Vehicle Recall & Safety Checker

Check recalls & safety ratings

Enter a make, model and year, or a VIN, for NHTSA recall campaigns and the NCAP crash-test rating. Works for any US-market vehicle — free.

The VIN is on the driver-side dashboard (seen through the windshield), the door-jamb sticker and your registration.

Model-year results, not a repair check. Recalls issued for this vehicle's make/model/year. VehDB can't see whether a recall was repaired on this VIN — check nhtsa.gov/recalls or a dealer.

Data live from NHTSA (recalls & NCAP), the official US source. Need it in your app? See the Recalls & Safety API or decode a VIN first.

Is my car recalled? Run a free NHTSA recall check

A safety recall means the manufacturer or NHTSA found a defect that could put you at risk — and the fix is almost always free at the dealer. Enter your vehicle's make, model and year above to see open recall campaigns and the official NCAP crash-test safety rating, pulled live from NHTSA. No signup, no cost, any US-market vehicle.

1

Enter your vehicle

Type the make, model and year, or paste the VIN and we decode it to the make, model and year for you.

2

We query NHTSA

We pull open recall campaigns and the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) crash-test ratings in real time.

3

See the results

Read each recall — the affected component, the safety risk and the manufacturer's remedy — plus the star safety rating.

What the safety check covers

Open recall campaigns

Active NHTSA recall campaigns for your make, model and year, including the campaign number and affected component.

The safety risk & remedy

Each recall explains what can go wrong and how the manufacturer fixes it — usually a free repair at a franchised dealer.

NCAP crash-test ratings

The official 5-star overall rating plus frontal, side and rollover scores from NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program.

Live, authoritative data

Everything comes straight from NHTSA, the US government safety regulator — not a cached or third-party copy.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check if my car has been recalled?

Enter your vehicle's make, model and year above. We query NHTSA in real time and list any open recall campaigns, including the affected component, the safety risk and the manufacturer's remedy. It's free and takes a few seconds.

Is a recall check free, and do I need an account?

It's completely free with no signup, email or payment. Enter the make, model and year, or a VIN. A VIN shows the recalls issued for its make, model and year; to confirm whether a recall is still open on that exact vehicle, enter the VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls or ask a dealer.

What is an NCAP safety rating?

NCAP is NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program. It crash-tests vehicles and publishes a 5-star rating — an overall score plus separate frontal, side and rollover scores. More stars mean better measured protection in a crash.

Does a recall cost me anything to fix?

No. By law, manufacturers must repair safety recalls at no charge to the owner. Contact a franchised dealer for your brand with the campaign number shown in the results to schedule the free fix.

Which vehicles and regions are covered?

Recalls and safety ratings come from NHTSA, so coverage is for US-market vehicles. Most makes, models and model years sold in the United States are included.

No recalls showed up — am I safe?

No open recalls means none are currently listed for that make, model and year. New campaigns are announced over time, so it's worth re-checking periodically. If nothing appears, also confirm the spelling and try a nearby model year.

Related tools: VIN decoder, Vehicle Recalls API and North America vehicle data.

Need recall checks in your app?

The same NHTSA recall lookup is a REST endpoint and an MCP tool. Check a whole fleet, or let an AI agent answer recall questions with live data.

  • GET /v1/cars/{uuid}/recalls: campaigns, component, risk and remedy
  • GET /v1/vin/{vin}/recalls: the campaigns for a VIN's make, model and year
  • GET /v1/lists/recalls: recall exposure across every vehicle you saved
  • MCP tool recalls_for_vehicle for Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT
  • Free plan includes 100 API calls a month, no card required

Need more calls? See pricing.

# Recalls for a car
GET /v1/cars/{uuid}/recalls
# Every saved vehicle at once
GET /v1/lists/recalls
# Or ask your AI agent (MCP)
tool recalls_for_vehicle(make="Honda", model="CR-V", year=2023)