Vehicle registration plates of the Netherlands are vehicle registration plates issued by the . RDW vehicle registration plates are assigned bearing the same "number" which is a sequence of characters composed of letters and digits as that is 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. But if the car is a taxi or made before 1977, it will have a blue number plate. Taxis will have a blue number plate because they pay a different amount of tax to let people into the car legally, although if a taxi does not have a blue number plate on it, it is an illegal taxi and will let people into their car illegally; the driver will charge a lesser amount of money to the person in the car. A trade plate is a temporary number plate used by motor traders or vehicle testers to save them the cost and time to register and tax every vehicle temporarily in their possession. If somebody has a trade plate on their vehicle, that number plate will be green. (See other formats below) Earlier schemes 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 one J. van Dam, who purchased the first 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 , where was a province code and a serial number. This system lasted until 1951 when the current system was introduced. Province codes A: Groningen B: Friesland D: Drenthe E: Overijssel G, GZ, GX: North Holland H, HZ, HX: South Holland K: Zeeland M: Gelderland N: North Brabant L: Utrecht P: Limburg R: so-called "Departementen" overseas areas. Numbering schemes The current Dutch license plate system uses black letters on a light-reflecting yellow background, although white reflecting letters on a dark-blue background are allowed for vehicles built before 1977. Since 2000, the blue band with the European flag and NL has been mandatory for all vehicles except vehicles