What’s a Vehicle Identification Number? How to Decode the World Manufacturer Identifier

The format is set by ISO 3779, in the US by 49 CFR Part 565 and in the EU by Regulation (EU) No 19/2011. Below you’ll find each part decoded, a list of common WMI codes, the country codes, how the check digit works with a worked example, and where to find and scan the VIN on a car.

1HG CM826 3 3 A 004352

1. 1–3 · Manufacturer (WMI)1HG = Honda, built in the US
2. 4–8 · Vehicle descriptorModel, body, engine and restraints, coded by the maker
3. 9 · Check digitCatches a mistyped VIN (required in North America)
4. 10 · Model year3 = 2003
5. 11 · PlantWhere the vehicle was built
6. 12–17 · Serial numberIdentifies this one vehicle

The three parts of a VIN: WMI, VDS and VIS

Every 17-character VIN splits the same way. Only the first part is handed out by an outside body; the maker fills in the rest by its own rules, within limits set by the standard and by national law.

Positions	Section	What it tells you	Who decides it
1–3	World manufacturer identifier (WMI)	The maker, and the country or region it is registered in	Assigned by a national authority, coordinated worldwide by SAE International
4–8	Vehicle descriptor section (VDS)	Model line, body style, engine, restraint systems, weight class	The manufacturer
9	Check digit (North America) or a further VDS character (elsewhere)	Whether the VIN has been copied correctly	Calculated from the other 16 characters
10	Vehicle identifier section (VIS) begins: model year	The model year (compulsory in North America)	Fixed code table
11	VIS: plant	The factory that fitted the VIN	The manufacturer
12–17	VIS: serial number	The individual vehicle	The manufacturer, in production order

Only capital letters and the digits 0–9 are allowed, and the letters I, O and Q are never used because they are too easily mistaken for 1 and 0. If a character looks like an O, it’s a zero.

World manufacturer identifier (WMI): characters 1–3

The WMI identifies the manufacturer. The first character gives the region, the first two together usually give the country, and the third separates one maker, brand or vehicle type from another. Volkswagen, for example, uses WVW for passenger cars, WVG for SUVs and multipurpose vehicles and WV1 for commercial vehicles.

WMIs are defined in ISO 3780. A national authority in the country where the manufacturer has its main place of business assigns them, working with SAE International, which keeps the worldwide register. In the US, NHTSA has contracted SAE to assign them directly. Because the code follows the maker’s registered base, a car built by a carmaker’s local company carries that country’s code: a Toyota built by Toyota’s Canadian plant starts 2T, not J.

Small manufacturers: why some VINs have a 9 in position 3

A three-character WMI is reserved for manufacturers that build at least a set number of vehicles a year. Smaller makers share a WMI with a 9 in the third position, and the authority gives them three more characters at positions 12–14 of the VIS. The six characters together identify the maker, which leaves positions 15–17 for the serial number.

• EU and ISO 3780: the threshold is 500 vehicles a year of global production (Regulation (EU) No 19/2011, Annex I, Part B, point 2.2.3).
• United States: the threshold is 1,000 vehicles of a given type a year (49 CFR 565.12 and 565.15). In the US, a 9 in position 3 always means a six-character manufacturer identifier.

So when you see the phrase “manufacturer builds more than 500 vehicles per year”, it describes a maker big enough to have its own three-character WMI.

Vehicle descriptor section (VDS): characters 4–9

The VDS describes the vehicle rather than the individual car. The manufacturer chooses the codes and their order. In the US the VDS has to let anyone with the maker’s decoding data work out, for a passenger car, the make, line, series, body type, engine type and every restraint device and where it sits. Trucks and multipurpose vehicles also have to show the gross vehicle weight rating, and trucks the brake system.

Outside North America the ninth character is often just another VDS character, or a filler. Many European VINs pad unused VDS places with Z: a Volkswagen VIN such as WVWZZZ6RZGU000123 has Z in positions 4–6 and in position 9.

