VINFoundry

VIN Country and Region Codes

The first character of a VIN is the start of its World Manufacturer Identifier, and it names the world region the vehicle was built in. For nine characters it settles the country outright; for the rest it needs the second character as well, so this table leaves those blank rather than guessing.

Looking up a specific vehicle? The decoder reads the country straight from NHTSA's VPIC database, which resolves the ambiguous characters properly.

First character to region and country

VIN first character to world region and country
CharacterRegionCountry
AAfricaNeeds the second character
BAfricaNeeds the second character
CAfricaNeeds the second character
DAfricaNeeds the second character
EAfricaNeeds the second character
FAfricaNeeds the second character
GAfricaNeeds the second character
HAfricaNeeds the second character
JAsiaJapan
KAsiaNeeds the second character
LAsiaChina
MAsiaNeeds the second character
NAsiaNeeds the second character
PAsiaNeeds the second character
RAsiaNeeds the second character
SEuropeNeeds the second character
TEuropeNeeds the second character
UEuropeNeeds the second character
VEuropeNeeds the second character
WEuropeGermany
XEuropeNeeds the second character
YEuropeNeeds the second character
ZEuropeNeeds the second character
1North AmericaUnited States
2North AmericaCanada
3North AmericaNeeds the second character
4North AmericaUnited States
5North AmericaUnited States
6OceaniaAustralia
7OceaniaNew Zealand
8South AmericaNeeds the second character
9South AmericaNeeds the second character

I, O and Q never appear in a VIN — they are too easily confused with 1 and 0 — so they are absent from this table, as is 0, which is unassigned as a first character.

Source: ISO 3780 world regions; country assignments as implemented in @vinfoundry/core, the same code the decoder uses.