Check a UK vehicle
Enter a registration to open that vehicle's permanent Caroat page. Free official status and paid history are always labelled differently.
Free check
The free check returns the MOT record and advisories, tax and SORN status, every mileage reading on file and the full specification. No account, no card, and it stays free.
Premium report, £6.99
The premium report adds the checks that decide whether a used car is safe to buy: outstanding finance, write-off and damage categories, a stolen marker, previous keepers, plate changes, import, export and scrap markers, VIN identity and a value guide. One payment, no subscription. See a real sample report before you buy, or take two reports for £9.99.
Which one do I need?
Run the free check first on any car you are considering. It costs nothing and it rules out a surprising number of them. Buy the premium report on the one car you are serious about, before you pay a deposit. Finance and write-off records are the two things that cost buyers the most money and are invisible in the free record.
How a Caroat car check works
- Type the number plate. Spaces and lower case are fine, and a 17 character VIN works too through the VIN check.
- Caroat reads the DVSA MOT record and the DVLA vehicle record in real time and shows the free result on the vehicle's own page.
- If you buy the premium report, it opens on screen straight after payment and is emailed to you. It is kept with no time limit and you can get it back from the help page with the email you paid with.
What the free record cannot tell you
Government records do not show finance, insurance write-offs or police stolen markers. A car can have a clean MOT history and still be owned by a finance company or be a repaired Category S write-off. Our guides to outstanding finance, write-off categories and stolen cars explain what each one means for a buyer.