How many new VIN prefixes NHTSA adds each year

NHTSA's catalog has gained between 449 and 534 new manufacturer codes a year since 2022, three- and six-character together. The busiest year on record is 2017, with 2,835. In 2026, up to the October release, 316 codes were added, most of them for trailers and low-speed vehicles.

Codes added per year

The dates come from the catalog's own record of when each code was entered. Codes that existed before vPIC was set up all carry dates from 2015, when the catalog was loaded, so the series starts in 2016. Earlier assignment dates are not in the data, and this site does not give a year of first use for those older codes.

Who is registering

In 2025, 357 of the new codes were for trailers and 38 for low-speed vehicles. Low-speed vehicles are a growing share: 27 new codes in 2016 against 38 in 2025. New three-character codes in 2026 split into 33 for trailers, 13 for low-speed vehicles, 9 for motorcycles and 3 for incomplete vehicles (chassis).

The latest three-character codes

Decoding rules for a recent code are often short, and a code gets its own page on this site only once its rules name at least five models across four model years.

Where to look up a new code

The VIN checker uses the full October 2026 list, including the codes added this year. For a code that is missing, the vehicle may come from a manufacturer that does not report to NHTSA, or the code may be newer than this release.

New codes by vehicle type

Trailers lead every year. Their share of new codes ranged from 73 percent in 2016 to 88 percent in 2018. Passenger-car codes are rare by comparison, a handful a year, as the table shows.

From new code to decodable VIN

Of the 1,784 three-character codes added since 2016, 1,757 already have decoding rules, and 104 name enough models across enough years to have a page on this site. The others can be looked up in the VIN checker, which reports the holder, vehicle type and country even when no rules exist yet.

Additions arrive throughout the year rather than in batches. Since January 2025 the busiest month was February 2025, with 12 new three-character codes; the quietest months saw only 2.

Peaks and troughs

The series is far from smooth. More than three times as many codes were added in 2017 as in 2016 (2,835 against 850), 83 percent of them six-character codes. Two years later the count fell to 334 in 2019, the lowest full year of the series, before settling between 449 and 534 a year from 2021 to 2025.

Motorcycle codes follow their own rhythm: 86 new ones in 2016, 29 in 2021 and 28 in 2025. The 2026 figures run only to the October 17 release, so they cover about nine and a half months. Over the ten full years from 2016 to 2025, an average of 818 codes were added per year.

New passenger-car codes

Since January 2024, 12 three-character codes for passenger cars have been added, the latest for Mercedes-Benz AG in May 2026. Of all three-character codes added in 2026, 19 are registered in the United States and 5 in Mexico. Each new code appears on the hub for its country and vehicle class as soon as it is in the catalog; the eight most recent also appear on the home page.

Low-speed vehicles stand out in the 2026 figures: 37 new codes by mid-October, against 38 in the whole of 2025, so the count is already within one of last year's total. Trailers, by contrast, reached 244 against 357, about 68 percent of the 2025 figure. Both comparisons set part of a year against a full one.

Where the newest holders are registered

Since January 2024, 278 three-character codes have been added. The United States accounts for 93 of them, 33 percent, and 98 have no country recorded. The remaining 87 are spread over 20 other countries, led by China.

The 2015 starting point

The catalog's own dates begin with a large block: 1,379 three-character and 3,138 six-character codes carry 2015 dates. Together that is 35 percent of all codes in the October 2026 release. Those records include codes that were in use for decades before, which is why the yearly series on this page starts in 2016 and why code pages show an added date only for codes entered from 2016 on.