Brake horsepower is not a government record. The DVLA holds cylinder capacity, fuel type and the emissions figure used for tax, because those are what the tax system needs; it does not hold power output. Every service that hands you a power figure from a number plate is resolving the plate to a derivative and then reading the number the manufacturer published for that derivative. That distinction decides how much the figure is worth.
What BHP is my car, according to the lookup
The plate resolves to a specific variant. The variant has a declared power output, usually quoted at a stated engine speed, which the manufacturer published at launch and which appears in the type approval documentation. The service hands you that. It is the correct answer to what the car left the factory with, and it is the figure insurers, tax authorities and road testers all work from. It is not a measurement of the car you are standing next to.
Metric and imperial, and why numbers disagree
The same engine gets quoted in brake horsepower, in metric horsepower and in kilowatts, and the three do not convert to round numbers. A car sold as having one power figure in a British brochure and a slightly different one in a European specification sheet is usually the same engine expressed in a different unit. Before deciding that a listing is wrong, check which unit each source used. Type approval paperwork works in kilowatts, which is the figure least likely to have been rounded.
Why the real car may not make it
A declared output is measured on a test bed under defined conditions, on a new engine, with everything to specification. Wear, a tired turbocharger, a partly blocked filter, a weak fuel pump or a sensor fault all cost power and none of them changes the published figure. On the other side, a remap, a hybrid conversion or an aftermarket exhaust can raise it, and the lookup will never know. If the number matters to you, the answer is a rolling road, not a database.
The reason people actually ask
Most of the time the question behind a power check is either insurance or a claim in an advert. For insurance the group rating already takes performance into account, so the power figure is an input somebody else has already used. For an advert, the useful move is to check the declared figure for the exact derivative and see whether it matches what the seller wrote, because a seller quoting the wrong variant's power is usually quoting the wrong variant's everything else too.
Questions people ask about bhp check
Does the DVLA record hold BHP?
No. The DVLA vehicle enquiry returns cylinder capacity, fuel type, CO2 and tax band. Power output comes from the manufacturer's declaration for the derivative that the registration resolves to.
Why does a car BHP check give different figures on two sites?
Usually because one is quoting metric horsepower and the other brake horsepower, or because they resolved the plate to different derivatives. Check the unit and the variant before assuming either is wrong.
Will a remap show up on a BHP check?
No. The lookup reports the factory declaration and has no knowledge of modifications. An undeclared remap can also invalidate an insurance policy, so it is a disclosure question rather than a database question.
Is a free BHP check accurate enough for insurance?
It is accurate about the factory specification, which is what insurers rate. What they actually price is the derivative and its group, so the honest answer is to give them the registration and let them resolve it.