Bulk VIN Decoder with NHTSA Recalls

rowType	vehicle
inputIndex	1
vin	1HGCM82633A004352

How to use it: 3 steps

Make a free Apify accountApify is the cloud platform where our tools run. The free plan gives you $5 of usage every month, no credit card needed. You pay Apify, not us.
Paste your input and press StartNo code needed: you fill in a form (the input). It already has a working example. For example: 1HGCM82633A004352 in VINs. Each start is one run.
Download the resultsWhen the run ends, the results are in a table (the dataset). Open Output, press Export and pick Excel or CSV. JSON and the API are there too.

This tool is an Apify Actor: a small program that runs on Apify. You can also run it on a schedule, for example every Monday. New to it? Read how it works, step by step and the 8 words you need first.

Made by Cliqto Media, an independent digital media company. We made this tool and keep it working. About us

What it does

VIN Decoder & Vehicle Recalls turns a list of VINs into clean vehicle rows with official NHTSA vPIC data: make, model, model year, trim, body, engine, fuel, drive and assembly plant. For each make, model and year it also lists the NHTSA recall campaigns, with component, summary, consequence, remedy and report date.

complete — vPIC decoded the VIN with no warnings (vPIC error code 0).
partial — the vehicle is known, but vPIC reported a problem, for example a wrong check digit (code 1) or an incomplete VIN with * (code 6). The decoded fields are still filled.
invalid — vPIC could not find the make or the model year, or the value is not a VIN. The row says why (decodeError, errorText) and may have a fix in suggestedVin. It costs $0.0001.

Good for

Decode a fleet, inventory or lead list of up to 500 VINs in one run.
Find which NHTSA recall campaigns exist for the models in your list.
Clean VIN columns: find typos, wrong check digits and values that are not VINs.

Not a good fit

This is not a VIN history report: no owners, accidents, title or mileage.
It does not tell you whether a recall applies to one exact VIN, or whether the repair was done. Recalls are listed for the make, model and year. Check one VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls or with the manufacturer.
vPIC covers vehicles sold in the United States. Other VINs may come back partial or invalid.

Who uses it

Fleet managers

Decode the whole fleet list in one run.

Car dealers

Check recall campaigns for the models you sell.

Data teams

Clean a VIN column before you import it.

Price

Pay per event: you pay for each result the tool saves, plus a small start fee for each run. The price includes Apify platform costs. Apify bills you, not us. Prices below are for the Apify free plan.

What you pay for	Price	When
Start fee	$0.002	Charged once per run. This tool uses 1 GB of memory or less by default; more memory costs more.
Vehicle decoded	$0.0014 (from $0.0012 on paid Apify plans)	One VIN decoded with status complete or partial. Rows that failed because NHTSA was unavailable are free.
Recall record	$0.0001	One recall campaign row for a decoded vehicle.
Invalid VIN checked	$0.0001	One value that vPIC could not decode, with the reason and a suggested fix when vPIC has one.

Examples

One VIN: about $0.0034.
1,000 VINs: about $1.40 (2 runs of up to 500).
Every day 100 VINs, for 30 days: about $4.26 a month.
500 VINs once a week (4 runs a month): about $2.81 a month.

Free to try: the Apify free plan gives you $5 of usage every month, no credit card needed. That is enough for about 3,500 VINs.

Prices checked on 24 October 2026. See the current price on Apify.

Questions

Is this a vehicle history report?

No. You get no owners, accidents, title or mileage.

Does it say if a recall applies to my exact car?

No. Recalls are listed by make, model and year, not by one VIN.

How many VINs can I decode at once?

Up to 500 VINs per run.

Do I need an NHTSA key?

No. Both NHTSA APIs are public.

Does it tell me if the recall repair was done?

No. NHTSA's public recall API does not have repair status per VIN.

Why are recalls in a separate dataset?

Vehicles and recalls have different columns. Two datasets give two clean tables. Join them by vin and appliesToVins, or by make, model and modelYear.

Is the output in my input order?

Rows are written in groups. Sort by inputIndex to get your order back.

Details

Step by step on Apify

Open the Input tab.
Keep the three example VINs in VINs (vins) or paste your own, one per line.
Keep Include NHTSA recalls on.
Click Start.
Open the Output tab. Vehicles has one row per VIN. Recalls has the recall campaigns.

