Decode a VIN, and find out what it says.
Seventeen characters, checked as you type and then looked up against NHTSA's federal database. Free, no signup, and nothing you type is stored.
What each position is
- Position 1, World manufacturer identifier: empty
- Position 2, World manufacturer identifier: empty
- Position 3, World manufacturer identifier: empty
- Position 4, Vehicle descriptor section: empty
- Position 5, Vehicle descriptor section: empty
- Position 6, Vehicle descriptor section: empty
- Position 7, Vehicle descriptor section: empty
- Position 8, Vehicle descriptor section: empty
- Position 9, Check digit: empty
- Position 10, Model year: empty
- Position 11, Assembly plant: empty
- Position 12, Serial number: empty
- Position 13, Serial number: empty
- Position 14, Serial number: empty
- Position 15, Serial number: empty
- Position 16, Serial number: empty
- Position 17, Serial number: empty
- 1-3
- World manufacturer identifier. Who built it and where. Registered globally, so this part means the same thing on every vehicle.
- 4-8
- Vehicle descriptor section. Model, body, engine and restraints, in a code the manufacturer defines and files with NHTSA.
- 9
- Check digit. A weighted sum of the other sixteen characters. It catches typos and invented VINs.
- 10
- Model year. One character on a thirty-year cycle, with position 7 breaking the tie.
- 11
- Assembly plant. Which of the manufacturer's plants built it. The code is theirs, not a standard.
- 12-17
- Serial number. Sequential production number. Manufacturers building under 1,000 a year use 12-14 as an extended maker ID.
Six fields wedged into seventeen characters.
A VIN is not a serial number with extra digits. It is six separate fields, three of them fixed by international standard and three of them defined by whoever built the car.
One VIN, taken apart
A 2017 Toyota Sienna. Every line below was checked against NHTSA's own decode of this number.
- Position 1, World manufacturer identifier: 5
- Position 2, World manufacturer identifier: T
- Position 3, World manufacturer identifier: D
- Position 4, Vehicle descriptor section: K
- Position 5, Vehicle descriptor section: Z
- Position 6, Vehicle descriptor section: 3
- Position 7, Vehicle descriptor section: D
- Position 8, Vehicle descriptor section: C
- Position 9, Check digit: 9
- Position 10, Model year: H
- Position 11, Assembly plant: S
- Position 12, Serial number: 8
- Position 13, Serial number: 1
- Position 14, Serial number: 3
- Position 15, Serial number: 8
- Position 16, Serial number: 4
- Position 17, Serial number: 9
- 5TDpositions 1-3
- World manufacturer identifier
5 says the code was issued in the United States. TD is Toyota, on the line that carries its multipurpose passenger vehicles. Change the third character and you change the kind of vehicle, not the company: 5TF is Toyota's US-built trucks, and 4T1 is Toyota's US-built passenger cars.
- KZ3DCpositions 4-8
- Vehicle descriptor section
Toyota's own code, filed with NHTSA. Their pattern for it resolves to a Sienna, wagon body, 3.5-litre V6, with the restraint system that goes with it. No other manufacturer uses these five characters to mean the same thing.
- 9positions 9
- Check digit
Transliterate all seventeen characters, multiply each by its position weight, and add. This VIN totals 405. 405 divided by 11 leaves a remainder of 9, and position 9 reads 9, so the number is internally consistent.
- Hpositions 10
- Model year
H is the eighth code in a thirty-code cycle that started at A for 1980, which makes it either 1987 or 2017. Position 7 is D, a letter, so the later cycle applies: 2017.
- Spositions 11
- Assembly plant
Toyota's own code for the plant. It means nothing on another manufacturer's VIN. NHTSA's database resolves this one to Princeton, Indiana.
- 813849positions 12-17
- Serial number
The sequential number this unit took off that plant's counter. It is the only part of a VIN that is unique to the individual vehicle rather than to the pattern.
Position 1: where the code was issued
The first character names the country whose authority assigned the manufacturer's code, which in practice is where the vehicle was built.
- 1, 4, 5
- United States
- 2
- Canada
- 3
- Mexico
- J
- Japan
- K
- South Korea
- L
- China
- S
- United Kingdom
- W
- Germany
Sixty-odd countries have assignments. These are the ones that show up on a New York street.
Why a decoder needs NHTSA
Positions 1 to 3, 9 and 10 are fixed by standard, so anyone can read them with arithmetic and a lookup table. Positions 4 to 8 are not. Each manufacturer defines its own code for model, body, engine and restraint system, and files the pattern with NHTSA.
That filing is the only public record of what those five characters mean, which is why a real decode is a database query and not a formula. It is also why a decoder can be confident about the year and vague about the trim: one is arithmetic, the other is whatever the manufacturer chose to file.
The check digit is a fraud test
Position 9 is computed from the other sixteen characters, so a single mistyped character almost always breaks it. That makes it two things at once: a typo catcher, and a cheap first test of whether a VIN on a listing or a title was invented. A remainder of 10 is written as X, the one place a VIN carries a character it otherwise never uses.
The year code comes round again
Thirty codes cover thirty years and then repeat, so H is 1987 and also 2017. Position 7 breaks the tie: a digit there means the earlier cycle, a letter means the later one. The rule is written for vehicles under 10,000 lb, so a heavy truck or a bus can sit outside it, and nothing before 1981 uses the 17-character format at all.
Small builders borrow three positions
A manufacturer building fewer than 1,000 vehicles a year does not get three characters to itself. It shares a code and takes positions 12 to 14 as an extended manufacturer identifier instead, which leaves it 15 to 17 for the serial. On those VINs the last six characters are not all sequence.
The 17-character format is fixed by ISO 3779 and, for vehicles sold in the United States, by 49 CFR Part 565. It has been mandatory here since the 1981 model year.
What this tool can and cannot tell you.
Where do I find my VIN?
Four places, and they should all match: the plate at the bottom corner of the windshield on the driver's side, the sticker in the driver's door jamb, your vehicle registration, and your insurance card. If the windshield plate and the door sticker disagree, stop and have somebody look at the car.
Does this cost anything, or take an email address?
No to both. The decode comes from NHTSA's vPIC database, which is a free public service of the US Department of Transportation. We pass your VIN to it and show you what comes back.
Why are some fields missing?
A field is only shown when NHTSA returned a value for it. An empty one means the federal database holds no data for that attribute on this vehicle pattern. It does not mean the car lacks the equipment, and we would rather show you nothing than something we made up.
The check digit failed but it still decoded. Which is right?
Read the VIN again first, because a failed check digit is usually one misread character, and B against 8 or S against 5 are the common pairs. If the number is definitely correct as written, note that a very small number of legitimately issued VINs do not calculate, and NHTSA will still decode them from the pattern.
Does a VIN tell you the mileage, the accident history, or the color?
None of the three. A VIN encodes how the vehicle was built, not what has happened to it since, and color is not encoded in any standard way at all. History comes from a title and accident report; this page cannot substitute for one.
Can you check a car before I buy it?
Yes. The shop at 619 Coney Island Avenue does pre-purchase inspections, and a decode is a reasonable first step before you spend the trip. Call 917-544-9966 to book one.
Decoded it, and it still will not start?
Towing runs around the clock across all five boroughs, and the shop on Coney Island Avenue takes it from there. One number reaches both.