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NHTSA

Decode US VINs and look up every registered make

🚆 TransportUNMONITORED
AUTH NONECORS ✓AGENT ?HTTPS ✓COMMERCIAL ✓

NHTSA's vPIC service is the US government's catalog of vehicle makes, models, and VIN decoding. Fetch all manufacturers or decode a VIN into make, model, and body class straight from federal data. No key, and as a US Government work the data sits in the public domain.

—HOW IT'S SCORED ⓘ
▶ Run liveDocs ↗
Status badge · for your READMEshipapis health badge: — · unmonitored
ON PROBE SCHEDULE

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Open provider docs ↗

Uptime historystarts after first probe

On our probe schedule. Uptime charts appear after the first check lands.

Example responsefrom provider docs — not verified by us
GET https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles/GetAllMakes?format=json

{
  "Count": 12283,
  "Message": "Response returned successfully",
  "SearchCriteria": null,
  "Results": [
    {
      "Make_ID": 12858,
      "Make_Name": "#1 ALPINE CUSTOMS"
    }
  ]
}
Call itcurl · fetch · python
curl "https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles/GetAllMakes?format=json"
const res = await fetch("https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles/GetAllMakes?format=json");
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);
import requests

res = requests.get("https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles/GetAllMakes?format=json")
print(res.json())
Endpoints · 6On scheduleFULL DOCS ↗
On schedule — GET /vehicles/GetAllMakes?format=json awaits first probe
GET/vehicles/GetAllMakes?format=jsonPROBED

Decode US VINs and look up every registered make

GET/vehicles

Vehicles — documented GET route.

GET/vehicles/1

Vehicles details by ID (example: 1).

GET/vehicles?limit=10

Vehicles — documented GET route.

GET/vehicles/search?q=test

Search by query parameters.

GET/vehicles/GetAllMakes?limit=5

GetAllMakes — documented GET route.

Machine-readable spec

We probe a documented GET and expect 2xx JSON — full uptime and health score. Export includes every documented route below.

Response-shape history

Not tracked yet. Shape-change history starts once this API joins our probe schedule.

NHTSA: common questions

Is NHTSA free to use?

Yes — NHTSA is a free transport API. Free tier: Free, no key. Commercial use is allowed on the free tier.

Does NHTSA need an API key?

No — NHTSA needs no API key or signup. You can call it straight away; rate limits still apply (Unpublished).

Can I call NHTSA from the browser?

Yes — NHTSA returns CORS headers over HTTPS, so front-end code can fetch it directly with no backend proxy. Use the fetch snippet on this page, or hit "Run live" to try it now.

Is NHTSA up right now?

NHTSA is catalogued but not yet on our probe schedule, so we don't publish a live status for it. Check the provider's own status page or docs for its current state.