Transport here is where most newcomers have their first real conversation in Dutch, and it is rarely a pleasant one: a stolen bike, a removed bike, a fine, a permit waiting list. The vocabulary is narrow and very learnable, and knowing it turns each of those from an ordeal into a form.
The bike: buying one, and losing one
Buy badly and you will buy twice. The second-hand market runs on Marktplaats, where the risk is not the price but the provenance: a cheap bike with a filed-off frame number is a stolen bike, and buying it is an offence. Surviving Marktplaats: buying a second-hand bike safely covers the frame number, the questions to ask a seller, and the phrases for haggling without being rude.
When it goes, it goes fast. Reporting a theft is a aangifte at the police, done online, and you need the frame number you hopefully wrote down. Swapfiets stolen? The police aangifte, step by step is the most-read guide on this site and walks the whole form, including what a rental company such as Swapfiets needs from you afterwards.
Repairs happen at the fietsenmaker, and ten words are the difference between a fair price and an invented one. They now sit with the buying advice above, alongside the lighting rules and the 75 euro fine for ignoring them.
| Dutch | English |
|---|---|
| het frame / framenummer | frame / frame number |
| de aangifte | the police report |
| de fietsenmaker | bike repair shop |
| de band / lekke band | tyre / flat tyre |
| de ketting | chain |
| gestolen | stolen |
| verwijderd | removed (by enforcement) |
| de boete | the fine |
Where you may and may not leave it
Bike parking is enforced, and the person doing it is a BOA (buitengewoon opsporingsambtenaar), a municipal enforcement officer with real powers who is not a police officer. They remove bikes from the wrong places, and the bike goes to a depot you then pay to get it out of. Bike removed? Talking to the BOA about wrong parking covers the conversation and the depot.
Public transport, and the fine you did not expect
Dutch public transport works on check-in and check-out: you tap in when you board and tap out when you leave, and forgetting the second tap is what generates most unexpected charges. Students travelling on a study travel product get caught by a related trap, where the product must be stopped as well as the card. OV-boete: forgotten check-outs, student travel and how to object explains both, and how to write an objection that gets read.
Fines from traffic offences come from the CJIB in an envelope with a letter code in the top right. You have eight weeks to pay; after that a free reminder gives you two more weeks, and only then do the surcharges begin, at one and a half times the fine and then three times it. If you disagree, the objection window is six weeks.
The car, and the permit you cannot just buy
A car in a Dutch city is a parking problem first. Residents park on a bewonersvergunning, tied to your registered address and your vehicle, and in the busy zones it is rationed by a per-zone waiting list rather than sold on demand. A car in the city: the bewonersvergunning permit guide explains the application, the address checker that shows the real wait for your postcode, the priority electric cars get, and the overloopvergunning that lets you park in a neighbouring area meanwhile.
Where to start
- Photograph your frame number today, before anything happens: the aangifte guide explains why it decides everything.
- If you are buying second-hand, read the Marktplaats guide before you message a seller.
- Learn the ten repair words before you need them, and always ask wat kost het? before the fietsenmaker starts.
- If a car is coming with you, check the permit wait for your postcode first: the bewonersvergunning guide.
- Check out as well as in, every single time: the OV-boete guide.
What we checked
The claims on this page that decide money, a deadline or a legal right, with the source each came from and the date we last read it.
- A bicycle theft can be reported to the police online, by phone or in person at a station. politie.nl