Vehicle registration plates of the Netherlands

Vehicle registration plates of the Netherlands are vehicle registration plates issued by the national road traffic agency (Dutch: Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer (RDW)).

RDW vehicle registration plates are assigned bearing the same "number" (a sequence of characters composed of letters and digits) as that shown on the vehicle's registration document. The numbering scheme used bears no relation to the place of a vehicle's registration or ownership, and numbers – which are issued in strict time order – identify the vehicle, not its owner. Thus, if a vehicle changes ownership, the registration number remains unchanged.

The Netherlands introduced a system of vehicle registration plates on 26 April 1898 – the third country in the world to do so, after France in 1893 and Germany in 1896. A plate bearing the number 1 was issued to a Mr J. van Dam, who purchased the first 100% Dutch-built motorcar, which was manufactured at his own Groninger Motor-Rijtuigen Fabriek. Plate numbers stayed with the owner, unlike the present system. From 1906, a new system used the format xx-ddddd, where xx was a province code and ddddd a serial number. This system lasted until 1951, when the current system was introduced.

The current Dutch licence plate system uses black letters on a light-reflecting yellow background. The previous series used white reflecting letters on a dark-blue background. Their numbering schemes however are the same.

Dutch car number plates can be formatted as follows:

This series is currently issued for motorcycles (99-MX-XX).

Nowadays the letters used do not include vowels, so as to avoid profane or obscene language. To avoid confusion with a zero, the letters C and Q are also omitted. Letters and numbers are issued in strict alphabetical/numeric order. Thus a Dutch licence plate gives an indication of the date of registration of a car, but no information about where in the country the car comes from, or to whom it belongs.

With the introduction of the GAIK series, several other formats have been introduced as well

The licence plates have subtly changed shape in 2002, when not only the letter type (or font) changed, but also a few other changes were made.

Mopeds have after F-999-ZZ now the new side code 11, beginning with DBB-00-B. As the old series of licence plates for cars, big and small lorries has come to an end, new vehicles are registered with marks in the format DD-LLL-D (where 'D' is a digit, and 'L' is a letter). Small lorries have also D-LLL-DD and from January 2013 LL-DDD-L is used for small lorries. The registration plate format for personal cars is D-LLL-DD and issuing of this is started on 5 March 2013 because the DD-LLL-D combinations are exhausted on that day. From 30 March 2015 DD-LLL-D combinations are also exhausted and LL-DDD-L is now in use.

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Wikipedia