DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) is a state agency registering motor vehicles and issuing driver licenses. You can request a vehicle report from DMV to verify the ownership and other important factors about the car. But it charges you about $5 for each request. Is there a cheaper or even free way to get the records? Read on to find out the 3 trustworthy options.

1. Free Data Sources

Under vehicle administration there’s not just one agency as DMV. Some other governmental or industry trusted platforms can offer sometimes free records about a car.

NHTSA Recall Check

NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) supervises the traffic safety and documents recalls and safety issues. You can use the VIN decoder on its official website to check on a specific car with no charge.

NICB Insurance Check

NICB (National Insurance Criminal Bureau) is nonprofit and has a good reputation in the vehicle industry. If you want to look up a car for records on insurance thefts or salvages, you may use their VINCheck Lookup system. It’s also for free.

2. Cost-effective DMV Data Providers

The free sources allow you to find information only in their own specialized fields. But you might want a full report on a vehicle that includes mileage history, market values, ownership details, titles and recalls, specs and even photos, etc.

You can achieve that aim for unlimited vehicle history reports starting as low as $1!

BeenVerified

BeenVerified is a mature people search tool with a developed vehicle search feature. It’s an NMVTIS approved data provider and cooperates with governmental and top industry sources like DMV. Just type in the VIN number. Photos, ownership cost, MSRP and sales history, hidden titles and recalls… All-around information is here ready.

1) Visit the Vehicle Search page of BeenVerified.

2) Enter the VIN number or license plate and click SEARCH.

3) Wait when BeenVerified searches through its data sources. Open the report to see the organized details about the vehicle you’re checking. And you can search for more vehicles freely with no further cost under one subscription.

Bumper

Bumper is a professional vehicle search engine with a long trusted history. It is also approved by NMVTIS and can access data from top-class sources like DMV, NHTSA, JD Power, etc. You can explore 15 categories of information around a car including mileage, thefts, salvage, recalls, ownership history and so on.

1) Go to the Bumper official site.

2) Enter the VIN number or license plate and click SEARCH.

3) Wait as Bumper prepares for your report. Now open the report and browse through the details with 15 categories of navigation as you like. For one membership plan you can search for at least 50 vehicle history reports.

3. Free attached Carfax report

If you’re considering buying a used car and thus are looking for free VIN check methods for acquiring DMV vehicle reports, there’s one way you may consider. Use the Carfax Used Car Sale platform directly to search for a satisfactory vehicle. The vehicles on sale on Carfax all have a free vehicle history report to check. They are from individual sellers or local dealers that have cooperation with Carfax.

However, in this way your range of choices could be limited. And the vehicles on Carfax are usually selling at a higher price for all these certifications and bonuses.

For more details about the platform and its good alternatives, see article: Carfax Used Cars – Free & Trustworthy Alternatives.

That’s the three best ways to get a detailed and reliable vehicle report containing DMV data through free and cheap VIN checks. Hope this article helps you with your vehicle search and brings you to the information you truly need. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions.