Type a 17-character VIN and we'll verify its check digit and light up what every position encodes — manufacturer, model year, plant and serial.
Enter a VIN to validate it. VINs never contain the letters I, O or Q.
more character(s) needed — a full VIN is exactly 17.
Everything on this page runs locally in your browser — the VIN is never sent to a server until you choose to decode it.
The World Manufacturer Identifier. Position 1 is the build region (1, 4, 5 = USA; 2 = Canada; 3 = Mexico; J = Japan; K = South Korea; L = China; W = Germany; S = UK). Positions 2–3 identify the manufacturer and division.
The Vehicle Descriptor Section. Each manufacturer encodes model, body style, engine, restraint system and drivetrain here — it's why a VIN decoder can tell an ML 350 from an ML 550.
A checksum over the other 16 characters (ISO 3779). Every character maps to a number, is weighted by position, and the total mod 11 must equal this digit — 10 is written as X.
A letter or digit encoding the model year on a 30-year cycle: A = 1980 or 2010, B = 1981 or 2011, and so on. I, O, Q, U, Z and 0 are never used here.
A manufacturer-specific code for the factory that assembled the vehicle.
The sequential production number of the vehicle. Together with the WMI and attributes it makes every VIN unique.
Each character is transliterated to a number (A=1, B=2 … skipping I, O and Q), multiplied by a position weight (8,7,6,5,4,3,2,10,0,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2), and the products are summed. The sum modulo 11 is the check digit — a remainder of 10 is written as X. It must equal position 9.
I, O and Q are never used anywhere in a 17-character VIN, to avoid confusion with 1 and 0. If you see one, a character has been misread — often from a photo or a worn stamp.
Yes — the check digit catches most single-character errors, but not every combination. To confirm a VIN belongs to a real vehicle, decode it against a vehicle database, which also returns the exact make, model and specs.
Vehicles built before 1981 used shorter, manufacturer-specific VINs with no check digit. This validator (and most decoders) covers the standardized 17-character era from 1981 onward.