Open Car CheckFree · no sign-up

Know the car before you buy it. Free.

Mileage, inspections, write-offs and recalls from official registers. No paywall, no sign-up.

A free report can uncover:

  • Mileage rollbacks
  • Write-offs
  • Inspection history
  • Recalls in 3 regions
  • Insurance & export
  • Model reliability

Why buyers start with Open Car Check

  • Official records only

    Every fact comes from a government register or public dataset, and the report links to it.

  • Free, with no paywall

    No teaser report and no blurred boxes. What we can find, you see, at no cost.

  • No cookies, no sign-up

    No account, no tracking and no consent pop-ups. Just type a plate or VIN.

What a free report shows

Real records, laid out so the problems stand out. Visuals below use example data.

  • Spot rolled-back mileage

    Odometer readings from every inspection on a timeline, with any drop flagged.

  • See write-offs and blocks

    Danish cars show write-off, damage and police blocks straight from the register.

  • Check every inspection

    MOT and APK results with dates, failures and the defects found.

  • Find open recalls

    Recall campaigns from the US, Canada and the EU, matched to the model and year.

  • Confirm it's legal to sell

    Registration, insurance, import and export status, and taxi use.

  • Know how the model ages

    How often this model passes its inspection first time, against all cars its age.

See a sample report

Strongest where the records are open

Full car-level history in three countries, and model data for almost any car.

  • United Kingdom Coming soon

    • Every MOT test with its mileage
    • Failures and advisories
    • Outstanding recalls

    From DVSA

  • Netherlands

    • Odometer verdict
    • APK inspections and defects
    • Recalls, insurance, export

    From RDW

  • Denmark

    • Write-off and damage flags
    • Inspection history, odometer
    • Registration and insurance

    From Motorregistret

  • Any other car

    • US, Canadian and EU recalls
    • Model inspection pass rates
    • Model from European VINs

    From NHTSA, EU Safety Gate, Statens vegvesen, Traficom

How it works

  1. 1

    Enter a plate or VIN

    Type a UK, Dutch or Danish plate, or any 17-character VIN. We recognise which one it is as you type.

  2. 2

    We query official registers live

    Government registers and open datasets in Europe and North America, checked in parallel.

  3. 3

    Read your free report

    A summary of what matters first, then every record with its date and source.

  4. 4

    Full report: coming soon

    Damage, theft, photos and price are sold, not published. We're building a full report with pictures that adds them.

Built on open data at scale

  • 1.4MNorwegian inspections of cars and vans (2025) behind the model pass rates
  • 2.4Mvehicles in Finland's register behind our European VIN decoding
  • 3,000+model-year pages with recalls and reliability

Frequently asked questions

How can this be free?

We only use data governments already publish for free, so there is nothing to pay for. A full report with damage, theft and photos is coming; the free report will stay free.

Where does the data come from?

The Dutch RDW, the UK's DVSA, the Danish Motor Register, the US NHTSA, Transport Canada, the EU Safety Gate, Norway's Statens vegvesen and Finland's Traficom. Each section of a report names its source and licence.

Why can't you show damage and theft for every car?

Insurer, police and auction records are sold to companies, not published. Denmark is the exception: its register shows write-offs, so Danish cars get damage flags for free.

Which countries does it cover?

Car-level history for UK, Dutch and Danish plates, and for any VIN that was ever registered in Denmark. Recalls and model reliability for almost any car, and links to official checks in 11 more countries.

Do you store my searches?

We don't have accounts and don't set cookies. Lookups are cached for a day so repeat checks are fast, and reports are hidden from search engines.

Check a car now

It takes seconds, and it's free every time.

Official checks in other countries

12 government checks you can open yourself, free unless noted

These services have no free API, so they can't be part of the report.