CARFAX alternatives in Europe 2026: 6 services compared

CARFAX built the vehicle history report in the United States over four decades, from American insurance, title and inspection records. Its European site draws on records from European countries as well as the United States and Canada, and the name carries that American reputation with it.

Two things send European buyers looking elsewhere. The first is price: a single CARFAX report costs EUR 39.99, one of the highest single report prices among the established services. The second is fit: for a car that has only ever lived in Europe, what matters is which European countries a service really holds records for, and strength in American records tells you nothing about depth in Poland or Italy.

Every service here runs the essential checks: mileage over time, damage records, theft and registration history. What separates them is below, one question at a time.

• Seeing the price before you pay MrVIN, autoDNA, Automoli, Cebia and HPI publish theirs on the page. carVertical shows its price only in the checkout flow.
• Seeing the findings before you pay MrVIN shows a free preview of what the report found for your VIN. Most others show basic vehicle data, or which kinds of record exist, before asking for money.
• American and Canadian history CARFAX built its records there, and autoDNA also covers vehicles from the USA.
• Czech and Slovak history Cebia, with local records going back to 1991.
• UK finance and write off status HPI, backed by a GBP 30,000 data guarantee.
• The widest country list carVertical.

For one kind of car, CARFAX is often the service holding records the others do not have.

A car imported from the United States or Canada carries its American life in American records: title history, odometer readings reported to state agencies, insurance write offs and auction listings. That is where CARFAX started, and for that car it is frequently the deepest source you can buy in Europe.

In the United States a car's title can carry a permanent brand when something serious happened to it. Three matter most to a European buyer, because they stay in the car's history even when its European paperwork is new.

• Salvage an insurer declared the car a total loss after a collision, flood, fire or storm. It was not legal to drive until it was repaired and inspected again.
• Rebuilt a former salvage car that has been repaired and passed a state inspection. Legal to drive, but neither its value nor its history is that of a clean car.
• Flood water damage specifically. The car may run well today and still develop corrosion and electrical faults later.

The official American source for title brands and the last reported odometer reading is NMVTIS, the title database of the US Department of Justice, explained at vehiclehistory.gov. Consumers can only buy an NMVTIS report through providers the Department approves, such as VinAudit and EpicVIN. CARFAX and AutoCheck, the other big American report, run by Experian, are not among the approved consumer resellers.

1. Always European choose a service built on European registries, and preview what it holds for the VIN before paying.
2. Imported from the United States or Canada buy the American history as well, from CARFAX or an NMVTIS approved provider, and cover the European years separately if the car has any.
3. Czech or Slovak and never left Cebia's local records are the ones to read.
4. British with a British life HPI or another UK check, for outstanding finance and write off status.

Every service on this page, ours included, reads records. None of them inspects the car. Damage repaired privately and paid in cash leaves no trace in any database on either side of the Atlantic, and no report can tell you that a gearbox is tired or that a repair was done badly.

So a clean report means nothing bad was recorded, not that nothing bad happened. On an American import in particular, have the car inspected by a mechanic who knows what flood damage looks like before any money moves.

We rank ourselves first on our own page, so treat that as a claim and check it. Open the sample report each service publishes and look at what is actually filled in rather than how it is designed. Then run each free check on the VIN of the car you are considering, and note which ones show findings for that car and which only confirm the make and model.

Finally, take each service to checkout in your own country and write down the total before paying. MrVIN shows its price excluding VAT while the others include it, so the checkout total is the only fair comparison, and the prices on this page carry the date we checked them for the same reason.