Decode any 17-character VIN and see every open safety recall — straight from the U.S. government's own databases. Takes about three seconds.
The VIN is on a plate at the base of the windscreen on the driver's side, and on a sticker inside the driver's door jamb. It never contains the letters I, O or Q.
Source: NHTSA vPIC product information catalogue.
Source: NHTSA recalls database, matched on year, make and model. Recalls are issued per model, so confirm against this specific VIN with a franchised dealer — repairs for open safety recalls are free at any authorised dealer.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau runs a free VINCheck that reports vehicles recorded by participating insurers as stolen-and-not-recovered, or as a salvage total loss. NICB does not publish an API, and their terms limit it to five lookups per IP address per day, so we cannot run it for you — but it takes about thirty seconds.
A clean NICB result is not a clean bill of health. It only covers insurers who participate and losses that were actually reported. It is one signal, not a guarantee.
Get the paperwork right too. Create a bill of sale with this VIN already filled in — both parties e-sign from their own phones and the legal PDF lands in both inboxes.
Create a bill of sale — freeYes, and there is no account or card. The decode comes from the NHTSA vPIC database and the recalls from the NHTSA recalls API — both are free public U.S. government services.
Not from the decode. Use the free NICB VINCheck linked above, which reports vehicles recorded as stolen-and-not-recovered or as salvage by participating insurance companies. It is limited to five searches per IP address per day.
No. Free government data covers what the vehicle is and which safety recalls are open on it. Accident history, title branding and ownership records come from paid commercial reports.
The ninth character of a VIN is calculated from the other sixteen under ISO 3779. When it does not compute, a character has usually been misread or mistyped. Compare the VIN against the dashboard plate and the door-jamb sticker before you put it on paperwork.
NHTSA issues recalls against a year, make and model, and their public API matches on those. Some campaigns only affect a production range, so confirm with a franchised dealer using the full VIN. Repairs for open safety recalls are free at any authorised dealer regardless of who owns the car.