What every character in a VIN means
A vehicle identification number is not a random string. Since 1981 it has been seventeen characters laid out to a fixed standard, and once you know where the seams are you can read the country, the model year and whether the number is genuine without looking anything up. Here is the whole layout, plus the tables to decode it by hand.
Lit segments are the three Vinqua reads on your device, before any request leaves it.
Or let it decode one for you
Vinqua reads the structure below on your device, then pulls the full specification, open safety recalls, owner complaints, crash-test ratings and fuel economy from official U.S. records.
17 characters, or 5 to 13 for a pre-1981 number
The seventeen positions
Every VIN issued for the 1981 model year onward follows ISO 3779: three characters of manufacturer, five of vehicle description, a check digit, then six characters that identify the individual car.
World Manufacturer Identifier
Pos 1–3Who built it and where. The first character is the region (1 is the United States) and the next two identify the manufacturer, HG being Honda. A maker producing under 1,000 vehicles a year also uses position 12 as part of its identifier.
Vehicle Descriptor Section
Pos 4–8The model, body style, engine, restraint system and series. Manufacturers assign these themselves, so the same letter means different things across two brands. This is the part only a decoder with the maker's tables can read, which is why Vinqua asks NHTSA rather than guessing.
Check digit
Pos 9A checksum over the other sixteen characters. It exists so a mistyped or invented VIN can be caught without looking anything up, and it is mandatory on any vehicle sold in North America.
Model year
Pos 10One character for the model year, cycling every thirty years. 3 means 2003 here and would mean 1973 on an older car, so the seventh character is used to tell the cycles apart.
Assembly plant
Pos 11Which factory assembled the car. The codes are the manufacturer's own, so A is a specific Honda plant and means something else entirely on a Ford.
Serial number
Pos 12–17The production sequence number, the part that makes this VIN yours and not the identical car built behind it on the line.
How the check digit works
Position 9 is arithmetic, not information. It is derived from the other sixteen characters, so a single mistyped character almost always breaks it, which is how a decoder can tell you a VIN is wrong before it looks anything up.
| Character | 1 | H | G | C | M | 8 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 3 | A | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | 1 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 6 | — | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
| Weight | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 10 | 0 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
Multiply each value by its weight and add the results: 311. Divide by 11 and keep the remainder: 311 mod 11 = 3. That remainder is the check digit, 3 here, which matches position 9 of 1HGCM82633A004352. A remainder of 10 is written as the letter X, the only place a VIN uses a letter to mean a number.
Letter values
Digits count as themselves. Letters are transliterated to numbers using this table, which skips I, O and Q because they never appear in a VIN at all.
Model year codes
Position 10 carries the model year in a single character, cycling through thirty codes. Because the cycle repeats, the same letter means two different years thirty years apart, and decoders tell them apart using position 7, which is a letter on 2010-and-later vehicles and a digit before that.
The codes skip I, O, Q, U and Z, and the digit 0, for the same reason the rest of the VIN does: none of them can be confused with another character when a number is stamped into metal or read back over a phone.
Where the car was built
The first character gives the broad region and the first two together narrow it to a country. This is the part of a VIN anyone can read at a glance.
Region, first character
- A–H
- Africa
- J–R
- Asia
- S–Z
- Europe
- 1–5
- North America
- 6–7
- Oceania
- 8–9, 0
- South America
Country, first two characters
- 1, 4, 5
- United States
- 2
- Canada
- 3A–3W
- Mexico
- 6
- Australia
- 7
- New Zealand
- 8
- Argentina / South America
- 9
- Brazil / South America
- J
- Japan
- KL–KR
- South Korea
- L
- China
- MA–ME
- India
- NL, NM, NP, NT, NV
- Turkey
- SA–SM
- United Kingdom
- SN–ST
- Germany
- TA–TH
- Switzerland
- TJ–TP
- Czech Republic
- VF–VR
- France
- VS–VW
- Spain
- W
- Germany
- XL–XR
- Netherlands
- X3–X9
- Russia
- YA–YE
- Belgium
- YF–YK
- Finland
- YS–YW
- Sweden
- ZA–ZR
- Italy
This is the common-manufacturer shortlist Vinqua uses for an instant local read. The authoritative plant country comes back from NHTSA in the full record.
VINs before 1981
The seventeen-character standard is younger than a lot of the cars still on the road. Before the 1981 model year every manufacturer numbered its vehicles its own way.
A pre-1981 VIN typically runs from five to thirteen characters, carries no check digit, has no year code at position 10 and no World Manufacturer Identifier at the front. The letters I, O and Q are fair game, because the rule banning them arrived with the standard. None of the tables above apply, and no decoder can extract a make, model or year from the number, because there is nothing in it to extract.
That does not make the car a dead end. Recalls, owner complaints and crash-test records are filed against a make, model and year rather than against a VIN, and NHTSA’s recall database reaches back to 1949. Vinqua accepts a pre-1981 number, asks you which car it is, and pulls those records against your answer.
See a pre-1981 recordWhere to find the VIN
The same number is stamped in several places on purpose. If two of them disagree, stop and ask why.
Driver-side dashboard
Through the windscreen at the bottom corner, on the driver's side. Visible from outside the car, which is why it is the one to use on a forecourt.
Driver's door jamb
On the sticker you see with the door open, usually alongside tyre pressures and the build date.
Registration and insurance
Printed on the title, the registration document and your insurance card. Worth cross-checking against the car itself, since they should match exactly.
Under the bonnet or by the spare
Many makers stamp it on the firewall, the strut tower or under the boot floor near the spare wheel as a tamper check.
Once you can read it
Structure tells you the car is genuine and roughly what it is. The records tell you whether to buy it.