Use cases

Task	Input	You get	Key fields
Decode a fleet or dealer inventory	`vins`	Vehicles	`make`, `model`, `modelYear`, `trim`, `bodyClass`, `fuelTypePrimary`
See open safety campaigns for the models you own or sell	`vins`, `includeRecalls: true`	Recalls	`nhtsaCampaignNumber`, `component`, `consequence`, `remedy`, `appliesToVins`
Clean a VIN column before import	`vins`, `includeRecalls: false`	Vehicles	`decodeStatus`, `checkDigitValid`, `errorCodes`, `suggestedVin`
Plan EV or fuel analytics	`vins`	Vehicles	`electrificationLevel`, `fuelTypePrimary`, `engineCylinders`, `displacementL`

Tips for better results

Sort by input index to get your original order back.
Check the suggested VIN column for possible typo fixes.
Join vehicles and recalls by VIN, or by make, model and year.

Limits and good to know

Up to 500 VINs per run. Time depends mostly on the number of unique make/model/year groups: one recall request per group. In our tests 500 VINs of 92 groups finished in about 60 seconds with 256 MB of memory. For more VINs, start several runs
The Actor waits at least 0.3 seconds between requests to NHTSA and retries a few times on errors. It stops source work after 240 seconds, keeps the rows it has and ends with status CAPPED or PARTIAL in RUN_SUMMARY
NHTSA data can change at any time. Each row has fetchedAt

For developers

Sample result

One result from a real test run, in JSON. Real values change from run to run. In Excel or CSV each field is a column.

one result · JSON

{
  "rowType": "vehicle",
  "inputIndex": 1,
  "vin": "1HGCM82633A004352",
  "decodeStatus": "complete",
  "errorCodes": ["0"],
  "checkDigitValid": true,
  "make": "HONDA",
  "model": "Accord",
  "modelYear": 2003,
  "trim": "EX-V6",
  "bodyClass": "Coupe",
  "vehicleType": "PASSENGER CAR",
  "engineCylinders": 6,
  "displacementL": 3,
  "engineHp": 240,
  "fuelTypePrimary": "Gasoline",
  "electrificationLevel": null,
  "driveType": null,
  "plantCity": "MARYSVILLE",
  "plantCountry": "UNITED STATES (USA)",
  "recallLookupStatus": "found",
  "recallCount": 24,
  "recallCampaignNumbers": ["19V182000", "19E068000", "19V499000"],
  "note": "Recalls are listed for the make/model/year, not confirmed for this VIN. Check the VIN at https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls.",
  "provider": "NHTSA vPIC",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-11T06:18:26.048Z"
}

Use it from code

Actor ID: cliqtomedia/vin-decoder-vehicle-recalls. You need your Apify API token from Apify Console → Settings → API & Integrations.

Python · apify-client

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("cliqtomedia/vin-decoder-vehicle-recalls").call(run_input={
    "vins": [
        "1HGCM82633A004352",
        "5YJ3E1EA6PF384836",
        "5UXWX7C5*BA"
    ],
    "includeRecalls": True
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/cliqtomedia~vin-decoder-vehicle-recalls/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"vins": ["1HGCM82633A004352", "5YJ3E1EA6PF384836", "5UXWX7C5*BA"], "includeRecalls": true}'

LangChain · langchain-apify

# pip install langchain-apify
# set APIFY_TOKEN in your environment
from langchain_apify import ApifyActorsTool

tool = ApifyActorsTool("cliqtomedia/vin-decoder-vehicle-recalls")
result = tool.invoke({"run_input": {"vins": ["1HGCM82633A004352", "5YJ3E1EA6PF384836", "5UXWX7C5*BA"], "includeRecalls": True}})
print(result)

The cURL call waits for the results, up to 300 seconds. For longer runs, start a run (/runs) and get the results with a webhook or by checking the run. Apify API docs. LlamaIndex, MCP for AI agents and the JavaScript client: AI agents & MCP.

