A VIN lookup answers two questions: what exactly is this vehicle, and what has been recorded against it. Enter the VIN to decode it and see which history records exist — the preview is free.
Year, make, model, trim, body style, engine, drivetrain and the plant that built it — read from the VIN itself, so a mislabelled or misdescribed listing shows up immediately.
Titles issued by state or province, with salvage, rebuilt, flood, fire, hail, lemon and junk brands wherever they were applied, including brands that did not follow the vehicle across a state line.
Reported collisions, damage events and insurance total losses, with location and severity where the source recorded them.
Readings captured at titles, registrations, services, inspections and sales, in date order, so a rollback appears as a reading lower than an earlier one.
Active theft records, reported loans and liens, and whether the vehicle was registered as a rental, fleet, lease, taxi, police or personal vehicle.
Open safety recalls for the model, and salvage-auction sales with photographs and damage descriptions where the vehicle passed through one.
Find the 17-character VIN on the plate at the base of the windscreen, the driver's door jamb label, the title or registration, or the insurance card.
Enter it exactly. VINs never contain I, O or Q, so anything that looks like one is a 1 or a 0.
The lookup decodes the VIN — model year, manufacturer, model, engine, restraint system, assembly plant — and searches title, registration, accident, odometer, theft, auction and recall records against it.
Read the free preview. Open the full report when the records are worth reading.
A first character of 1, 4 or 5 means built in the United States, 2 Canada, 3 Mexico, J Japan, K South Korea, W Germany, S the United Kingdom. The full three-character code names the maker: 1HG is Honda in the U.S., 2HG Honda in Canada, JHM Honda in Japan. Two cars of the same model can carry different codes depending on which plant built them.
The middle section encodes model line, body, engine and restraint system, in a layout each manufacturer defines. Position nine is a check digit required on every vehicle sold in North America, calculated from the other sixteen characters. A VIN that fails the check digit was mistyped, or is not real.
The year cycles through letters and digits, skipping I, O, Q, U, Z and 0: J is 2018, K 2019, L 2020, M 2021, N 2022, P 2023, R 2024, S 2025, T 2026. Because the same letters repeat every thirty years, a J can also mean 1988, which the rest of the VIN and the position-seven rule resolve. A car advertised as a year newer than its VIN says is a price conversation, at minimum.
The plant code is manufacturer-specific and is how a decoder distinguishes an Oshawa-built car from a Lansing-built one. The final six characters are the individual vehicle's serial, and they are what every history record is keyed to. Decoding identifies the model; the serial identifies the car.
Everything above is read from the VIN's own structure, which is why VIN decoders cost nothing. Title, accident, odometer and theft history come from licensed state, provincial, insurer and auction data, which is why every full history report is paid. A lookup that promises complete history for free is a decoder with a marketing department.
A VIN beginning 1FMCU0G9 with a G in position ten decodes as a Ford (1FM is Ford's U.S. code for multi-purpose vehicles), an Escape with the engine and trim the middle characters specify, model year 2016. That much is free and instant. The lookup then finds what was recorded against that serial number: two registrations in two states, a rental-fleet registration in the first year, a police-reported rear-impact collision in 2017 and a disabling front-impact collision in 2019, a salvage title issued in 2019, a salvage-auction sale in early 2020 with twenty photographs of the front-end damage, a rebuilt title in 2020, and fourteen odometer readings. The preview shows those as counts; the report shows the events. A buyer who only decoded the VIN would know they were looking at a 2016 Escape, and nothing else.
See a full sample report| VIN decoder | VIN lookup (this page) | Full history report | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year, make, model, engine, plant | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Confirms the car matches the listing | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Whether history records exist | No | Yes — free preview with counts | Yes |
| Title brands, by state or province | No | Count | Each brand, where and when |
| Accidents, odometer sequence, theft, liens | No | Counts | Full detail |
| Auction photographs and damage | No | Count | Photos and descriptions |
| Cost | Free | Free | Paid |
A search that takes the 17-character Vehicle Identification Number and returns two things: the vehicle's identity decoded from the number itself, and the history records held against it — titles, brands, accidents, odometer readings, theft, liens, usage, recalls and auction sales. The identity part is free everywhere; the history part is what a vehicle history report is.
Decoding is free, and on this site the preview showing which history records exist is also free, with no account. The full report with the records themselves is paid, because the underlying data is licensed from states, provinces, insurers and auctions. Anyone offering the complete history for nothing is offering a decoder.
On the vehicle: a metal plate at the base of the windscreen on the driver's side, readable from outside, and a label on the driver's door jamb. On paper: the title, the registration, and the insurance card. Some manufacturers also stamp it on the engine block and under the spare wheel.
Not for any vehicle built since 1981, when the 17-character standard became mandatory in North America. Older vehicles used shorter, manufacturer-specific numbers that cannot be decoded the same way and rarely have electronic history. If a modern vehicle's VIN appears shorter, characters are missing.
Most positions can be either. The three letters you will never see are I, O and Q, excluded because they resemble 1 and 0. If a VIN you were given contains one of them, it was copied down wrong — read the letter as the digit it resembles and try again.
Yes. Records are searched for vehicles registered in any Canadian province or territory as well as every U.S. state, which matters for the large number of vehicles that have crossed the border in one direction or the other. The Canadian page covers where the VIN appears on provincial paperwork and why plate lookups are not available there.
For U.S. plates, yes — the plate lookup resolves the plate to a VIN and runs the same search. Canadian provinces do not make plate records available, so a Canadian vehicle needs the VIN.
That nothing has been reported against that VIN in the sources searched — common for very new vehicles and single-owner cars with no incidents. It is not proof that nothing happened; damage repaired privately with no claim generates no record anywhere. Treat an empty history as encouraging and still have the car inspected.
Enter the VIN to see which records exist. The preview is free.