White export plates for driving your car home from Doetinchem

Collecting a car in the Netherlands and driving it home yourself? Then the car covers the Dutch part of the journey on white export plates. We supply Dutch export plates together with 14 days of temporary third-party insurance and a Green Card, from €100. If you are collecting a car in Doetinchem, you can pick everything up at our RDW-approved desk in Hengelo, or receive it by post.

What a Dutch export plate is

The export registration is not a new number. It is the vehicle's existing Dutch registration number on white plates with black characters. The plates must stay legible in all weather conditions.

A car gets two white plates, front and rear. A motorcycle, scooter, moped, caravan or trailer has a single plate at the rear. The RDW describes the plate types on its page about number plates (in Dutch).

14 days, and never longer than the APK

After the car is deregistered for export, you may drive on Dutch public roads for another 14 days. The export registration is valid for 14 days, but not beyond the expiry date of the APK, the Dutch roadworthiness test. If the APK runs out in five days, you have five days. Without a valid APK a car may not use public roads.

So plan backwards from your departure day. The 14 days start at deregistration, so do not deregister a week early if the car will stand still in the meantime.

The RDW rules for insurance and APK during the export trip differ per vehicle type:

Note that a caravan or trailer needs no insurance of its own, but the towing vehicle does.

Collect in Hengelo or receive by post

From the Simonsplein in Doetinchem the drive to our desk takes roughly an hour via the N315. With the complete export package, you arrange the export document, the insurance and the white plates in a single visit. Please call or message us about 20 minutes before you arrive.

If you cannot come, we can handle it remotely. The yellow Dutch plates must reach us physically, by post or courier, and we start once they have arrived. We send the white plates and documents insured and tracked, also abroad. Postal delivery costs more, especially internationally, and the price is confirmed in advance.

What we need from you

For the insurance and plates, please send us in advance:

• the start date you want, ideally your departure day;
• destination and route;
• details of the policyholder and the driver;
• for a business buyer: company name, address and VAT number.

If you arrange the export at the same time, also bring a valid ID, the registration card or old paper parts, the yellow plates, the current mileage and the buyer's full address abroad.

Rules abroad differ per country

How a Dutch export registration is treated abroad differs from country to country. Check the rules of your destination and of every country you drive through before you leave. The RDW explains this on its page about special registration certificates and export registration abroad (in Dutch).

Your cover has limits too: the policy and the Green Card decide in which countries and for which driver you are insured. Read them before departure, and see our page on export insurance in the Netherlands.

Price of the white plates

White export plates with 14 days of third-party insurance and a Green Card cost from €100, without the export document. With the export documents included, the complete export package costs from €150.

What can go wrong?

• The yellow plates are left at home. They are handed in on export, so bring them, or post them if you use the postal service.
• The APK is about to expire. The export registration then ends on the APK expiry date.
• You drive to the wrong Hengelo. Our desk is in Hengelo in Overijssel, not in Hengelo in Gelderland.
• Your departure date changes. Deregister only when the trip is fixed, so you can use all 14 days.