The official records and licensed providers behind every MotorMkt check — and exactly which data is queried directly versus supplied through UK Vehicle Data.
Check the actual vehicle
Enter its registration to check the official tax, MOT and mileage record free. If you need provenance for a purchase or ownership decision, add finance, stolen and write-off checks.
Free: vehicle identity, tax/SORN, MOT history, mileage and buyer red flags.
Full history: adds outstanding finance, stolen, insurance write-off and other paid provenance checks.
The full report is optional. Review the free official record first if you are unsure. Payment is completed securely on the next screen.
MotorMkt queries the DVLA and DVSA directly for the free check. All paid provenance data — including write-off, finance and stolen markers that originate with MIAFTR and the Police National Computer — is supplied by UK Vehicle Data (UKVD), which aggregates those registers. MotorMkt does not query MIAFTR or the PNC directly.
DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) — vehicle enquiry: make, model, colour, fuel type, tax and MOT status.
DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) — MOT history: test dates, pass/fail results, recorded mileage and advisories.
UK Vehicle Data (UKVD) is a licensed vehicle-data provider. It supplies MotorMkt's paid provenance data and aggregates the industry registers below — MotorMkt does not hold direct feeds to them:
Two datasets sit outside UKVD's catalogue, so we buy them separately through One Auto API, which resells them from their originators.
Salvage auction records (SalvageGuide) — lot and damage detail for vehicles that already carry a write-off marker. We only request them once a write-off is confirmed, because the auction record adds detail to a known event rather than establishing a new one.
Taxi and private-hire licensing (Cartell) — where a licensing authority has recorded the vehicle as licensed for hire. Coverage depends on which authorities publish their records.
Manufacturer service records — the separate Service History Check reads franchised-dealer servicing recorded in manufacturer systems, from the 2012 model year onward. Coverage varies by brand, and independent-garage work does not appear.
No register records everything. Accident repairs carried out privately never reach an insurance database, so they leave no write-off marker. Servicing at an independent garage does not reach manufacturer systems. Mileage between MOT tests is not recorded anywhere, and DVSA publishes car, van and motorcycle test results only from 2005.
We would rather say that plainly than imply a check can confirm a car is clean. A check tells you what has been reported — it is not a substitute for inspecting the vehicle.
Our vehicle-population and MOT-reliability directories are built from anonymised open data published by the DfT and DVSA under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These aggregate statistics never identify an individual vehicle.