VIN decoder
Paste a 17-character VIN and see the year, make, model, body, engine and assembly plant on file with NHTSA — then jump straight to that vehicle's recalls, complaints and crash ratings. Free, no sign-up, and the VIN never leaves your browser.
17 characters. The letters I, O and Q never appear in a VIN. Find it on the driver's-side dashboard, the door jamb, your insurance card or the title.
How a VIN is put together
Source: ISO 3779 / NHTSA| Position | Section | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | World manufacturer identifier | Who built it and where. 1, 4 and 5 are the United States, 2 Canada, 3 Mexico, J Japan, K South Korea, W Germany, S the United Kingdom. |
| 4–8 | Vehicle descriptor | Model, body style, restraint system, engine — the section that makes a VIN say which car this is rather than which unit. |
| 9 | Check digit | A checksum of the other sixteen characters. A VIN that fails it has been mistyped or invented. |
| 10 | Model year | A letter or digit, not the year itself: N is 2022, P 2023, R 2024, S 2025, T 2026. I, O, Q, U and Z are never used. |
| 11 | Assembly plant | The manufacturer's code for the factory that built this vehicle. |
| 12–17 | Serial number | The unit's own sequence number on that line. |
Common questions about VINs
Source: EPA, NHTSA and manufacturer press kitsIs this VIN decoder free?
Yes, and it does not ask for an email. The decode comes from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's public vPIC database, the same record manufacturers file with the federal government.
Does WhichTrim store my VIN?
No. The lookup runs in your own browser and goes straight to NHTSA. The VIN is not sent to WhichTrim, not logged and not stored — reload the page and it is gone.
Can I find recalls by VIN?
A VIN decodes to a specific year, make and model, and this page then links you to that vehicle's page here, which lists every NHTSA recall campaign with its severity and whether a repair exists yet. Whether one applies to your individual car depends on its build range, so confirm the VIN itself at nhtsa.gov/recalls before acting.
What does each character of a VIN mean?
Every vehicle sold in the U.S. since 1981 has a 17-character VIN with a fixed structure: manufacturer, vehicle description, a check digit, model year, plant and serial number. The table above breaks it down position by position.
Why does the decoder not show my trim?
Manufacturers are only required to file the vehicle descriptor section, so trim is optional and many VINs decode without it. Where a trim is missing, the model-year page here lists every trim the manufacturer published, with specifications and MSRP, so you can identify it from the equipment.
Does this show accidents, title brands or the odometer?
No. A decode describes what the vehicle is — what the manufacturer built and filed. What happened to it afterwards (title brands, odometer readings, accident and salvage records) lives in state DMV records, which reach the public through NMVTIS-approved report providers. WhichTrim does not sell those reports.