Weight decides how often the APK falls due
Start with the weight on the kentekencard, the plastic registration card. The RDW splits campers at 3,500 kg. Below that line yours is inspected on the same schedule as a car running the same fuel. Above it the heavy vehicle rules apply and the camper goes in once a year. The Kentekencheck on rdw.nl shows the weight and the date the current APK runs out, which is worth knowing before a buyer asks.
An expired or failed APK does not block a sale. It limits what can be done with the camper: no current APK means no public road, so the vehicle has to be moved on a trailer and the buyer has to plan for that. Say it early. The page on vehicles with no current APK sets out how we handle one.
Selling a camper that is standing suspended
A suspension (schorsenParking a vehicle in the register for a while so it counts as off the road. Common with campers over the quiet months, and it only holds if the camper stands off the public road.) is the standard move for a camper that sits still for months. While it runs, the register treats the vehicle as off the road: no road tax, no insurance duty, no APK requirement. The trade off is where it may stand. A suspended camper may not sit on a public road or in a public parking space, so it belongs on a drive, in a barn or at a storage yard.
You do not have to lift the suspension before you sell. The RDW ends it by itself at the moment a new keeper is registered, which is also the moment the new owner needs insurance. What you do have to do is say where the camper is standing, to a private buyer and to us, because a suspended vehicle has to be collected without a drive on the public road. The rules are in our guide to suspending a vehicle.
The living area is half of what you are selling
Nobody buys a camper on mileage alone. Half the value sits in the part you sleep in, and that half is where a viewing goes well or badly. Photograph the interior in daylight with the blinds up, and write about it in the detail you would give the engine.
- Layout: how many berths, and how many seats actually have belts
- Kitchen, fridge and heater, plus the gas installation and the date it was last inspected
- Damp above all: soft patches in a wall, floor or roof panel, and any staining around a window or roof light
- Fresh and waste water tanks, plus the toilet and leisure battery
- Fitted extras: awning, bike rack, solar panels, reversing camera
- Where it has been kept, and whether anything covered it
A fault you raise yourself costs you far less than one a buyer finds at the handover, because the figure agreed in advance is then the figure that still stands.
The camper road tax band, and who it follows
Road tax on a camper can run at a reduced band called the kampeerautotarief. The Belastingdienst decides that, using its own list of interior requirements, and those requirements are not the RDW's. So a registration reading kampeerauto proves what the vehicle is. It does not prove which band applies to it.
Buyers do ask, and the answer is a comfortable one: where a previous owner was already on the camper band, the Belastingdienst carries it over to the new owner on its own. Your side is simpler still. Motorrijtuigenbelasting stops when the camper leaves your name, and whatever you paid for the time after that comes back. The mechanics are in the road tax guide.
The transfer itself is ordinary car paperwork
For all the differences above, the sale is a normal Dutch vehicle transfer. A camper carries an ordinary kenteken, so the buyer takes your kentekencard and the full tenaamstellingscode, nine digits printed across two separate documents, and registers the vehicle to themselves. Back comes the vrijwaringsbewijs, the one document that proves the camper is off your name. The steps are in our RDW transfer guide.
Until that minute the register still says you. Tax, insurance and anything a camera posts out belong to you on that basis, whatever you and the buyer shook hands on. Two conditions, then, before the keys leave your hand: the money is in your own account, and the vrijwaringsbewijs is in your pocket.
Getting an offer from us on a camper
Campers go through the same form as cars. Type in the plate, we read the vehicle out of the RDW register, and you fill in mileage, condition and anything that needs explaining. Add photographs of the interior next to the usual ones of the outside and the dashboard, because the interior is the part we cannot look up. Ask for an offer here, free, with nothing committed.
The offer then waits for you. There is no clock on it, so you can compare it elsewhere or come back after one last trip. Accept, and we collect anywhere in the Netherlands at no cost, do the RDW transfer during that visit, and pay you as the keys change hands. If the camper is going because you are leaving the country, read the guide for anyone with a moving date as well.