Your vehicle identification number, or VIN, identifies your car. Federal rules say every VIN has 17 characters, and that no two vehicles made in a 60-year period starting with the 1980 model year may share one (49 CFR 565.13).

You’ll need it when you sell. California’s release of liability asks for the last five digits of the VIN, and the full VIN lets you, or anyone you’re selling to, look up how the car was built. Here’s where to find it, and how to read it.

Where is the VIN on my car?

Federal rules set where the VIN goes, and California’s title and registration card carry it too. These are the places the official sources describe.

On the dashboard, through the windshield

On passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, low-speed vehicles and trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating of 4,536 kg (10,000 lb) or less, the VIN must be inside the passenger compartment. It must be readable through the glass, without moving any part of the vehicle, by someone standing outside next to the left windshield pillar (49 CFR 565.13).

So the easiest place to look is from outside the car: stand by the driver’s side of the windshield and look in through the glass.

On the label by the driver’s door

Vehicles also carry a manufacturer’s certification label, and the label must show the VIN. Except on trailers and motorcycles, it’s fixed to the hinge pillar, the door-latch post or the edge of the door that meets the latch post, next to the driver’s seat. If none of those is practicable, it goes on the left side of the instrument panel (49 CFR 567.4). Open the driver’s door and check the door edge and the pillars around it.

On your title and registration card

The DMV’s registration manual says California’s certificate of title and registration card both contain the VIN (DMV manual). If you only need the last five digits, which DMV online services ask for, the DMV notes that they’re on your registration card (DMV registration status page).

If you find the VIN in more than one place, check that they match, character for character. A mismatch is worth sorting out before you sell.

What’s in a VIN?

A VIN isn’t a random string. Federal rules divide it into sections (49 CFR 565.15):

  • Characters 1 to 3: the manufacturer and the type of vehicle.
  • Characters 4 to 8: the vehicle’s attributes. For a passenger car, that’s the make, line, series, body type, engine type and restraint devices.
  • Character 9: the check digit.
  • Character 10: the model year.
  • Character 11: the plant where the vehicle was made.
  • Characters 12 to 17: the production sequence number, for high-volume manufacturers.

For a low-volume manufacturer, positions 1 to 3 together with positions 12 to 14 identify the manufacturer and the type of vehicle (49 CFR 565.15).

The check digit catches copying mistakes

Character 9 is a number from 0 to 9 or the letter X. Its purpose is to verify that a VIN was copied accurately (49 CFR 565.15). Tools that test it, like our VIN barcode scanner, warn you when it doesn’t match, so you can recheck every character.

Reading the model year

The 10th character is the model year, and the codes repeat in cycles: 2025 is S, 2026 is T and 2027 is V. On cars and light trucks, the 7th character tells the cycles apart. If it’s a number, the model year falls between 1980 and 2009; if it’s a letter, between 2010 and 2039 (49 CFR 565.15).

Which letters can’t appear in a VIN?

Federal rules list the characters a VIN may use: the digits 0 to 9 and the capital letters except I, O and Q (49 CFR 565.13). So when a character looks like the letter O, it’s the number 0.

What is a VIN decoder and how does it work?

A VIN decoder looks up the information encoded in a VIN. NHTSA’s free decoder works this way: it shows details encoded in the number, as reported by the manufacturer, and it also accepts partial VINs (NHTSA VIN decoder).

Our free VIN decoder uses NHTSA’s public vPIC data to show details such as the model year, make, model, trim, body style and engine. A decoder describes how a vehicle was built. It doesn’t show the car’s condition, its history or who owns it.

If your VIN also appears as a barcode on a label or on paperwork, the VIN barcode scanner can read it from a photo or with your phone’s camera. It runs in your browser and doesn’t upload your photo or VIN.

Using your VIN when you sell

Have the VIN handy before you start the paperwork. The DMV’s online Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability asks for your license plate number and the last five digits of the VIN, along with the new owner’s name and address and the odometer reading (DMV NRL page). Our California selling checklist covers that step and the rest of the sale. If you still owe money on the car, read selling a car you still owe money on too.

If you’d like to sell to a dealership, the Sell my car form lets you type your VIN or scan its barcode, and uses it to suggest the year, make and model for you to check. No VIN handy? You can enter those details yourself. A CarLinks agent then contacts you about your car.

There’s no obligation to sell. When you’re ready, tell us about your car.

Sources

Checked October 2026.