A vehicle brought up from the United States arrives with a Canadian registration and an American past. Enter the VIN to see the U.S. titles, brands, accidents, auction sales and odometer readings that the RIV inspection and your provincial registry do not check.
Each state that issued a title, in order, with dates — including states the seller never mentioned. A car titled in Louisiana in 2021 and Ontario in 2022 has a hurricane-season question to answer.
Salvage, rebuilt, flood, fire, hail, lemon and junk brands as applied by U.S. states, whose rules differ from every Canadian province. A brand applied in one state does not always print on a Canadian registration.
U.S. police-reported collisions and insurance damage records with location and severity, plus any Canadian records after import, in one timeline.
Copart and IAA sales with the date, sale price, damage description and photographs of the vehicle as it was sold — the single most revealing record on an imported car, and one no Canadian source holds.
U.S. readings in miles followed by Canadian readings in kilometres, so you can check the conversion yourself. 60,000 miles is 96,500 km; a car showing 60,000 km after import has lost a third of its distance somewhere.
U.S. rental, fleet, lease and taxi registrations, and open recalls to confirm against both Transport Canada and the U.S. NHTSA campaign, which are not always the same.
Before export, the U.S. title is filed with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at least 72 hours ahead. CBP checks the title is genuine and not reported stolen in the U.S. — nothing about its condition.
At the Canadian border the importer files the Vehicle Import Form with CBSA and pays duty and GST. CBSA confirms admissibility; it does not look at accident or brand history.
The Registrar of Imported Vehicles (RIV) requires a manufacturer recall-clearance letter and a federal inspection within 45 days, checking daytime running lights, metric labelling and child-tether anchors — compliance, not condition.
The province registers it after its own out-of-province inspection. From here the car looks Canadian. Its American history is what this check adds.
CPIC, IBC VIN Verify, ICBC, SGI, the UVIP, the provincial lien registries — all of them hold Canadian records. For a vehicle that spent its first six years in Texas, they hold nothing about those six years. A spotless provincial record on an import is not reassurance; it is an absence of data.
RIV confirms the vehicle is on Transport Canada's admissible list, that outstanding recalls are cleared, and that the federal inspection passed. It does not query U.S. title brands, accident databases or auction records, and a rebuilt-from-salvage car passes RIV exactly as easily as an accident-free one. Buyers routinely take the RIV sticker as a clean bill of health; it is not.
Each state defines salvage differently and some brands — flood in particular — do not exist in every province's system. When the province issues its first Canadian registration it records what the importer presents and what its own inspection finds. A vehicle that was a flood total loss in Florida can hold a Canadian registration with no brand at all. This is how "title washing" works across the border.
A large share of imported used vehicles were bought at Copart or IAA salvage auctions, repaired, and exported. The auction listing carries photographs of the car before repair, the damage description and the sale price. It is the one record that shows what actually happened, and it exists only in U.S. data.
An odometer in miles reads 38% lower than the same distance in kilometres. Provincial systems record whatever kilometre figure is presented at first registration. The U.S. readings in miles are the only way to check that the conversion was done, and done honestly.
After every major U.S. hurricane, insurers write off tens of thousands of flooded vehicles, and a meaningful number are cleaned, retitled and exported. Flood damage is cheap to hide and ruinous to own. The title history by state and the auction record are how you see a Gulf-coast vehicle for what it is.
The timeline runs from the American side into the Canadian one. A typical import shows a U.S. title issued in 2016, a rental-fleet registration, two states of registration, a police-reported collision in 2019 with the vehicle towed, a salvage title issued by the insurer's state, a Copart sale in early 2020 with twenty photographs of front-end damage and a sale price of a few thousand dollars, a rebuilt title later that year, then an Ontario registration in 2021 with a kilometre reading that — converted back — matches the last U.S. mileage, or does not. Every record after 2021 is Canadian and would appear on a UVIP. Nothing before it would. The odometer graph shows the miles-to-kilometres step as a visible jump, which is what you want to see; a flat line across the border is the warning sign.
See a full sample report| CBSA / RIV | Provincial registry & free Canadian tools | Vektracer report | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admissible in Canada, recalls cleared, federal inspection | Yes | No | Recalls only |
| Canadian registration and brand since import | No | Yes — this province only | Yes — every province |
| U.S. titles by state, with dates | Title checked for authenticity only | No | Yes |
| U.S. salvage, flood, rebuilt, junk brands | No | No | Yes |
| U.S. accident and damage records | No | No | Yes |
| Salvage-auction sale, price and photos | No | No | Yes |
| Odometer readings in miles before import | No | No | Yes |
| Reported stolen in Canada | No | Yes — CPIC | Yes |
| Liens | No | Provincial registry only | Not covered — search the PPR or RDPRM |
Each province page covers the out-of-province inspection, the registration documents and the local official lookup that apply once an imported vehicle is in the province.
Enter the VIN. American records — titles by state, brands, accidents, auction sales, odometer readings in miles — are held in U.S. databases, and the report queries those alongside Canadian ones, so the imported vehicle's full timeline appears in order. Canadian tools such as the UVIP or ICBC lookups only cover the period after import.
No. The Registrar of Imported Vehicles confirms the vehicle is admissible, that recalls are cleared through a manufacturer letter, and that it meets Canadian equipment standards such as daytime running lights. It is a compliance inspection. A vehicle rebuilt from a U.S. salvage total loss passes RIV as readily as any other.
A salvage-titled vehicle can generally be imported and must then pass the province's rebuilt inspection before registration. A vehicle branded non-repairable, junk or parts-only in the U.S. cannot be registered for the road in Canada. Whether a U.S. brand actually appears on the Canadian registration depends on what was declared at import and what the province's inspection found, which is why checking the U.S. title history directly matters.
The registration history shows U.S. states before the first province. Other signs: an odometer that reads in miles or a speedometer with a kilometre overlay sticker, an RIV inspection label in the door jamb, a U.S. title in the seller's paperwork, and a VIN whose earliest records are American. The first VIN character shows where it was built, not where it was sold, so a 1 or 4 alone does not mean imported.
A UVIP shows Ontario registration and lien history only — nothing from before the car entered Ontario. Carfax Canada does include U.S. records, as do we; the difference is in sources and price. The free provincial and insurer tools show none of it.
U.S. readings are recorded in miles and Canadian ones in kilometres, and the report shows each as captured. Multiply miles by 1.609 to compare. The kilometre figure recorded at first Canadian registration should be roughly 1.6 times the last U.S. mileage; if it is close to the same number, the conversion was skipped and the car has been under-stated by a third.
Nothing directly, but the paperwork trail matters. The importer had to present the U.S. title to CBP 72 hours before export and to CBSA on entry, so a seller who imported the car themselves should be able to show you that title. A seller who cannot, or who is vague about which state the car came from, is telling you to check the title history before anything else.
They can be. RIV requires a manufacturer letter confirming no outstanding U.S. recalls at the time of import, but campaigns opened afterwards are not covered, and Canadian and U.S. campaigns for the same model do not always match. Check the VIN against Transport Canada's database and the U.S. NHTSA database both.
Enter the VIN to see which records exist. The preview is free.