OPENLANE Europe

OPENLANE Europe is the wholesale vehicle marketplace of OPENLANE Europe NV, a Belgian company based at Grijpenlaan 19A in Tienen (VAT BE0867129223) and part of the US-listed OPENLANE group (NYSE: KAR). It traded as ADESA Europe until the rebrand in November 2023. Stock comes from leasing companies, rental fleets, manufacturers, corporate fleet owners and dealer trade-ins, and is collected from pickup hubs in around a dozen countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy, plus Spain, Portugal, Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Romania and Croatia. The /sk/home address is the Slovak-language front end of the same pan-European marketplace.

What you can buy

• Ex-lease and ex-fleet passenger cars: the bulk of the offer, in sedan, estate, hatchback, compact, coupe, cabriolet, SUV and MPV body styles, sold against a standardised OPENLANE Europe vehicle description.
• Vans and light trucks: light commercial vehicles and minibuses returned from lease and rental contracts; the body-style filter also carries pickups, heavier trucks, trailers and the odd motorcycle.
• Damaged vehicles: cars flagged as body damage, technical damage or both, plus accident cars and write-offs, with damage photos marked "Damaged" in the listing gallery.
• Electric and hybrid cars: selectable through the fuel-type filter (electric, MHEV, HEV, PHEV, hydrogen), reflecting fleet EV returns.

How the bidding works

This is a strictly B2B platform: only professional, registered car dealers and traders are accepted. Registration asks for a valid VAT number, proof of business registration, an ID copy and your NACE codes, plus a webcam check by an ultimate beneficial owner, and accounts are approved manually. Private buyers cannot take part; registration is free. Several formats run in parallel: Dynamic auctions, Target auctions where you win outright if your bid reaches the target price, Buy Now at a fixed price, Buy Now & Pick Up, Blind auctions and a round-the-clock stock sale. Where the seller uses the OPENLANE Sell portal, which is not live in every country, a bid below the price the seller wants can open a 24-hour window of counter-offers. x-Time is an extra synchronised bidding round that starts after an auction's original closing time, and Ultimo gives the winning bidder five more minutes for one best-and-final bid. The purchase price must reach OPENLANE's account within two working days of the sale confirmation, and the vehicle must be collected within two weeks of the pickup authorisation, after which a EUR 50 administration charge plus at least EUR 5 per day applies. Leaving a car uncollected for a month counts as a wrongful cancellation.

What to check before you bid

The hammer price is not the price. On top of it come an auction fee scaled to what you pay, a country fee depending on where the car stands, and for some sellers a separate seller-specific fee shown on the car detail page. Organising international transport yourself costs an EUR 85 pickup fee; export documents for shipments leaving the EU are EUR 110. VAT is the main trap: cars under normal VAT rules are quoted excluding VAT, while margin-scheme cars include it and give you nothing to reclaim, and an intra-community supply only stays VAT-free if you file the transport documents and proof OPENLANE asks for. Cars are effectively sold as-is: only the OPENLANE Europe vehicle description counts if you claim non-conformity, third-party reports and photos are supplied for convenience alone, write-offs and damaged cars are excluded from that warranty, and cancelling a purchase costs 10 percent of your bid, minimum EUR 300.