WMI Country & Manufacturer Lookup

Every VIN begins with a three-character World Manufacturer Identifier. This tool reads those three characters and tells you the country of manufacture, the brand, and the broad vehicle type — useful when you only have a partial VIN or want to verify where a vehicle was actually built.

How it works

The decode happens in two stages, both defined by international standard:

• Country (characters 1-2). ISO 3780 divides the alphanumeric space into geographic ranges. Character 1 sets the continent (for example S-Z is Europe, 1-5 is North America, 6-7 is Oceania, 8-9 is South America), and characters 1-2 together pin down the specific country. The tool matches your pair against the full range table.
• Manufacturer (characters 1-3). The complete three-character WMI is issued to an individual manufacturing plant. WBA is BMW in Germany, 5YJ is Tesla in the United States, JHM is Honda in Japan, and so on.

VINs never contain the letters I, O, or Q because they are confused with 1 and 0, so those characters are stripped from your input automatically.

Example and notes

A VIN beginning 5YJ3E1EA7JF resolves to country United States and manufacturer Tesla (electric passenger car). A VIN beginning WVWZZZ resolves to Germany / Volkswagen. If the country shows correctly but the manufacturer reads as unlisted, the brand simply is not in the embedded table — the country is still reliable. For an authoritative full decode including model year and plant, pair this with the NHTSA vPIC decoder.

Common WMI prefixes and what they tell you

Understanding the pattern of WMI codes helps you read a VIN at a glance. The first character alone narrows the origin to a continent:

A few well-known examples: WBA = BMW (Bavaria, Germany), WAU = Audi, WVW = Volkswagen, JH4 = Acura (Honda USA), KMH = Hyundai Korea, 1HG = Honda of America Manufacturing.

Global manufacturing versus brand origin

A WMI encodes the assembly plant, not the brand’s headquarters. Major automakers operate plants in multiple countries, each with its own WMI. For example, Toyota assembles vehicles in Japan (JT prefix), the United States (4T), the United Kingdom (SB), and several other countries — each location carries a distinct WMI. If you have a “Japanese brand” car but the WMI starts with 1 or 4, the vehicle was assembled in North America, not Japan, which matters for things like parts sourcing and import history.

This distinction is particularly relevant when verifying a vehicle’s history, checking import eligibility for specific regulations (some safety or emissions standards depend on where the vehicle was built), or confirming whether a recall applies to your specific assembly plant.

Where WMIs come from

The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) administers WMI assignments in North America on behalf of the ISO. In the United States, manufacturers with annual production volumes above 500 vehicles receive a unique WMI; smaller manufacturers share a common “9th character” scheme where the manufacturer is identified by characters 1–3 plus the 12th character. This is why some limited-production vehicles need more than the first three characters to identify the maker precisely.

Using this tool alongside NHTSA’s vPIC decoder

This WMI lookup is fast and runs offline — useful for a quick country-of-origin check when evaluating a used vehicle or verifying a paperwork discrepancy. For a complete decode that includes model year (character 10), plant code (character 11), and the full vehicle descriptor section (characters 4–9), the NHTSA vPIC decoder provides authoritative information from the manufacturer’s own VIN pattern database. Pair both tools for a thorough pre-purchase check.