Passing Rates Across Dutch Truck Licenses – C, CE, C1 & C1E

This overview brings together the LOWESS trends for all major Dutch truck licenses: C (solo truck), CE (truck + trailer), C1 (light truck) and C1E (light truck + trailer). It answers three key questions for future drivers, rijscholen and policymakers: how high are pass rates, how many people take each exam, and how stable are results over the year?

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1. Mean pass rates – which license is hardest?

Average pass rates over 2024–2025:

• C1 – Light truck: 81.96%
• C1E – Light truck + trailer: 80.83%
• C – Truck (solo vehicle): 69.61%
• CE – Truck + trailer: 64.57%

So in broad terms:

• Light-truck routes (C1 / C1E) are the easiest to pass, with around 8 in 10 candidates succeeding.
• Full truck licenses (C / CE) are tougher, especially CE, where just under two-thirds of candidates pass in a typical week.
• The gap between C and CE (around 5 percentage points) reflects the extra challenge of handling a full-size combination with trailer.

For someone planning a career in logistics, this means that C1/C1E are very accessible, while CE requires more intensive training and practice.

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2. Volumes – which licenses are most common?

Total and weekly volumes:

• C – Truck: 13,642 exams, ~257 per week
• CE – Truck + trailer: 9,481 exams, ~179 per week
• C1 – Light truck: 3,612 exams, ~68 per week
• C1E – Light truck + trailer: 547 exams, ~11 per week

The ranking is clear:

• C and CE dominate the market – this is where most professional drivers are trained.
• C1 is a sizable niche, mainly for campers and light distribution.
• C1E is very niche, with only about 10 exams per week; this explains why its pass rate can spike to 100% in some weeks (small groups of well-prepared candidates).

For rijscholen and policymakers, this shows where capacity, exam slots and curriculum design matter most: C and CE.

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3. Seasonality – do pass rates shift during the year?

The LOWESS curves in the figure show that all four licenses share a similar, fairly gentle seasonal pattern:

• C and CE:
  Pass rates hover around their means all year, with a slight dip in late winter and a modest uptick in early summer. The movements are small (just a few percentage points), so there is no “dangerous” exam season.
• C1:
  Consistently high, mostly between 80–83%. The curve barely moves, meaning seasonality is almost irrelevant compared with candidate preparation.
• C1E:
  Also high, but with more dramatic bumps due to low volume: a clear summer peak above 90% appears when a handful of motivated candidates all pass. This is more about small-group effects than structural easiness.

For candidates this means: the month you book helps less than how well you train. For policymakers, it suggests that the truck exam system delivers stable outcomes throughout the year, with differences driven mainly by license type and candidate mix, not by seasonal breakdowns.

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Bottom line:

• Light truck licenses (C1/C1E) offer the highest odds of success,
• C and especially CE are more demanding but form the backbone of the Dutch trucking workforce, and
• Seasonality is mild, so improving training quality and guidance will likely have a bigger impact on pass rates than shifting exam dates.