How it works
Every number on this site has a named source. This page says which, and how fresh it is.
MOT history
The DVSA MOT history API. When you enter a registration we make one live call to DVSA and show what comes back: every test since the digital record began in 2005, the result, the odometer reading, the expiry date and the defects the tester typed in, word for word. Tests in Northern Ireland come through the same API from DVA, and heavy vehicle annual tests from DVSA’s commercial vehicle service.
The recall flag is DVSA’s own: it says whether the manufacturer has an outstanding safety recall that hasn’t been actioned on that vehicle.
We don’t store the results. Refresh the page and it’s fetched again.
Tax status
Not on reports yet. Tax status, and V5C details such as CO2 and Euro status, come from the DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service, and we’re still waiting on DVLA for access. Until then the tax card on a report links to GOV.UK’s free check vehicle tax service, which has the answer. The make, colour, fuel and engine size on a report come from the DVSA record. Neither agency releases keeper names or addresses through these services, and we don’t either.
MOT test stations
DVSA’s register of active MOT test stations, published on GOV.UK under the Open Government Licence v3.0 and refreshed every 3 months. The copy on this site is the 30 Sep 2026 release, downloaded 11 Oct 2026, with 22,988 stations. It covers England, Scotland and Wales; Northern Ireland tests through DVA centres, which aren’t in the register.
Each station’s coordinates come from postcodes.io (ONS postcode centroids). Distances are straight-line to the postcode, so treat them as a guide. A handful of stations sit on postcodes that have since been retired; for those we use the centre of the outward code.
Vehicle recalls
Two sources. The vehicle-level flag (outstanding recall: yes, no, unknown) comes back with the MOT history from DVSA’s recalls service. The campaign list is DVSA’s full recalls register, check-vehicle-recalls.service.gov.uk, every recall since 1992 under the Open Government Licence. Our copy is dated 6 Sep 2026 and holds 8,954 recalls. We tidy the manufacturer name (DVSA lists Mercedes under several legal entities) and leave the recall text as published. Matching a vehicle to campaigns uses model name and build window, so the flag is the answer for your car; the list is context.
ULEZ and Clean Air Zone status
The rules are Transport for London’s: petrol Euro 4, diesel Euro 6, motorcycles Euro 3, electric always in. We apply TfL’s own registration-date rule of thumb (petrol from 2006, diesel cars from September 2015, diesel vans from September 2016, motorcycles from August 2007) to the fuel type and first-registration date in the DVSA record, and label the result “likely”. The V5C and TfL’s checker are the final word.
Reading the plate
The region letters, age identifier rule and older formats are from DVLA’s INF104 leaflet on registration numbers. This tells you when and roughly where a plate was issued, which is not always when the car was built: cherished transfers are common.
Driver guides
The licence code tables are copied word for word from GOV.UK’s driving licence codes and penalty points pages. The speed awareness bands are the NPCC’s 2025 Speed Enforcement Disposal Guidance; the course facts are UKROEd’s own pages, with the 2026 fee example from a county council provider page. Each guide names its sources and the date they were read at the bottom.
Tyre sizes
There is no public-sector source for original-equipment tyre fitment. The specialist databases (DriveRightData, UK Vehicle Data and others) license it from manufacturers. We haven’t signed one up, so the tyre page is a guide to finding the size on the car rather than a lookup by registration.
What we keep
Registrations you search are sent to DVSA and DVLA to answer your query, in line with their API terms. We don’t keep a log of who searched what. Standard server logs record IP address and time for security and are purged. See the privacy page.
Who runs this
My MOT Checker is built and run by James Burfield, an SEO consultant based in Radstock, near Bath, who builds data tools as a sideline. It is independent of DVSA, DVLA and GOV.UK. If something on a report looks wrong, the record to argue with is DVSA’s; if the site itself is wrong, tell me.
Page last reviewed 11 Oct 2026.