RDW (Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer, the Dutch road-vehicle authority) keeps a record of every registered vehicle in the Netherlands. A lot of it is public via Open Data: MOT history, recalls, fuel, CO₂, first registration, owner type (private vs business), emission classification. Before you book a test drive you can already learn a lot.
What's in it?
- First registration: when the car was first NL-registered. Drives BPM, MRB road tax, emission-zone access.
- APK valid until: current MOT expiry. Selling with a short MOT remaining is a signal: did the seller know about something they didn't want to fix?
- Open recalls: if the manufacturer issued a safety update that hasn't been performed yet, it's listed here.
- Odometer assessment: Nationale Auto Pas compares every recorded reading. 'Logical' = consistent. 'Illogical' = potential tampering.
- WOK status: 'Wacht Op Keuren' (awaiting inspection) means RDW no longer trusts the car. Never buy one in this state.
- Imported? Cars with foreign history often have lower resale and may have missing service records.
- Fuel + emissions: drives road tax, emission-zone access, business-tax write-off.
What's NOT in it?
- Accident history: RDW only records crashes if the car was WOK-flagged.
- Service stamps: no maintenance history from dealer or independent garage.
- Number of owners: available via Voertuigchecker and CarPass, not free RDW.
- Actual market value: RDW knows facts, not prices.
The order we recommend
- Look up the plate at Auto Consul (free). Fact-check the listing immediately.
- Check recalls: anything open? Ask the seller for proof it's been done.
- Look at odometer assessment: 'illogical' is a hard NO.
- Compare MOT validity against the asking price. 1 month of MOT left = 1 month to discover problems.
- Imported car? Request damage history from the country of origin.
RDW data is no replacement for a physical inspection, but it's the filter that lets you skip 80% of the bad listings immediately.