Tools
VIN Decoder
Enter a 17-character VIN and see how the vehicle left the factory. Free, no account, no rate card. We maintain it because we use it ourselves.
17 characters. The letters I, O and Q never appear in a VIN. Nothing you type is stored.
Source: US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration vPIC database. Decoded specification describes the vehicle as built and does not reflect subsequent modification, damage or title history.
Reading a VIN
What the seventeen characters actually mean
Positions 1–3 · World Manufacturer Identifier
Who built it and where. The first character is the country or region of assembly, not the brand’s home market — a German marque assembled in South Carolina begins with 1, 4 or 5.
Positions 4–8 · Vehicle descriptor
Model, body style, restraint system and engine, encoded to the manufacturer’s own scheme. This is where most of the useful specification lives.
Position 9 · Check digit
A checksum over the other sixteen characters. If it does not validate, the VIN has been mistyped or altered. Our decoder checks this before it queries anything.
Position 10 · Model year
A single character on a thirty-year cycle. Note that model year is not build date, and the two routinely differ by months.
Position 11 · Assembly plant
The specific factory. Useful when a recall campaign is scoped by plant and date range.
Positions 12–17 · Serial number
The sequential production number. Unique to the vehicle within its plant and model year.
Frequently asked
Is this a vehicle history report?
No, and it is important not to confuse the two. This decodes the vehicle as manufactured. It says nothing about accidents, title branding, odometer readings or ownership. For title history, use an NMVTIS-approved provider.
Why are some fields empty?
The underlying database is populated from manufacturer submissions and coverage varies by make, model and year. An empty field means the source has no value for it, not that the vehicle lacks the feature.
Does it work for European vehicles?
Partially. VINs are a global standard, but the vPIC database is built around vehicles certified for the US market. A European-market car will often return the manufacturer and little else.
Do you store the VINs entered here?
No. The query is passed through to the source and the result returned to your browser. We keep no VIN log. See our Data Use & Compliance page.
Can we use this in our own product?
The underlying vPIC data is public and you can query it directly. If you need decoding at volume, with equipment-level depth or with a service guarantee, that is a conversation worth having with us.
Need this at scale?
Decoding one VIN is free. Decoding fifty thousand a month, reconciled against your inventory and delivered where your systems can read it, is what we do commercially.