GMC Yukon VIN Decoder

Decode any GMC Yukon VIN free in under three seconds. Type the 17-character vehicle identification number into the decoder above and pull the generation, model year, engine, trim, drivetrain, assembly plant, and open NHTSA recalls. No account, no credit card, no email gate.

This page is the dedicated GMC Yukon hub. Every fact below, generation years, plant locations, WMI codes, and engine codes, was checked against NHTSA’s vPIC decoder using real, checksum-valid Yukon VINs pulled from dealer listings, classic-car sites, and auction platforms spanning 1993 through 2025. Where the record does not line up cleanly, that gets said outright instead of smoothed over with a table that looks tidier than the facts actually are.

About the GMC Yukon

The Yukon debuted for the 1992 model year as a two-door-only SUV, three years before GMC gave it a four-door body in 1995 (the two-door was dropped after 1997). It is the badge-engineered sibling of the Chevrolet Tahoe, built on the same full-size GM SUV platform in the same factories generation after generation. The long-wheelbase version, sold as the “GMC Suburban” through 1999, was renamed Yukon XL starting with the 2000 model year, matching the naming GMC still uses today. The Yukon Denali, added for 1999, was the first vehicle to carry the Denali name, which GMC later extended across the lineup to the Sierra, Acadia, and Terrain.

Generation	Years	Platform	Notes
1st	1992-1999	GMT400	Two-door only through 1994; four-door added 1995; Denali trim added 1999
2nd	2000-2006	GMT800	GMC Suburban renamed Yukon XL
3rd	2007-2014	GMT900	Yukon Hybrid offered 2008-2013 (not independently VIN-verified here)
4th	2015-2020	K2XX
5th	2021-present	T1XX	AT4 off-road trim and 3.0L Duramax diesel added

One structural note that matches its Cadillac Escalade cousin: GMC does not spell a platform name into the VIN. There is no literal “K2XX” or “T1XX” string in a Yukon VIN. The generation has to be inferred from the model year at position 10, covered below.

GMC Yukon WMI codes (positions 1 to 3)

The first three characters of a VIN form the World Manufacturer Identifier. Decoding real Yukon and Yukon XL VINs across every generation turned up exactly two WMIs:

WMI	Country	Plant	What’s confirmed
1GK	USA	Arlington, Texas (all years); Janesville, Wisconsin (through late 2008)	Confirmed on decoded VINs from 1993 through 2025, both Yukon and Yukon XL
3GK	Mexico	Silao, Guanajuato	Confirmed on a decoded 1995 two-door Yukon and on decoded 2003 Yukon XL VINs (1500 and 2500 series)

The 3GK finding is worth stating plainly because it does not match the simpler “USA builds everything, Mexico builds one oddball variant” pattern found on the Escalade. Real decoded VINs show Silao, Mexico built ordinary Yukons in the GMT400 era and Yukon XLs in the GMT800 era, not just a single niche body style. Exactly which model years Silao production started and stopped was not independently confirmed here, so treat “1995 and 2003 confirmed” as the honest boundary of what this research verified, not a claim that Mexican production was limited to only those two years. If your Yukon VIN starts with anything other than 1GK or 3GK, treat it as suspect and run it through the decoder above.

How to read a GMC Yukon VIN: position by position

Every Yukon built since 1992 uses the 17-character ISO 3779 standard.

Positions 1 to 3: World Manufacturer Identifier

See the table above. The first character is the country of assembly (1 = USA, 3 = Mexico), the second identifies General Motors, and the third (K, in both WMIs) identifies the GMC truck/SUV division. The country digit tracks the factory, not where the vehicle was ultimately sold.

Positions 4 to 8: Vehicle Descriptor Section (VDS)

GM has never published a public decode key for these five characters on the Yukon, and like the Escalade, they do not stay fixed across a 30-plus-year production run. Rather than force a clean universal table, here is what decoding real VINs actually returned, in chronological order:

