Most of what a visitor calls an e-bike in the Netherlands assists while you pedal and is treated as a bicycle. The machine people get wrong is the speed pedelec. The government puts it in the same bucket as a bromfiets, a light motorcycle. Their page, read on 22 September 2026: I am not your lawyer. If the page has moved, follow the page. What the government says you need At least 16. A bromfiets licence, category AM. A car licence (B) or a motorcycle licence (A) also covers it, so a visiting rider with a full car licence is in a different position from a teenager, and you should still look at the licence rather than guess. A yellow bromfiets plate, not the blue snorfiets plate. Third-party liability insurance, the WA policy. The registration document with them. A mirror on the left. Lights and reflectors. A helmet, always, including in town. A normal bicycle helmet does not qualify. They accept an approved bromfiets helmet, the kind with the E mark in a circle, or a speed pedelec helmet marked NTA 8776:2016. The government has published a fine for riding without one. Read the current amount on their site. I am not pinning a euro figure into a post that will outlive the fine. Where it rides On the combined fiets/bromfietspad, or on the roadway if there isn't one. Not on a mandatory bike path, the round blue sign with only a bicycle, unless a sign specifically allows the speed pedelec. Maximum speed of the machine is 45 km/h. It does not belong on a motorway. That path rule is the one that wrecks a self-guided tour. Your pretty route along the mandatory bike path is illegal for this bike, and it is also where every other cyclist is. A guest from abroad will not know the signs. If you hire a speed pedelec, the tour has to be drawn for a bromfiets, not copied from the bicycle loop. What goes on a tour still applies. The line on the map is doing legal work, not just scenic work. What you are probably hiring If the bike assists to 25 km/h and then the motor stops, you are in bicycle country, and this page is mostly a warning about the other product. Suppliers love the word speed. Ask them the assisted speed and whether there is a yellow plate. No plate, and it is sold as 45 km/h, means it should not be on the road until the RDW paperwork exists. A family on a bicycle tour and one person on a speed pedelec is a bad group. They are not allowed on the same path. Split the booking, or don't offer the fast bike to people who came for the cycle network. The cycle network is the reason they came.