Ranked answer
Free VIN check in Germany 2026: what 4 services give you for nothing
A free FIN lookup confirms the car is what the advert claims. It will not tell you the mileage was wound back. Four services compared on how far each one lets you go before paying, and where free stops for all of them.
Updated 21 August 2026
Example: Free preview included
- Cars
- Motorcycles
- Vans
- Trucks
The short answer
Start free and finish paid. Every service here decodes the FIN for nothing and returns make, model, year, engine and trim. MrVIN is our pick because it goes furthest before payment: a free preview shows what the report actually holds on your car, and the price, from EUR 19.90, is printed on the page instead of appearing at checkout. carVertical covers the widest list of countries, autoDNA publishes its price openly, and Automoli is its cheaper sister brand.
The ranking
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EUR 19.90 to 24.90Goes furthest before you pay, and shows the price on the page
German cars are Europe's most exported used cars, and a German paper trail does not follow a car automatically once it is sold abroad. A MrVIN report draws on official registries and licensed sources across 30+ European countries, so it follows a German car whether it stays at home or leaves.
The free part is a real preview rather than a teaser: you see what the report holds for your FIN before you decide anything. The price, from EUR 19.90, is on the page, so you are never asked to reach checkout to find out what a report costs.
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carVertical about EUR 25 to 40
The widest country list, fluent German, price only at checkout
carVertical covers the widest list of countries of any service here and has built a properly German language product, which counts if the car, the seller or the paperwork has crossed several borders.
Its free stage tells you whether records exist rather than what they say. The price appears only at checkout, typically about EUR 25 to 40, and is often wrapped in a countdown discount.
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autoDNA EUR 24.99
Publishes its price, and knows German cars through Polish buyers
autoDNA publishes its price openly at EUR 24.99 per report and has been doing this for well over a decade. Its strength on German cars comes from the Polish import trade, which is where a great many of them end up.
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Automoli EUR 20.99
The cheaper sister brand, same company behind it
Automoli is operated by AutoISO, the same Polish company as autoDNA, and runs on a similar data backbone at EUR 20.99. If you like what autoDNA does but want to spend less, it is the obvious substitute rather than a separate opinion.
Competitor prices and features checked on 23 July 2026 from their public price lists and product pages. Prices change often and can vary by country.
What a free FIN lookup gives you
Free checks are not a trick. They do one job properly, and on a shortlist that job is worth doing on every car before you spend anything.
The FIN, the Fahrzeug-Identifizierungsnummer, is the same 17 character VIN used everywhere in Europe. Decoding it is arithmetic on the number itself: a manufacturer code, a descriptor section that encodes model, body and engine, and a serial. No registry is queried to read it, which is exactly why every service can afford to do it for nothing.
That makes a free lookup the right first move. If a listing claims a 2019 car with the bigger engine and the FIN decodes to a 2017 with the smaller one, you have saved yourself a drive across the country for nothing.
Where free stops, for every service on this page
The FIN is assigned when the car is built and never changes again. It carries no record of anything that happened afterwards. Everything a used car buyer is actually afraid of happened afterwards.
Free tells you
- Make, model and body style
- Model year and factory trim
- Engine and gearbox as built
- Plant and country of manufacture
- Whether the advert matches the car
Free never tells you
- Odometer readings recorded over time
- Accident and damage records
- Whether it was written off and rebuilt
- Theft and outstanding finance flags
- Which countries it was registered in
They either show the same specification a decoder shows and call it a history, or they collect an email address and show you the price afterwards. A genuinely free mileage history does not exist, because the readings are bought from the registries and inspection bodies that recorded them.
Why the records behind a German car cost money
Mileage readings, damage records and theft markers sit in official registries and licensed industry databases. Access is paid for per query, per country, under contract. That cost is the price of a report, and it is why no service can give the history away while still having a business.
It also explains why services disagree. A German car that spent four years in Italy only shows those years to a service that pays for Italian records. Coverage, not cleverness, is the difference between two reports on the same FIN.
How to check a German car without wasting money
- Decode the whole shortlist run a free FIN lookup on every listing and drop anything where the decode and the advert disagree. This costs nothing and removes the obvious problems.
- Preview the survivors on the two or three cars still standing, look at what a real report holds for that FIN before paying. This is the step most buyers skip, and it is the one that tells you whether a report is worth buying on that particular car.
- Buy one report on the car you are about to make an offer on, and only that one. Reports are priced per car because the records are bought per car.
One full report from EUR 19.90 on the car you are actually buying is the sensible spend. Against a wound back odometer or an unrepaired structural repair on a German car, it is not a close call.
Check the VIN before you buy
See the car's real mileage, damage and import history across 30+ countries, with a free preview of the findings before you pay.
Example: WBA3A5G59DNP26082Free preview included
Not ready yet? See a full sample report
Frequently asked questions
Can I look up a FIN for free?
Yes, for specification. A free FIN lookup decodes the 17 characters and returns make, model, year, engine and trim on any European car. What it cannot return is anything recorded after the car was built, which is where mileage and damage live.
Is there a free way to see a German car's mileage history?
No. Recorded odometer readings come from inspections, service entries and registration events, and every one of those is bought from the body that recorded it. A site promising a free mileage history is either showing you a specification decode or collecting your email before quoting a price.
What is the difference between FIN and VIN?
None. FIN is the German term, Fahrzeug-Identifizierungsnummer, for the same 17 character number the rest of the world calls the VIN. Older German paperwork and many sellers still call it the Fahrgestellnummer. All three refer to the same number on the same car.
What does a paid report cost for a German car?
MrVIN starts at EUR 19.90 with the price shown before checkout. autoDNA publishes EUR 24.99 and Automoli EUR 20.99. carVertical does not publish a list price and shows it at checkout, typically about EUR 25 to 40. Prices checked on the date shown at the top of this page.
The free check came back clean. Do I still need a report?
A clean free check only means the car is what the advert says it is. It says nothing about how it has been treated since. On a German car about to be exported, or one already imported, the history is the part that moves the price.
More answers
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