The used-car market in the Netherlands

The Netherlands charges bpm on a car's first registration here, and the charge turns on CO2 emissions rather than on price or engine size. Gross bpm is read off a five-band table — EUR 687 at the bottom rising to EUR 14,538 plus EUR 594 for every gram above 155 g/km — and a diesel car pays a further EUR 114.83 for every gram above 69. A used import is then discounted for age. Two features make this a bounded figure rather than an exact one, and both are elections the importer makes rather than uncertainties about the car. First, the tariff is not fixed at today's: for a used car the importer may elect the current table or any table in force between two months before the car was first admitted abroad and the date the RDW approved it, whichever is cheaper. Rates have risen year on year, so the current table is the dearest of the electable set and what this file computes is therefore a ceiling. On the authority's own worked examples the same 110 g/km car reads EUR 2,880 on the 2024 table, EUR 3,832 on the 2025 table and EUR 4,537 on the 2026 one. Second, the depreciation discount is likewise the most favourable of three methods — a trade price list, a valuation report, or the published forfaitaire table. Only the forfaitaire table is a document, so it is the only one computed here, and it too can only overstate the charge. A car first admitted 17 years and 10 months ago or more depreciates to 100% under that table and pays nothing at all, which is decidable from the model year alone and needs no emissions figure. The statute measures that from the date of first admission and we hold only a model year, so the rule is written as 19 whole years — the smallest offset that guarantees the 17 years and 10 months have passed for a car admitted as late as 31 December of its year. It is therefore expressed here as a fixed model year that moves every January, which the review date already forces; if it is ever left behind, the effect is that a car which should pay nothing is refused rather than one which owes bpm being zeroed. No conversion between test cycles is offered, and that is the Dutch rule rather than a gap: the statute publishes parallel tables for the two cycles and converts between them nowhere, so a car carrying only an NEDC figure is left unpriced instead of being read against a table written on the other cycle. Vintages before 2021 are refused rather than priced. The current table may lawfully be used only where the CO2 figure is a WLTP one, and a car first admitted before 1 July 2020 must be charged on the NEDC tariff in force two months before that date. Those historic tables are published in a PDF, which cannot anchor a quoted span, so they are not held and the years that need them are left unpriced rather than charged on a table that does not apply. Where no CO2 figure is on record at all the statute deems one — 550 g/km for a petrol car and 395 g/km for a diesel first admitted since 1 July 2020. Those are deliberately punitive figures intended to make an importer produce the certificate, so they are an honest ceiling and not an estimate of the car. Registration and plate fees are excluded, as everywhere here. Note on the source: the authority's page states the diesel surcharge threshold as 'more than 70 grams' and then instructs the reader to subtract 69, in both the new-car and used-car sections. Both readings are recorded here rather than one being chosen silently; the arithmetic follows the instruction, which is the operative one, and the 2024 example on the depreciation page subtracts 71, confirming that the offset moves with the tariff year.

This country charges on the car rather than a flat sum, so the figure above is for one benchmark car — a 2019 diesel of 1968 cm³ and 110 kW bought for EUR 15,000 — and the same car is priced on every market page here so the figures compare. A different car pays a different amount.

Standard VAT rate as published by the European Commission's Taxes in Europe database. Shown for reference only. Whether VAT is actually due on a used car depends on the transaction rather than on the country, so no VAT charge is calculated anywhere in this service; the cases are set out in the method.

No general road charge applies to a passenger car. No general road charge for cars. The Westerschelde tunnel became free for cars on 30 December 2024; the Kil tunnel still charges them.