VIN chars (4-8)	Model year	Body / Trim	Verified engine
EK18K	1993	Yukon, base	5.7L V8
EK18K	1994	Yukon	5.7L V8
EK18K	1995	Yukon (Janesville-built)	5.7L V8
EK18S	1995	Yukon SLT (Silao-built)	6.5L turbodiesel V8
EK13R	2000	Yukon, base	5.7L Vortec L31
EC16Z	2003	Yukon XL 1500, 2WD (Silao-built)	5.3L L59
FK16Z	2003	Yukon XL 1500, 4WD (Silao-built)	5.3L L59
GK26G	2003	Yukon XL 2500, 4WD (Silao-built)	8.1L L18
EK13T	2005	Yukon	5.3L LM7
UKCE0	2010	Yukon Denali-adjacent SLT1	5.3L LMG (flex-fuel)
UKEEF	2010	Yukon Denali	6.2L L94 (flex-fuel)
S2CE0	2011	Yukon SLT	5.3L LMG (flex-fuel)
S2EEF	2011	Yukon Denali	6.2L L94 (flex-fuel)
S1AEC	2016	Yukon SLE, RWD	5.3L L83
S1HKJ	2016 and 2018	Yukon XL Denali, RWD	6.2L L86
S2HKJ	2016	Yukon XL Denali, 4WD	6.2L L86
S2GKC	2018	Yukon XL SLT, 4WD	5.3L L83
S2DKL	2021 and 2022	Yukon Denali, 4WD	6.2L L87
S1JKL	2021	Yukon XL Denali, RWD	6.2L L87
S2ERL	2025	Yukon Denali Ultimate, 4WD	6.2L L87
S2DRL	2025	Yukon Denali, 4WD	6.2L L87
S1DR8	2025	Yukon Denali diesel, RWD	3.0L LZ0 turbo-diesel

Two things stand out once you line these up. First, position 8 alone doesn’t tell you the engine; you need the model year too, since the same string can be reused for different hardware in different years (S1HKJ decodes to the same 6.2L Yukon XL Denali combination in both 2016 and 2018, which is stable, but that stability isn’t guaranteed across every code). Second, position 5 lines up with drivetrain every time it was checked here: a “1” in that slot paired with rear-wheel drive or “4×2” in every sample, and a “2” paired with four-wheel drive in every sample, regardless of whether the vehicle was a standard Yukon or a Yukon XL. That is a genuinely useful pattern, but it was derived from the VINs decoded for this page rather than from a published GM key, so treat it as a strong observation, not gospel.

Position 9: Check digit

The check digit catches typos. It’s calculated from the other 16 characters using a fixed weighting formula and modulo-11 math defined in ISO 3779 and SAE J853. Every VIN decoded for this page returned “Check Digit (9th position) is correct” from NHTSA, confirming each one is a genuine VIN rather than a made-up string.

Position 10: Model year

The 10th character maps to model year on a repeating 30-year cycle. Because the Yukon has existed since 1992, its VINs span two cycles that reuse the same letters for different years. Entries marked with an asterisk were confirmed against a real decoded Yukon VIN; the rest follow the same fixed ISO 3779 cycle used industry-wide.
1992-2009 cycle (1st and 2nd generation, and the early 3rd generation):

Char	Year	Char	Year
N	1992	Y	2000*
P	1993*	1	2001
R	1994*	2	2002
S	1995*	3	2003*
T	1996	4	2004
V	1997	5	2005*
W	1998	6	2006
X	1999	7	2007
		8	2008
		9	2009

2010-2026 cycle (3rd generation onward, including every K2XX and T1XX Yukon):

Char	Year	Char	Year
A	2010*	L	2020
B	2011*	M	2021*
C	2012	N	2022*
D	2013	P	2023
E	2014	R	2024
F	2015	S	2025*
G	2016*	T	2026
H	2017
J	2018*
K	2019

The letters I, O, and Q are never used, since they can be misread as 1 and 0. No character repeats within a single 30-year span, so a Yukon VIN never needs the year cycle guessed; the 1st- and 2nd-generation platform tells you it’s the earlier cycle, and anything from the 3rd generation forward reads off the 2010-2026 table.

Position 11: Assembly plant

A single character identifies the specific factory:

Char	Plant	Notes
R	Arlington, Texas	Confirmed on decoded VINs from 2000 through 2025; the plant that also builds the Tahoe, Suburban, and Escalade
J	Janesville, Wisconsin	Confirmed on decoded VINs from 1993 through 2005; this plant closed in December 2008 and stopped building Yukons before that
G	Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico	Confirmed on decoded VINs from 1995 and 2003

Arlington has been GM’s sole full-size SUV plant in the United States since Janesville’s closure, which is why every Yukon decoded here from the K2XX and T1XX generations (2015 onward) came back as Arlington-built.

Positions 12 to 17: Serial number

The final six characters are the sequential production number assigned as your specific Yukon came down the line. Combined with the previous eleven characters, this makes every Yukon VIN globally unique, even two trucks built the same day with the same trim and engine.

