The first character of a VIN tells you which region of the world the car came from.
The first three characters together, called the World Manufacturer Identifier, or WMI, tell you exactly who built it and where.

That’s worth understanding before you decode anything else, because the WMI is the only part of a VIN that’s assigned by an outside authority. The rest is up to the manufacturer.
The WMI is registered with the Society of Automotive Engineers and cross-referenced with NHTSA’s vPIC database.

If you want to understand what the other 14 characters mean, read the full breakdown in how to read a VIN number.

---

How the WMI works

Position 1 is a region code. Position 2 narrows it to a country. Position 3 identifies the specific manufacturer within that country.

A few examples:

1 = United States
2 = Canada
3 = Mexico
J = Japan
K = South Korea
L = China
S = United Kingdom
V = France
W = Germany
Z = Italy
9 = Brazil / Argentina

That’s the region layer. The country gets more specific from there.

---

North America

1AA–1FZ — General Motors (US)
1FA–1FZ — Ford Motor Company (US)
1C3–1C9 — Chrysler (US)
1HG — Honda (US-assembled)
1N4 — Nissan (US-assembled)
1VW — Volkswagen (US-assembled, Chattanooga)
2HG — Honda (Canada)
2T1 — Toyota (Canada)
3VW — Volkswagen (Mexico)
3FA — Ford (Mexico)

One thing that confuses people: a car branded as Japanese isn’t necessarily a Japanese VIN.
A Honda Accord built in Marysville, Ohio starts with 1HG, not a J. The WMI reflects where the vehicle was assembled, not where the brand is headquartered. If that distinction matters to you, and for some buyers it does, the assembly plant is also encoded in position 11 of the VIN.

---

Europe

WAU, WBA, WBS, WBY: BMW and Audi variants (Germany)
WDB, WDC, WDD: Mercedes-Benz (Germany)
WP0, WP1: Porsche (Germany)
VF1, VF3: Renault (France)
VNE, VNK: Toyota (France, Turkey)
SAL, SAJ: Land Rover, Jaguar (UK)
SCA, SCB: Rolls-Royce, Bentley (UK)
ZAR: Alfa Romeo (Italy)
ZFF: Ferrari (Italy)
ZLA: Lancia (Italy)

European WMI codes are less consistent than North American ones because several manufacturers have moved production around over the decades. A MINI assembled in Oxford starts with SAR; the same model built in the Netherlands starts with VF3. That’s not a mistake in the VIN, it just reflects where the car was actually built.

---

Japan and South Korea

JHM: Honda (Japan)
JT2, JT3, JTD: Toyota (Japan)
JN1, JN6: Nissan (Japan)
JM1: Mazda (Japan)
JS1, JS2, JS3: Suzuki, Subaru (Japan, depending on digit 2)
KL4, KL7: Daewoo, Chevrolet Korea (South Korea)
KMH, KMF: Hyundai (South Korea)
KNA, KND: Kia (South Korea)

---

Small-volume manufacturers

If the third character of a WMI is 9, the manufacturer produces fewer than 500 vehicles per year. For these low-volume builders, positions 12 through 14 of the VIN serve as the second half of the WMI — giving them a unique identifier despite the compressed namespace.

This applies to kit car builders, specialty manufacturers, and some rare exotics. If you’re looking at a VIN starting with something like SCC (McLaren) or ZHW (Lamborghini models made in small batches), the volume rules may apply.

---

When the WMI doesn’t match what you expect

A few situations where the WMI surprises people:

Rebadged vehicles. A Chevrolet Colorado and a GMC Canyon share a platform but will have different WMIs if built in different plants or in different years.

Captive imports. Some vehicles sold under an American brand were assembled overseas. The WMI will reflect the actual build location, not the badge.

Re-exported vehicles. A Japanese domestic market car brought to the US will have a J-region WMI and may not decode fully in NHTSA’s database, since Japanese manufacturers don’t always register JDM-spec VINs with American authorities.

If you’re checking a vehicle’s history and the WMI doesn’t match the badge, that’s worth investigating. It’s usually just a globalized supply chain, but sometimes it flags a grey-market import or a title that doesn’t match the physical car. For anything involving title history, a full vehicle history report will catch what a decoder can’t.

---

FAQs

What does the first character of a VIN mean?
It identifies the geographic region where the vehicle was built. “1” is the United States, “J” is Japan, “W” is Germany, and so on.

Can two cars have the same WMI?
No. Each WMI is unique to one manufacturer at one production location. A Toyota built in Kentucky and a Toyota built in Japan will have different WMIs.

What if I can’t find my WMI code in any list?
Decode the full VIN at VinDecoderPlus. The database pulls directly from NHTSA’s registered manufacturer records, so it’ll identify codes that aren’t in any static list.