VIN or number plate
Enter the 17-character chassis number or the Portuguese number plate.
VIN or license plate Check Before You Buy
Request the vehicle report using the VIN or license plate
For less than the cost of a tank of fuel, you find out whether the car you want to buy is worth the investment or a fraud hiding thousands of euros in losses. In official partnership with carVertical, AUTO.MOTO.pt helps you filter out the bad deals before you sign the contract. Protect your investment and run the VIN or license plate check before you pay the deposit.
−20%off the full report with the promo code AUTOMOTOPT
Protect your money before you pay the deposit
Most used-car fraud is only visible in the vehicle history. In under a minute you know what you are dealing with:
- Clocked mileage: Avoid paying the price of a car that is no longer worth that money.
- Hidden damage: The repair bill lands on you after the purchase.
- Theft, liens or ownership reservations: You can lose both the car and the money.
- A car brought in from abroad: Its foreign history does not appear in Portuguese registries.
VIN or license plate check
Enter the VIN (17 characters) or the Portuguese license plate and get the full vehicle history report.
Tip: Use the code AUTOMOTOPT and save 20% on the full report.
Report in about 40 seconds with access to more than 1000 international databases.
In partnership with carVertical. auto.moto.pt may earn a commission on purchases made through this page.
How the check works
Over 1000 databases
The history is gathered from national and international records.
Report in ~40 seconds
You get the full document, ready to read, before you pay a deposit.
Falsified mileage in Portugal: the real numbers
+26.3%more paid for a car with falsified mileage, on average
2.2%of the cars analysed in Portugal had been clocked
70,694 kmis the average discrepancy found in those cases
4.6%of the diesels analysed — the fuel that leads the cases
Odometer fraud is not a technical detail: it is money leaving your pocket at the moment of purchase. According to a European Parliament study, buyers of used cars with falsified mileage pay on average 26.3% more than the vehicle is actually worth.
Run the numbers on your own case: On a car advertised at €15,000, that gap is around €3,900 — dozens of times the price of a history report. The same study estimates that vehicles with falsified mileage cost European consumers between €1.31 and €8.77 billion every year.
And the damage does not stop at the purchase: a car carrying 70,000 more kilometres than it shows needs servicing sooner, has more worn components and is worth less when you come to resell it.
This is not a problem imported from other markets. According to a carVertical study carried out in Portugal, 2.2% of the cars analysed had falsified mileage, with an average deviation of 70,694 km — close to three years of driving wiped from the dashboard.
Diesel engines lead the falsified-mileage cases in Portugal, at 4.6% of analysed vehicles, followed by petrol cars at 3.6%.
There is one more warning sign worth knowing: cars with damage records are 1.7 times more likely to have a clocked odometer (5.9% against 3.5% for vehicles without damage). Whoever hides a crash tends to hide the kilometres too.
Clues to watch for in the ad and during the viewing:
Wear that does not add up: Steering wheel, pedals or driver’s seat worn out on a car with low declared mileage.A service history with gaps: A maintenance book that is incomplete or "lost".An unusual yearly average: Roughly 15,000 to 20,000 km a year is normal in Portugal.An evasive seller: Reluctance to share the VIN, the previous plate or the country of origin.
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What you get in the history report
The report gathers, in a single document, everything the seller is not required to tell you. It is built from more than 1000 international databases and is ready about 40 seconds after the VIN check.
Mileage records over the years
Declared accidents and damage
Theft records
Previous owners
Factory specification
Market price estimate
- Mileage readings recorded over the years: A detailed timeline and the dashboard jumps that expose a clocked odometer.
- Declared accidents and damage: With photographs whenever the records hold them.
- Theft records: From national and international databases.
- Number of previous owners: And how long each one kept the vehicle.
- Factory specifications and equipment: To confirm the car is what the ad claims.
- Market price valuation: To know whether the asking price makes sense.
Reading it is simple: Start with the mileage timeline, confirm the readings only ever go up, and match each record against the documents the seller showed you. Then look at the declared damage and ask yourself whether the asking price already accounts for those repairs. All of it for less than the cost of losing a deposit or paying for a repair that was never yours.
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Cars imported from abroad: the history Portuguese registries cannot show
A large share of the used cars on Portuguese roads were imported — mostly from France and Germany. And here is the problem almost nobody explains: the IMT, the ASF and the vehicle registry only know the Portuguese chapter of the car’s life.
If the vehicle crashed, burned, was written off or had its mileage falsified before entering Portugal, none of that appears in any national search. The car arrives with a new plate and a clean past on paper.