Data fields (40)

Field	Type	Meaning
`rowType`	string	Always vehicle in this dataset.
`inputIndex`	integer	Position of the VIN in your input (1-based, after removing duplicates). Sort by it to restore input order.
`inputVin`	string	The value as you entered it (trimmed, max 40 characters).
`vin`	string	Normalized VIN (uppercase, spaces and dashes removed). * marks an unknown position.
`decodeStatus`	string	Complete (vPIC ErrorCode 0), partial (vehicle identified but vPIC reported a problem: incomplete VIN, wrong check digit, missing data), invalid (vPIC could not identify make or model year, or the value is not a VIN), error (vPIC unavailable; the row is free).
`decodeError`	string	Why the VIN was not decoded (invalid input or source error code), null otherwise.
`errorCodes`	array	VPIC ErrorCode values, e.g. ["0"] clean, ["1"] check digit, ["6"] incomplete VIN, ["5","14"].
`errorText`	string	VPIC ErrorText explaining the codes.
`additionalErrorText`	string	VPIC AdditionalErrorText, e.g. a model-year warning.
`checkDigitValid`	boolean	Local check of the 9th-position check digit (North American VINs); null for incomplete VINs.
`make`	string	Make, e.g. HONDA.
`manufacturer`	string	Manufacturer name from vPIC.
`model`	string	Model, e.g. Accord.
`modelYear`	integer	Model year.
`trim`	string	Trim from vPIC.
`series`	string	Series from vPIC.
`bodyClass`	string	Body class, e.g. Sedan/Saloon, Coupe, Pickup.
`vehicleType`	string	Vehicle type, e.g. PASSENGER CAR, TRUCK, MULTIPURPOSE PASSENGER VEHICLE (MPV).
`doors`	integer	Number of doors.
`engineCylinders`	integer	Engine cylinders.
`displacementL`	number	Engine displacement in litres (1 decimal).
`engineHp`	number	Engine power in horsepower, when vPIC has it.
`engineModel`	string	Engine model code.
`fuelTypePrimary`	string	Primary fuel type, e.g. Gasoline, Electric, Diesel.
`fuelTypeSecondary`	string	Secondary fuel type (hybrids, flex fuel).
`electrificationLevel`	string	Electrification level, e.g. BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle), HEV.
`driveType`	string	Drive type, e.g. AWD, 4WD, FWD.
`transmissionStyle`	string	Transmission style.
`gvwr`	string	Gross vehicle weight rating class.
`plantCity`	string	Assembly plant city.
`plantState`	string	Assembly plant state or province.
`plantCountry`	string	Assembly plant country.
`plantCompanyName`	string	Assembly plant company name.
`suggestedVin`	string	VPIC suggestion when positions are wrong; ! marks the error positions.
`possibleValues`	string	VPIC possible values for the wrong positions, e.g. (5:BFGKRT).
`recallLookupStatus`	string	Found (recalls listed for this make/model/year), none_reported (in the index, 0 recalls), candidates_found (the decoded model is not in the recall index under this name; recalls are from similar NHTSA model names, see recallModelCandidates), not_in_recall_index (NHTSA has no recalls under this name; this does NOT prove there are none), skipped_incomplete_decode, not_requested, error (Recalls API failed; never shown as 0 recalls).
`recallLookupError`	string	Why the recall lookup failed or was skipped by a source error, null otherwise.
`recallCount`	integer	Number of distinct recall campaigns listed for this make/model/year (or its candidate models); null when not looked up, failed or not in the index.
`recallCampaignNumbers`	array	NHTSA campaign numbers listed for this make/model/year. Not a confirmation that this VIN is affected.
`recallModelCandidates`	array	NHTSA recall-index model names that may match the decoded model, e.g. SILVERADO 1500 for Silverado.

Input settings (3)

The main fields of the input form. With the API you send them as JSON.

Setting	Name in the API	Type	Example value
VINs required	`vins`	array	`["1HGCM82633A004352", "5YJ3E1EA6PF384836", "5UXWX7C5*BA"]`
Include NHTSA recalls	`includeRecalls`	boolean	`true`
Try NHTSA model names	`matchCandidateModels`	boolean	`true`

VIN Decoder and Vehicle Recalls

How to use it: 3 steps

What it does

Good for

Not a good fit

Who uses it

Fleet managers

Car dealers

Data teams

Price

Examples

Questions

Details

For developers

Sample result

Use it from code

Start on Apify

VIN Decoder and Vehicle Recalls

How to use it: 3 steps

What it does

Good for

Not a good fit

Who uses it

Fleet managers

Car dealers

Data teams

Price

Examples

Questions

Details

For developers

Sample result

Use it from code

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Start on Apify