Ranked answer
Free VIN check in Italy 2026: what 4 services give you for nothing
A free check on the numero di telaio confirms the car is what the advert claims. It says nothing about the mileage. Four services compared on how far each 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. All four decode the telaio for nothing and return 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. 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 follows a car that arrived from abroad
A large share of the used cars sold in Italy were first registered elsewhere, most often in Germany, and their history did not travel with the paperwork. A MrVIN report draws on official registries and licensed sources across 30+ European countries, so the years before the car reached Italy are not simply missing.
The free part is a real preview rather than a teaser: you see what the report holds for your telaio before you decide. The price, from EUR 19.90, is on the page rather than waiting at checkout.
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carVertical about EUR 25 to 40
The widest country list, price only at checkout
carVertical covers the widest list of countries of any service here. Its free stage tells you whether records exist rather than what they say, and the price appears only at checkout, typically about EUR 25 to 40, often behind a countdown discount.
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autoDNA EUR 24.99
Publishes its price, strong on cars coming out of Germany
autoDNA publishes its price openly at EUR 24.99 per report and has been in this business for well over a decade. Its depth on German cars matters in Italy, because that is where a great many Italian imports come from.
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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. A cheaper way to buy the same opinion rather than a second one.
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 check on the telaio 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 numero di telaio is the same 17 character VIN used across Europe. Decoding it is arithmetic on the number itself: a manufacturer code, a section that encodes model, body and engine, and a serial. No registry is queried to read it, which is why every service can afford to do it for nothing.
That makes a free check the right first move. If a listing claims a 2019 car with the larger engine and the telaio decodes to a 2017 with the smaller one, you have saved yourself a long drive.
Where free stops, for every service on this page
The telaio is assigned when the car is built and never changes again. It carries no record of anything that happened afterwards, and on a car imported into Italy almost everything worth knowing happened afterwards and in another country.
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
A PRA extract tells you who owned the car and whether anything is registered against it in Italy, which is useful and is not the same as a history. It begins when the car was registered here, so on an import it starts halfway through the story. Sites advertising a free history report either show the same specification a decoder shows, or take an email address and quote a price afterwards.
Why the records cost money, and why services disagree
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.
It also explains the disagreements. A car that spent six years in Germany before arriving in Italy only shows those years to a service that pays for German records. When two reports on the same telaio differ, coverage is almost always the reason.
How to check an imported car without wasting money
- Decode the whole shortlist run a free VIN check on every listing and drop anything where the decode and the advert disagree. This costs nothing.
- Preview the survivors on the two or three cars still standing, look at what a real report holds for that VIN before paying.
- 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 on a car that arrived with no Italian history to contradict it, that 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 check a numero di telaio for free?
Yes, for specification. A free check 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.
Is a free check enough on a car imported from Germany?
No, and that is the case where it matters most. The German part of the car's life is exactly what a free decode cannot see, and on an Italian import it is usually most of the car's life.
What is the difference between a PRA extract and a history report?
A PRA extract covers ownership and encumbrances recorded in Italy. A history report covers what happened to the car, including in the countries it lived in before it arrived. They answer different questions and a careful buyer uses both.
What does a paid report cost in Italy?
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, and on an imported car there is rarely local history to contradict the seller.
More answers
MrVIN is operated by VERIFY SIA and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the other services named on this page. All trademarks belong to their owners and are used only to identify the services being discussed.