The VIN is the only identifier that follows a vehicle from the factory, in any country. That is why the VIN check is essential when the ad says "imported", when the car has few declared owners but high mileage, or when the plate is recent and the model is not.
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Free checks vs paid report: what each one shows
Before paying for anything, use what is free. The catch is that the official Portuguese services answer different questions from the ones that matter when you are about to buy a used car.
| Service | What it shows | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| IMT | Mandatory inspection dates and alerts linked to the vehicle. | Free |
| ASF ("Tem Seguro?") | Whether the vehicle has valid insurance, and its insurance history. | Free |
| IRN (permanent certificate) | Owners, liens, mortgages and ownership reservations. | €10–17 |
| IMT (inspection report) | Detailed history of inspections carried out. | €27–30 |
| carVertical (via AUTO.MOTO.pt) | Full international history: damage, accidents, clocked mileage, theft, photos. | Report price, −20% with AUTOMOTOPT |
The practical conclusion: Free checks tell you whether the car is legal today; the history report tells you what happened to the car before it reached you. For a purchase worth thousands, you need both answers.
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Negotiate with evidence in hand
A history report is not only for walking away from a bad deal — it is for closing a good one on better terms.
Documented structural damage, the discovery of a clocked odometer or more owners than declared stop being your suspicions and become facts on the table. With those facts, asking for a lower price is no longer haggling; it is an argument.
Use the data concretely: get a repair quote for the damage the report reveals and put that figure on the table as the basis for the discount. If you detect falsified mileage, you also have a legal argument — selling a vehicle in that condition without declaring it is a misleading commercial practice under Portuguese law.
In practice, a single successful negotiation pays for the report many times over. And when the history comes back clean, you gain the certainty that you can go ahead without second thoughts and a solid argument when you resell the car tomorrow.
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Checking by Portuguese license plate
You cannot always ask for the VIN before seeing the car, and that is fine: the check also works from the Portuguese license plate. Enter the plate, the system identifies the vehicle and returns the report in about 40 seconds.
For domestic vehicles, the plate is enough. For imported cars, insist on the VIN — it is what links the vehicle to the foreign history that a Portuguese plate, issued here, cannot reach.
The best moment to run this check is before the viewing, not after. You arrive already knowing what to ask, you avoid driving out to cars that are not worth your time, and you are not at the mercy of a seller pushing to close the deal the same day. If you are comparing several ads, check them all: the cost of a few reports is trivial next to the value of the purchase.
VIN or license plate check
Report in about 40 seconds with access to more than 1000 international databases.
Where to find the VIN (chassis number)
A VIN always has 17 characters made of capital letters and digits. If you are looking at the car in person or have the documents at hand, you will find it in one of these places:
- 1In field E of the registration certificate (DUA): The fastest and most reliable source.
- 2At the base of the windscreen: On the driver’s side, visible from outside.
- 3On the driver’s door pillar or sill: On a plate or sticker.
- 4In the engine bay: Or near the spare wheel, depending on the make.
- 5On motorcycles: Stamped into the frame, usually near the steering head.
If you do not have access to the car yet, start with the license plate: it is enough to begin the check.
Frequently asked questions about the VIN check
The report is paid and carVertical shows the price before you confirm the purchase. The AUTOMOTOPT code gives 20% off and is entered in the promo code field during checkout on the carVertical website.
There are free official checks in Portugal: the IMT shows inspection dates and alerts, and the ASF lets you confirm insurance. The international report covering damage, falsified-mileage data and theft records is paid — and that difference is what pays off before a purchase.
Yes. The check accepts a Portuguese license plate or a VIN. For imported vehicles the VIN is more reliable, because it is the only identifier that follows the car from the factory and links it to its history in other countries.
It is the vehicle identification number, 17 characters long. You will find it in field E of the registration certificate (DUA), at the base of the windscreen on the driver’s side, on the driver’s door pillar and, on motorcycles, stamped into the frame.
Yes. The VIN check covers cars, motorcycles, vans and light commercial models. The procedure is exactly the same: enter the VIN or the license plate and receive the history report.
They answer different questions. The IRN permanent certificate confirms the legal situation in Portugal — owners, liens and ownership reservations. The carVertical report shows the vehicle’s past, including damage, whether the odometer has been clocked, and foreign records. Anyone buying an imported car needs both.
Last updated: 2026-07-30
Check before you sign
A few euros now can save you thousands later. Enter the VIN or license plate and see the full history.