Where to find the VIN on a GMC Yukon

• Lower-left corner of the windshield, visible from outside the vehicle
• Driver’s side door jamb sticker (open the door and look at the B-pillar)
• Stamped into the frame rail near the front of the engine bay
• Vehicle title, registration, insurance card, and the myGMC app

The windshield and door jamb labels are the fastest to check on a used-car lot; they should match exactly. The frame stamp is the one to check if you suspect a cloned or re-titled vehicle, since it is physically welded to the chassis and far harder to swap than a sticker. On 1st-generation (GMT400) Yukons, the windshield label may be harder to read on older, sun-faded glass; the door jamb and frame stamp are the more reliable check on a 1990s truck.

Check GMC Yukon recalls and safety information

The Yukon has been the subject of numerous NHTSA recall campaigns over more than three decades of production, including airbag-related recalls affecting various model years, a fire-risk campaign covering certain 2018-2020 GM SUVs and trucks with a faulty start/stop accumulator end cap, and periodic seat belt and steering component campaigns. Recall scope varies significantly by generation and model year, so a single blanket answer is not reliable; the VIN-specific lookup is the only accurate method.

To check your specific Yukon:

1. Decode the VIN with the tool above to confirm the exact model year, engine, and trim
2. Cross-reference the 17-character VIN with NHTSA’s recall database
3. Contact your nearest GMC dealer service department to schedule any open campaign repair

Recall repairs are free of charge regardless of the vehicle’s age, mileage, or ownership history.

Frequently asked questions

How do I decode a GMC Yukon VIN?

Type the 17-character VIN from the windshield, door jamb, or title into the decoder at the top of this page. Results return in under three seconds and include model year, generation, engine, trim, drivetrain, assembly plant, and any open NHTSA recalls. No sign-up required.

Where is the VIN on a GMC Yukon?

The two fastest spots are the lower-left corner of the windshield, readable from outside the vehicle, and the driver-side door jamb sticker. Both are federally required labels. The frame stamp near the engine bay carries the same number and is the one to check if you suspect a title or plate swap.

Is the GMC Yukon built in the same factory as the Chevy Tahoe and Cadillac Escalade?

Yes, largely. Decoded VINs confirm Arlington, Texas has built the Yukon since at least the 2000 model year and is the same plant that builds the Tahoe, Suburban, and Escalade today. Earlier Yukons (1990s through mid-2000s) were also built at GM’s Janesville, Wisconsin plant, which closed in December 2008, and at Silao, Mexico, which decoded VINs confirm built both standard Yukons and Yukon XLs at different points.

What is the difference between a Yukon and a Yukon XL in the VIN?

The two do not carry a separate WMI; both use 1GK (or 3GK for Mexico-built units). The distinction shows up in the Vehicle Descriptor Section at positions 4 to 8, in the specific trim/body code (for example, DKL decoded to standard-wheelbase Yukon Denali, while HKJ and JKL decoded to Yukon XL Denali). There’s no single fixed character position that always means “XL” across every model year, so the safest method is decoding the full VIN rather than reading one character in isolation.

How do I tell the generation of my Yukon from the VIN?

There is no single character that spells out the generation. The most reliable method is to decode position 10 for the model year, then match it to the generation table above: 1992-1999 is 1st gen (GMT400), 2000-2006 is 2nd gen (GMT800), 2007-2014 is 3rd gen (GMT900), 2015-2020 is 4th gen (K2XX), and 2021-present is 5th gen (T1XX).

Is the GMC Yukon VIN decoder really free?

Yes. VinDecoderPlus decodes every GMC Yukon VIN free of charge with no sign-up. The basic decode covers everything the factory encoded into the VIN. A full vehicle history report (accident records, odometer history, prior ownership, salvage status) is available as a paid upgrade if you need it.

Can a GMC Yukon VIN be faked?

The 17 characters can be reprinted on a counterfeit plate, but the check digit at position 9 catches most single-character alterations through math, and the frame stamp is physically welded to the original vehicle. If the windshield and door-jamb VINs match each other but not the frame stamp, the vehicle has likely been cloned. The guide on how to check if a car is stolen by VIN walks through the verification steps.

Decode any GMC Yukon VIN free

Type your 17-character Yukon VIN into the decoder at the top of this page for an instant breakdown. To go deeper into VIN structure or check other GMC models:

• GMC VIN decoder hub for the brand-wide guide
• How to read a VIN number for the general standard
• What every character in a VIN means for a position-by-position reference
• Classic car VIN decoder for pre-1981 formats and older GM trucks
• VIN decoder vs. vehicle history report for what a decode covers versus what it doesn’t
• How to check if a car is stolen by VIN for theft and clone verification steps
• How the VIN check digit works for verifying a VIN was not mistyped or altered
• VIN formats by country and manufacturer for what the first three characters tell you