Which countries hold the most VIN prefixes

The United States holds by far the most VIN prefixes in NHTSA's catalog: 1,895 of the 3,163 three-character WMIs, 60 percent, plus 8,409 six-character codes. China comes second with 213, ahead of Canada (166), Mexico (150), Japan (86) and Germany (63). The catalog covers manufacturers that report to NHTSA, so these counts describe the US market, not world production.

The ranking

What the country means

NHTSA records a country for the company that holds each code. That is usually where the company is based or where it builds, but it is not a statement about every vehicle. The decoding rules behind a code separately list plant countries, and those can differ: 1HG, registered in the United States, has rules naming plants in the United States, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and Mexico.

Different countries, different vehicles

The mix of vehicle types differs sharply. Trailers make up 67 percent of the American three-character codes. Among Chinese codes, motorcycles lead at 71 percent. Passenger cars account for 28 percent of Japanese codes and 32 percent of German ones.

In Canada the largest holders are FCA Canada Inc. (35 codes), General Motors LLC (15 codes) and Ford Motor Company of Canada, Ltd. (12 codes); in Mexico they are Chrysler de Mexico Toluca (34 codes), Ford Motor Company, Mexico (10 codes) and General Motors LLC (10 codes).

How the first character lines up

Most countries use one or two first characters. Japan's codes start with J in 97 percent of cases and Germany's start with W in 95 percent. China uses L most often, with H and R as well. Hong Kong's 35 codes start with R. Each country page lists every code with its holder.

Smaller producers

Below the top six, 13 countries hold between 5 and 14 three-character codes each, among them Thailand, Brazil, France, Sweden, Vietnam and Australia. In Sweden, 6 of the 10 codes belong to Volvo companies, among them Volvo Car Corporation.

Registration country against plant country

Counting plant countries instead of registration gives a different picture. The decoding rules name plants in 73 countries, and the United States appears in the rules of 2,388 three-character codes. Every one of the 12 most-named plant countries appears in more codes' plant lists than there are codes registered there. Austria is the extreme case: 139 codes name a plant there, while 1 is registered there.

Europe's main registrants

In Germany the largest holders are Mercedes-Benz AG (14 codes), BMW AG (10 codes) and Mercedes-Benz Cars (5 codes). In Italy they are Maserati S.p.A. (3 codes), Alfa Romeo S.p.A. (2 codes) and Ferrari S.p.A. (2 codes), and in the United Kingdom Jaguar Land Rover Limited (3 codes), Triumph Motorcycles Limited (2 codes) and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars (2 codes). These lists count codes, not vehicles: a holder with many codes is not necessarily the largest producer, only the one that registered the most identifiers with NHTSA.

Codes without a country

Not every code can be placed. In total, 1,247 codes in the catalog have no country recorded for their holder, 279 of them three-character codes. They are left out of the ranking above rather than assigned to a country from their first character, so each country's count is a floor: a few more codes may belong to its holders. The country pages on this site follow the same rule and list only codes with a recorded country.

Canada and Mexico line up neatly with their characters: 164 of Canada's 166 codes start with 2, and 149 of Mexico's 150 start with 3. American holders use 24 different first characters, more than holders in any other country. Taiwan's 24 codes start with R and L.

A closer look at China

China's 213 three-character codes are the second-largest national group in the catalog. The largest holders are BYD Auto Industry Company Limited (2 codes), Zhejiang Tianying Locomotive Co., Ltd (2 codes) and Shanghai General Motors Corp Ltd. (2 codes). The split by vehicle type in the table below shows how far the Chinese codes in NHTSA's catalog lean towards two-wheelers and small vehicles rather than passenger cars.

South Korea is a contrast: only 20 codes, held mainly by Hyundai Motor Co (6 codes) and Kia Corporation (2 codes).