for cars from series 11. M means a motorbike. V marks a light commercial vehicle, a van up to 3,500 kg, and B a heavy one. Vowels have been off the plates since series 4, semi-trailers aside, and C and Q were never used.
After the letter comes the shape of the number. Every plate issued since 1951 has three groups of characters, and the RDW calls each pattern a series, written with X in place of each letter and 9 in place of each digit. A series has an opening date, and the numbers inside it go out in order until the pattern is used up. So a plate carries a rough timestamp. It carries nothing about who owns the car.
Other websites call the pattern a sidecode. The RDW says kentekenserie, and that is the word that will be understood at a counter.
The patterns in use on passenger cars
Buyers do estimate a car's age from the pattern, and as a rough sanity check the estimate holds up. The RDW publishes an opening date for every series used on passenger cars, and for the three oldest it records only the year. One more thing to know: a pattern can stay in use for a while after the next one has opened for other vehicle types, and no warning comes from the RDW before it switches.
- The three oldest patterns are dated by year alone: XX-99-99 from 1951, then 99-99-XX from 1965, then 99-XX-99 from 1973. Those are series 1, 2 and 3.
- 3 October 1978 opened XX-99-XX, series 4. 2 September 1991 opened XX-XX-99, series 5.
- 99-XX-XX followed on 10 June 1999 as series 6, and 99-XXX-9 on 19 May 2008 as series 7.
- 9-XXX-99 opened on 5 March 2013, series 8, and XX-999-X on 30 March 2015, series 9.
- The newest patterns are X-999-XX, open since 19 August 2019, and XXX-99-X, since 4 June 2024. Series 10 and 11.
None of this gives you an exact date. For that, put the number into the RDW Kentekencheck and read the date of first registration off the result.
Which colour means what
Almost every private car here wears a yellow plate. The other types on the RDW's list belong to vehicles doing a particular job, and the list below runs from the one a seller meets daily to the one hardly anyone meets at all.
- Yellow, black border, blue panel on the left with the EU symbol and NL. Standard for campers, business vehicles, passenger cars and trailers over 750 kg, and by the RDW's own count the plate you see most.
- White, which covers four unrelated jobs: export, transit, a one day plate for the drive to an RDW inspection, and trailers or attachments such as bike racks under 751 kg.
- Light green, the dealer plate, which the RDW hands to garage businesses it has approved. That is why it turns up on test drives.
- Dark blue, for cars, business vehicles and motorbikes first registered before 1 January 1978, in a pattern of two digit groups and one letter group.
- Light blue, for a vehicle used in taxi transport.
- Blue on a moped means a snorfiets, the class capped at 25 km/h. A moped built for 45 km/h takes a yellow plate.
A search for a green Dutch plate almost always lands on the dealer plate. The RDW lists no other green type.
White export plates on a car that is leaving
Register a car for export and it comes off the Dutch register, which leaves it with no ordinary plates. To bridge the gap an export plate (uitvoerkentekenplaat) can be issued, normally carrying the number the car already had. It lasts 14 days and never outlives the APK, the Dutch roadworthiness test. With the APK expired the car stays off public roads whatever the plates say.
The export route itself, the paperwork and any tax refund with it, is set out in selling your car before you leave. It also explains why a sale or an export must be settled before you deregister from your municipality.
What your plate gives away to a buyer
Your name is not in there. The RDW says privacy law keeps the owner out of a public lookup, so nobody learns your name or your address from the number on the car.
What they do get is the vehicle. How many owners it has had, an assessment of the mileage, engine and environmental figures, technical and tax data, the date the registration last moved to a new owner, and the inspection history with the APK expiry date on it. Assume a serious buyer has read all of that before the first message arrives.
Since the register will not confirm that the car is yours, a buyer has to ask you, which in practice means the registration card and your ID on the table. Our documents you need guide lists the rest. The plate lookup on this site draws on the same RDW data.
Where the plate ends up after the sale
The plates stay with the car. A private buyer puts the number into their own name at the RDW and drives away on the same two plates, and nothing on the RDW's pages offers a seller a way to keep a number or carry it across to the next car. Before the handover, read the characters on both plates against the number on the registration card, because the buyer takes whatever is bolted on.
A replacement plate keeps the number and gains a duplicate code, the small digit above the first dash: a 1 after a first loss or theft, a 2 after the next. Removing it or painting over it is not allowed and can cost you a fine.
A few plates are tied to a person, not to a car. The RDW names the BN, GN, CD and CDJ types, issued to embassy staff and to people working for international organisations. Selling a car on one of those starts with a call to team IFB at the Belastingdienst office in The Hague.