Some people search for this section as the “vehicle description section”, and some decoders call the body-style code inside it the “mfr body code”. It is all the same part of the VIN.

What the 8th character of a VIN means

There is no universal meaning. The 8th character is the last one in the VDS, so the manufacturer decides what it stands for. Many North American makers use it for the engine, but others use it for the restraint system, the trim series or something else. To read it you need that maker’s own decoding data, which US manufacturers have to file with NHTSA and which the free NHTSA VIN decoder uses.

Vehicle identifier section (VIS): characters 10–17

The last eight characters single out the individual vehicle. ISO and EU law call it the vehicle indicator section; “identifier section” is the more common search term. EU law requires the last four characters to be digits. US law requires the last five to be digits for cars and light trucks, and sets the first two: position 10 is the model year and position 11 is the plant.

For the model year, letters and digits run in a 30-year cycle that skips I, O, Q, U, Z and 0. To tell the cycles apart on cars and light trucks, look at position 7: if it is a digit, the year falls between 1980 and 2009; if it is a letter, between 2010 and 2039.

Code	Year	Code	Year	Code	Year
A	2010	J	2018	T	2026
B	2011	K	2019	V	2027
C	2012	L	2020	W	2028
D	2013	M	2021	X	2029
E	2014	N	2022	Y	2030
F	2015	P	2023	1–9	2031–2039
G	2016	R	2024
H	2017	S	2025

Outside North America, position 10 does not have to be the model year, although many makers use it that way.

VIN format examples

Example	How to read it
1HGCM82633A004352	North American format. 1HG = Honda, US. Position 9 (3) is a valid check digit. Position 10 (3) = 2003, which fits because position 7 (2) is a digit. A = plant. 004352 = serial number.
WVWZZZ6RZGU000123	European format. WVW = Volkswagen passenger car, Germany. Z fills the unused VDS places, and position 9 is a Z, not a check digit. G in position 10 is the year code for 2016.
XX9 ... ABC 123 (layout)	Small-maker format. A 9 in position 3 means the maker is identified by positions 1–3 plus 12–14, and only positions 15–17 count production.

List of common WMI codes

These are WMIs you’ll often see on cars in Europe and North America. A manufacturer can hold many WMIs, one per country, brand or vehicle type, so this is a sample, not a full register. SAE International keeps the complete list, and NHTSA’s free vPIC decoder covers every WMI registered for the US market.

WMI	Manufacturer	Country	Vehicle type
1FA / 1FT	Ford	United States	Cars / trucks
1G1	General Motors (Chevrolet)	United States	Cars
1GC	General Motors (Chevrolet)	United States	Trucks
1HG	Honda (American Honda)	United States	Cars
2T1	Toyota (Canadian plant)	Canada	Cars
3G1	General Motors (Chevrolet)	Mexico	Cars
3GC	General Motors (Chevrolet)	Mexico	Trucks
3GN	General Motors (Chevrolet)	Mexico	SUVs and MPVs
3GT	General Motors (GMC)	Mexico	Trucks
5YJ	Tesla	United States	Cars
JHM	Honda	Japan	Cars
JN1	Nissan	Japan	Cars
JTD	Toyota	Japan	Cars
KMH	Hyundai	South Korea	Cars
KNA	Kia	South Korea	Cars
NMT	Toyota (Turkish plant)	Turkey	Cars
SAJ	Jaguar (Jaguar Land Rover)	United Kingdom	Cars
SAL	Land Rover (Jaguar Land Rover)	United Kingdom	SUVs
TMB	Škoda	Czech Republic	Cars
VF1	Renault	France	Cars
VF3	Peugeot	France	Cars
VF7	Citroën	France	Cars
W1K / WDD	Mercedes-Benz (W1K on newer cars)	Germany	Cars
WAU	Audi	Germany	Cars
WBA	BMW	Germany	Cars
WP0	Porsche	Germany	Cars
WVW / WVG / WV1	Volkswagen	Germany	Cars / SUVs and MPVs / commercial vehicles
YV1	Volvo Cars	Sweden	Cars
ZFA	Fiat (Stellantis)	Italy	Cars
6ZZ	Not a carmaker: issued by the Australian Government	Australia	Imported vehicles without a usable VIN

