More kilometres driven in 2025, mainly due to a rise in the number of cars

Vehicles driven further and more vehicles on the road

Passenger cars, in particular, contributed to this increase: 1.6 billion kilometres (+1.3 percent) more than in 2024. The distance driven also increased among delivery vans, public buses and motorhomes.

Passenger cars accounted for 80.1 percent of all kilometres driven. The increase in the distance driven by cars is due to the growing number of cars on the road. The increase in the number of passenger cars in 2025 was 2.1 percent compared with 2024, but the actual distance driven per car fell by 0.8 percent.

Increasing share of kilometres driven in electric cars

In 2025, 10.8 percent of kilometres were driven by fully electric cars. That was an increase of 23.1 percent over the previous year, and almost nine times as many as in 2019. Hybrid cars and plug-in hybrids also covered significantly more kilometres than in 2024 (+17.4 percent and +39.4 percent, respectively). The number of these types of cars on the road also increased, by 19.8 percent and 40.4 percent, respectively.

Even though the distance driven by petrol cars fell in 2024 and 2025, most kilometres are still driven in petrol cars. The number of kilometres driven by diesel cars in 2025 was down by two-thirds compared with 2019.

More kilometres driven by more environmentally friendly cars

An ever-increasing share of kilometres are driven by greener cars. More than half of the total distance driven in 2025 was covered by Euro 6 cars, the category with the lowest emissions for vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Zero-emission vehicles accounted for 10.8 percent of the total distance driven.

8.0 percent of the total number of vehicles on the road in the Netherlands consists of older passenger cars with a Euro 3 label or lower. This group of vehicles accounted for 3.8 percent of the total number of kilometres driven. This is because older vehicles are used less frequently, on average.

Private individuals drive the furthest

Private vehicle users (i.e. excluding business drivers) accounted for the largest share of the total distance driven, at 77.6 percent. The remainder came from vehicles registered to a company (legal entities). In 2025, private individuals drove an average of 11.2 thousand kilometres each, 0.7 percent less than in 2024. This is considerably less than business drivers, who drove an average of 18.7 thousand kilometres each in 2025.

Young people drive more kilometres than older people

Those aged under 30 drive an average of 13.6 thousand kilometres per year, the highest of any age group. The average annual distance driven by people in their thirties and forties is at a similar level. Among those in their fifties and sixties, however, the number of kilometres driven per year is declining. People aged 70 and over drive significantly less, averaging 7.2 thousand kilometres per year.

Distance travelled is highest in Flevoland and lowest on the Wadden Islands

Private cars registered in Almere drove the furthest in 2025, on average: 14.2 thousand, followed by Lelystad (13.4 thousand kilometres) and Dronten (13.3 thousand).

Cars on the Wadden Islands drove the least, on average. Private cars on Terschelling drove an average of 6.9 thousand kilometres, less than half the distance driven by cars registered in Almere.