VIN Lookup

What It Means

The NHTSA VIN lookup, available at nhtsa.gov/recalls and through the NHTSA Recalls API, is the authoritative free service for checking whether a specific vehicle has any open (unremedied) safety recalls. Entering a valid 17-character VIN returns a structured response listing every recall campaign affecting that specific vehicle, the campaign ID, the defect description, the safety consequence, the remedy, and the current repair status (open or closed). The service covers model year 1995 vehicles and newer for passenger vehicles, model year 2000 and newer for motorcycles, and the most recent 15 model years generally. Behind the scenes, the VIN lookup cross-references the VIN against the full roster of filed Part 573 reports, decoding the make, model, and model year from VIN positions 1 through 10 and then matching against campaign population ranges. The service is updated daily as new recalls are filed. VIN lookup is especially important for used-vehicle buyers, because the approximately 25 percent of vehicles nationally that remain unremedied 18 months after notification are disproportionately older vehicles that have changed ownership multiple times (current owners may never have received the mailed notification). Under the 2015 FAST Act, rental car companies and dealer-loaner fleets are prohibited from renting or loaning any vehicle with an open safety recall, which means rental agencies now run VIN lookups against their fleets daily. Federal law does not yet require private dealers to remedy all open recalls before sale of used vehicles (state laws vary, with California AB 2016 and a handful of other states imposing disclosure or repair requirements), so VIN lookup is the buyer's responsibility. RecallCheck's vehicle pages show all recalls affecting a make/model/year (not individual-VIN remedy status), and link directly to the manufacturer's VIN lookup tool for per-VIN repair confirmation.

Frequently Asked Questions