How to read a Belgian registration certificate

Five minutes, two documents and a pen are enough. The Belgian registration certificate gives your SUV's category, body type, masses, engine capacity and Euro standard. It has not shown CO2 since 1 July 2019, and it does not always show the towing capacity. Here is how to read it box by box, and where to look for the rest.

Which documents should you gather before reading the certificate?

The certificate alone does not answer everything. Put the certificate of conformity next to it, the COC handed over with every new vehicle, along with the owner's manual.

And a pen. You will do two subtractions.

Part I or part II: which one stays in the SUV?

Part I, the one with a car symbol. The federal police make the point: the vehicle part must be on board whenever the car is driven, stopped or parked on a public road. Part II, with a house symbol, stays at home.

The document itself dates from 15 November 2010, according to its entry in the European PRADO register: yellow and grey A4 paper, a watermark, fibres that glow under ultraviolet light, a coat of arms visible under black light. It has no expiry date. A change of owner produces a new certificate, and the old one is punched.

Never leave both parts together in the glovebox.

Seven boxes to read, in this order

The codes come from European directive 1999/37/EC, whose annexes I and II set the mandatory and optional boxes. The glossary of the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Vehicles, version 1.5 of 23 December 2025, links each Belgian data item to its box. We read it on 17 October 2026 to set the order below.

1. Box E, the chassis number. Seventeen characters. Compare them with the ones stamped on the car, at the base of the windscreen or on the door pillar. One difference and you do not buy.
2. Box J, the category. M1 for a car with at most eight seats in addition to the driver. An added G, M1G, marks an approved off-road vehicle.
3. Box J.2, the body type. The Belgian royal decree of 15 March 1968 uses the European codes: AB for a hatchback, AC for an estate, AF for a multi-purpose vehicle, meaning a single compartment for passengers and their luggage. Many SUVs are AF. The word SUV does not exist there.
4. Box J.1, the national vehicle kind. This is the Belgian box. « Voiture » means an M1 designed only to carry people, « voiture mixte » an M1 designed to carry people and goods, under the definitions in article 1 of the royal decree of 15 March 1968.
5. Boxes F.1, F.2 and G, the masses. F.1 is the technically permissible maximum mass, F.2 the one permitted in Belgium, G the mass in running order: tank at least 90% full, driver included. Payload is calculated like this: F.2 minus G.
6. Boxes P.1 and P.2, engine capacity and power. P.1 in cc, P.2 in kilowatts. Fiscal horsepower is printed nowhere; it follows from P.1.
7. Box V.9, the Euro standard. This is what low emission zone cameras read, together with the fuel in box P.3.

In practice, here is what that gives on a third-generation Dacia Duster TCe 130, German version read on 17 October 2026 in the ADAC catalogue: 1,800 kg maximum mass, 1,379 kg in running order, so 421 kg of payload. Four 75 kg passengers take 300 of them. That leaves 121 kg for luggage, and if a trailer presses 75 kg on the tow ball, the maximum ADAC gives for this version, 46 kg remain. The figure that matters: 46 kg, barely two full suitcases, for an SUV people think of as roomy because its boot is. Your own G and F.2 boxes may differ depending on options, and they are the ones that count.

For engine capacity, the grid in 200 cc bands published by Bobex places the Duster's 1,199 cc between 1,151 and 1,350 cc: 7 fiscal horsepower.

Is your SUV an off-road vehicle in the eyes of the law?

Almost never. The same article 1 of the royal decree sets the conditions for the G symbol on an M1: the required driven axles and traction, a 30% gradient climbable without a trailer, and at least five of six criteria, namely a 25° approach angle, a 20° departure angle, a 20° ramp angle, 180 mm of ground clearance under the front axle, the same under the rear axle, and 200 mm between the axles. Our article on SUV ground clearance shows how many models fall well short of those 200 mm.

If your box J says M1, your SUV is, for the administration, a car like any other.

Where did CO2 go after 1 July 2019?

It left the certificate. Since 1 July 2019 the registration certificate has shown no CO2 value at all, as PwC Belgium noted when quoting the company car tax FAQ. At the time, a single car could carry an NEDC value, a corrected NEDC value and a WLTP value, and the DIV stopped picking one to print.

The figure is now in two places: the certificate of conformity, and the vehicle's administrative status, which the « Ma voiture, ma plaque » application delivers from the chassis number. For a company car the rule is clear: the value known to the DIV is the one used to calculate deductibility. A certificate issued before July 2019 may still carry a V.7 box. It then describes the old document, not necessarily what the DIV has recorded since, which is why the administrative status is worth checking before any tax simulation.

Which box does each Region read?

The certificate is federal, issued by the DIV. Taxes are regional, and each Region looks at different boxes.

Amounts change every year, usually on 1 July. Our article on SUV registration tax and road tax gives the rates, and our guide to the Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent low emission zones gives the timetables.

A wrong box is corrected at the DIV, not at the garage

The city of Ghent states it plainly for the Euro standard: the one on your certificate is the one the DIV knows, and you can ask the DIV to correct it if your COC shows a higher standard. In the meantime Ghent accepts a free registration in its LEZ database, on presentation of the certificate and the COC, with a confirmation that can take up to 14 days.

The costliest mistakes, based on the rules read for this article:

• confusing F.1 and G, and believing the car accepts 1,800 kg of load;
• looking for CO2 on a certificate issued after July 2019 and concluding that data is missing;
• taking the word SUV or crossover in an advert for an official category, when only box J counts;
• assuming box O.1 exists on every copy, when it is optional under the directive: if it is missing, the COC and the manual give the towing capacity, as our article on towing a caravan with a B licence explains;
• storing part II with part I in the car, and losing everything if the car is stolen.

To compare two SUVs on their real masses and power rather than on their label, use our comparison tool.