VIN Decoder
Decodes against NHTSA's own database, and checks the number is valid before it does. Most decoders skip that second part, so a mistyped VIN comes back as a confident wrong answer instead of an error.
Decode a VIN
Validity
What each position means
| Positions | Section | Your VIN |
|---|---|---|
| 1-3 | World Manufacturer IdentifierIdentifies the manufacturer and vehicle type. A "9" in position 3 always means the identifier is six characters long, continuing at positions 12-14. | |
| 4-8 | Vehicle Descriptor SectionManufacturer-chosen attribute codes: line, series, body type, engine, restraints. On cars and lighter trucks position 7 must be alphabetic. | |
| 9 | Check digitA computed digit, 0-9 or X, that verifies the other sixteen characters were transcribed correctly. | |
| 10 | Model yearA 30-year cycle. Position 7 is what tells you which cycle you are in. | |
| 11 | Plant of manufactureManufacturer-assigned; the meaning is not published in the regulation. | |
| 12-17 | Serial numberSequential production number. On cars and lighter trucks the last five characters must be numeric. |
NHTSA decode
| Model year | |
| Make | |
| Model | |
| Trim | |
| Series | |
| Body class | |
| Vehicle type | |
| Cylinders | |
| Displacement (L) | |
| Engine configuration | |
| Engine model | |
| Fuel type | |
| Drive type | |
| Transmission | |
| GVWR | |
| Manufacturer | |
| Plant country | |
| Plant city |
NHTSA returned a record but filled in very little of it. That is normal for older vehicles, low-volume manufacturers, and most motorcycles — the database holds what each manufacturer filed, and older filings are sparse.
Why the check digit matters
Position nine is not part of the vehicle's description. It is arithmetic performed on the other sixteen characters, and its only job is to catch transcription errors. Every character gets a numeric value, each value is multiplied by a weight fixed to its position, the products are summed, and the total is divided by eleven. The remainder is the check digit, written as X when it comes to ten.
That means a single mistyped character almost always produces a mismatch. If the check fails, the number in your hand is wrong somewhere — and decoding it anyway will hand you a plausible-looking vehicle that is not yours.
One honest limit: the check digit is required on vehicles built to the US federal standard. Plenty of grey-import and older non-US vehicles carry a 17-character VIN with no valid check digit, and they are not defective. This page tells you which situation you are in rather than refusing to continue.
The 30-year model-year trap
Model year lives in position ten and uses a repeating 30-year alphabet, so the same character serves two years three decades apart. A is 1980 and also 2010. L is 1990 and also 2020.
The tie-break is position seven. On cars and on trucks up to 10,000 lb GVWR, an alphabetic character in position seven means the model year is in the 2010-2039 cycle; a numeric one means 1980-2009. This page applies that rule, which is why it can date a vehicle that decoders working from position ten alone get wrong by thirty years.
Sources
Documents this page was checked against. How we verify.
- 49 CFR Part 565, "Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) Requirements"the federal rule this page validates against. § 565.13(b) fixes the length at seventeen characters; § 565.13(c) puts the check digit in position nine; § 565.13(g) restricts every character to [ABCDEFGHJKLMNPRSTUVWXYZ0123456789], which is why I, O and Q never appear in a VIN; § 565.15(a)-(d) divides the number into the four sections shown above; § 565.15(c)(1)-(4) gives the check-digit arithmetic implemented on this page, including the Table III character values, the Table IV position weights, and the Table V remainder-to-digit mapping in which a remainder of 10 is written "X"; Table VII lists the model-year codes and its note gives the rule that position 7 being alphabetic means 2010-2039 while numeric means 1980-2009. Retrieved from the eCFR 2026-09-17; the part contains no elisions.
- NHTSA vPIC (Product Information Catalog and Vehicle Listing)the federal database this page queries for the decode itself. Public, free, no key, and it sends Access-Control-Allow-Origin, which is what lets a static page call it from the browser. vPIC returns the manufacturer-supplied meaning of the descriptor characters, which the regulation deliberately leaves to each manufacturer rather than standardising.
- 49 CFR 565.13(f)the reason the VIN is visible through the windscreen: on passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles and trucks of 4,536 kg GVWR or less it must be readable from outside the vehicle at the left windshield pillar, without moving any part of the car, by an observer with 20/20 vision, in characters at least 4 mm high.