Number plate check: what a registration actually reveals

Advertised prices, verified

What a registration unlocks, layer by layer

1. Layer one: the vehicle's identity, free. The DVLA record returns make, model, colour, engine size, fuel type and first registration date. This is the identity layer: its job is confirming the car in front of you is the car the record describes, and it costs nothing.
2. Layer two: the legal essentials, free. Tax status and expiry, SORN status, MOT status and the full test history with recorded mileages all come back free from GOV.UK. Between them they answer whether the vehicle is legal to drive and how it has been kept.
3. Layer three: the money and crime markers, paid. Outstanding finance, insurance write-off categories, stolen markers and plate transfer history live in private and police registers that the paid vendors query. The table above shows what each charges, verified against its own page.
4. The layer that does not exist: the keeper. No public check returns a name or address from a registration. The registers describe vehicles, not people; the lawful route to keeper information, with reasonable cause, is DVLA form V888. A service advertising owner lookup from a plate is not reading an official register.

Plate changes: what a transferred registration hides

Registrations move between vehicles: private plates are transferred, cherished marks are retained, and occasionally a plate change launders a past. The free record shows the vehicle under its current registration only; the paid checks list previous registrations, which is how a written-off or heavily financed history under an old plate surfaces.

A plate change is not itself suspicious: thousands are transferred innocently every year. What matters is whether the history under previous marks is clean, and that specific question is one the paid layer exists to answer.

Running the layers in order

The free layers come first because they are instant and eliminate the obvious failures: mismatched identity, SORN, expired MOT, a mileage series that falls. Only a vehicle that clears them is worth the price of the paid layer, and by then you are spending to protect a purchase you actually intend to make.

Every register quoted on this page is named with its source and date where a figure appears, and the paid prices in the table are quoted verbatim from each vendor's own page. That is the standard this index applies to every number it publishes.

Common questions

What does a number plate check show?

Free: the vehicle's registered identity, tax and SORN status, and full MOT history with mileages. Paid: outstanding finance, write-off categories, stolen markers and previous registrations, at the advertised prices in the table above. Nothing, at any price, identifies the keeper.

Can I find out who owns a car from its number plate?

No. Public checks return facts about the vehicle only. Where there is reasonable cause (an insurance claim, an abandoned vehicle) DVLA form V888 is the lawful route to keeper information, and it requires you to state and justify the cause.

Is a number plate check free?

The identity, tax and MOT layers are free on GOV.UK and cover more than most buyers expect, including mileage at every test. The finance, write-off and theft layer is what the paid vendors charge for, at the verified prices shown above.

Does a private plate hide a car's history?

From the free record, partially: it shows the vehicle under its current mark. Paid checks list previous registrations and carry the history across plate changes, which is precisely why a car with a transferred plate is a sensible candidate for the paid layer.

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