The codes people search for most: 6ZZ, 3G and 3GC, VF7, TMB

• 6ZZ: not a manufacturer. When a vehicle imported into Australia has no valid 17-character VIN (for example, it only has a chassis number), the Australian Government department that approves vehicle imports can issue a VIN starting 6ZZ so that the vehicle can be registered. The 6 is the Oceania range (here, Australia), and ZZ is a placeholder showing this is a substitute VIN for a low-volume or one-off import, not a carmaker’s code.
• 3G: General Motors vehicles built by its Mexican operation. The first character 3 is Mexico, and G is General Motors.
• 3GC: a Chevrolet truck from General Motors’ Mexican operation. The decoding data GM files with NHTSA lists 3GC as a truck WMI.
• VF7: Citroën, France. Its sister brand Peugeot uses VF3.
• TMB: Škoda Auto, Czech Republic. Škoda has used VINs since the 1984 model year.

VIN country codes: how the first character classifies region and country

The first character tells you the region where the manufacturer is registered. The first two characters together usually narrow it to a country.

First character	Region
A–H	Africa
J–R	Asia
S–Z	Europe
1–5	North America
6–7	Oceania
8–9	South America

Common VIN country codes

Code	Country
1, 4, 5	United States
2	Canada
3 (most of 3A–3W)	Mexico
J	Japan
KL–KR	South Korea
L	China
MA–ME	India
NM–NT	Turkey
SA–SM	United Kingdom
TM (Škoda’s TMB, for example)	Czech Republic
VF–VR	France
VS–VW	Spain
W	Germany
YS–YW	Sweden
ZA–ZR	Italy
6A–6W	Australia
9A–9E, 93–99	Brazil

SAE International revises these allocations from time to time as new manufacturing countries need codes, so check the current SAE register if a code isn’t listed here.

Check digit calculation

In North America the 9th character must be a check digit (49 CFR 565.13). China also requires one. Its job is to catch transcription errors: change a single character and the VIN will usually fail the check. Europe doesn’t require a check digit, so a European VIN that fails the sum isn’t necessarily wrong.

The method, as set out in 49 CFR 565.15(c):

1. Give every character a number. Digits keep their own value. Letters use the table below.
2. Multiply each value by the weight for its position. Position 9 has a weight of 0, so the check digit itself doesn’t count.
3. Add up the 17 results and divide the total by 11.
4. The remainder (0–10) is the check digit. A remainder of 10 is written as X.

Letter values
A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6, G=7, H=8
J=1, K=2, L=3, M=4, N=5, P=7, R=9
S=2, T=3, U=4, V=5, W=6, X=7, Y=8, Z=9

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
Weight	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	10	0	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2

Worked example: checking 1HGCM82633A004352

Position	Character	Value	Weight	Value × weight
1	1	1	8	8
2	H	8	7	56
3	G	7	6	42
4	C	3	5	15
5	M	4	4	16
6	8	8	3	24
7	2	2	2	4
8	6	6	10	60
9	3 (check digit)	–	0	0
10	3	3	9	27
11	A	1	8	8
12	0	0	7	0
13	0	0	6	0
14	4	4	5	20
15	3	3	4	12
16	5	5	3	15
17	2	2	2	4
Total				311

311 ÷ 11 = 28, remainder 3 (28 × 11 = 308, and 311 − 308 = 3). The check digit should be 3, and position 9 is 3, so the VIN passes.

