Tesla FSD Is Live in the Netherlands. Here's What Has to Happen Before the Rest of Europe Gets It.

Tesla FSD went live in the Netherlands on April 10, 2026, making it the first country outside North America where the system is available to regular customers. The approval came from the Dutch Vehicle Authority, known as RDW, after 18 months of testing, more than 1.6 million kilometres of driving on EU roads, and over 13,000 customer ride-alongs with RDW staff present. Autospec Roaming goes through what the approval actually covers, what the EU version of FSD looks like compared to the US version, and what the three possible paths to broader European adoption are. The system has been rolling out to customers in the Netherlands immediately, via over-the-air update, to vehicles with the current hardware suite.

The approval was structured under a combination of UN regulation R171, which covers standard adaptive driver assistance features like lane keeping and adaptive cruise control, and an Article 39 exemption that allows innovative driver assistance features beyond what the existing rules were written for. RDW explicitly calls it a driver assistance system and says the driver remains responsible at all times. You can have your hands off the wheel as long as you remain attentive and ready to take over. The path from Netherlands approval to EU-wide adoption requires RDW to submit the type approval package to the European Commission, after which all 27 member states review and vote. A simple majority is enough to trigger automatic adoption across every EU country. Belgium may directly recognise the Dutch package based on prior precedent. Nordic countries may coordinate together outside the EU framework. Each individual country can also adopt the RDW package independently on its own timeline.

The EU version of FSD is meaningfully different from what US drivers use. In the US, Tesla self-certifies the system and pushes software updates freely. In the EU, each significant update will likely require re-approval before deployment, which means European drivers may lag behind on software versions. Speed profiles that US drivers use to set driving aggressiveness, including a maximum performance setting, do not exist in the EU version. Instead, the driver sets a maximum speed and the system alerts them any time it does not have a confirmed speed limit for the current road. The car displays on-screen notifications for every manoeuvre it intends to make: lane changes, braking for a vehicle ahead, anything it is about to do. Driver monitoring is described as stricter than in the US. When crossing from the Netherlands into a country that has not yet approved the system, FSD automatically disables and alerts the driver. The purchase price is €7,500, unchanged from the existing European offering. A €99 monthly subscription launched simultaneously with the Netherlands approval.

Bottom line: This is a real approval from a government body that had no reason to rush it. The system was tested thoroughly and is live now for Dutch customers. Whether the EU-wide vote happens before summer depends on the meeting schedule and the politics of 27 member states, and both of those things are genuinely uncertain.