What a failed check digit tells you

Mistype the 16th character as 6 instead of 5 (1HGCM82633A004362) and the total rises by 3 to 314. The remainder becomes 6, which doesn’t match the 3 in position 9, so the VIN is flagged. On a North American vehicle, a failed check almost always means a typo or a misread character. On a European VIN, check whether the maker uses a check digit at all before drawing any conclusion.

History of the VIN

Carmakers stamped serial numbers on chassis long before there was a standard, but each used its own length and layout. That made the numbers hard to use for registration, insurance and tracing stolen cars across brands and borders.

In the US, NHTSA published a final rule in 1978 that fixed the 17-character format. It applied to vehicles from the 1981 model year, and today it sits in 49 CFR Part 565. The rule also says no two vehicles may share a VIN within 60 years, counting from the 1980 model year. ISO set out an international standard for VINs during the same period.

ISO 3779, ISO 3780 and the EU rules

• ISO 3779 (current edition 2009) sets out the content and structure of the VIN: three sections, 17 characters, and which characters are allowed.
• ISO 3780 (current edition 2009) covers the world manufacturer identifier and how WMIs are assigned.
• ISO 4030 covers where the VIN is placed on the vehicle and how it is attached.
• Regulation (EU) No 19/2011 makes the VIN a type-approval requirement in the EU. The VIN must be marked on the chassis or body when the vehicle leaves the production line, be unique, and stay traceable by the manufacturer for 30 years. Characters stamped on the chassis must be at least 7 mm high.

Chassis number vs VIN: what’s the difference?

For almost every modern car they are the same thing. “Chassis number” is the older name, from the days when the maker’s serial number was stamped on the frame. Today the 17-character VIN is the number stamped on the chassis or body, and documents often treat the terms as interchangeable: the UK V5C logbook, for example, labels the field “VIN/Chassis/Frame No”.

The difference matters with older cars and some imports. Vehicles made before standard VINs, and some built for markets that don’t use the 17-character format, carry a shorter chassis or frame number instead. Australia issues its 6ZZ VINs to imported vehicles like these.

Where to find the VIN on a car

• Through the windscreen: a plate on the dashboard at the bottom of the windscreen, usually on the driver’s side. In the US, cars and light trucks must have a VIN that can be read from outside through the glass (49 CFR 565.13(f)).
• Door frame: a label on the door pillar, often on the driver’s side.
• Chassis or body: stamped into the metal, often under the bonnet near the bulkhead, under a flap in the floor by a front seat, or near a front suspension mount. The location varies by maker, and some stamp it in more than one place.
• Paperwork: the registration document (the V5C in the UK), insurance documents and the service record.

When you buy a used car, check that the VIN on the registration document matches the one on the windscreen plate, the door label and the chassis stamp. A mismatch is a reason to walk away until it’s explained.

VIN scanning

Typing 17 characters by hand is slow and easy to get wrong, so many vehicles also carry the VIN as a barcode, usually on the door pillar label and sometimes beside the windscreen plate. Older labels tend to use a one-dimensional barcode such as Code 39; newer ones often use a 2D code such as Data Matrix or QR. Phone apps and handheld scanners can read the barcode, or read the printed characters straight off a photo, and then run the check digit to catch misreads.

For a lender funding dealer stock, the VIN is what links a car on the forecourt to a line in the funded book. CheckVentory Auditor reads the VIN from a photo taken live during a dealer audit, records where and when the photo was taken, and matches the VIN against the funded book. A funded car that isn’t found, or a VIN that doesn’t match, shows up as an exception for the credit team to follow up.

What a VIN is used for

• Registering and taxing a vehicle, and linking it to its number plate.
• Safety recalls: manufacturers list affected vehicles by VIN.
• Insurance, accident records and repair work, including ordering the right parts.
• Vehicle history and theft checks before buying a used car.
• Stock audits: dealers and their funders use the VIN to confirm that a specific funded vehicle is where it should be.

VIN questions people ask