License Plate

GET /api/license-plate

GET Auth required

Returns vehicle information and the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) associated with a license plate. Supported countries each have different data availability — some values may be returned as null depending on the country requested.

Note

Requests to this endpoint without a subscription will return the demo dataset only. After purchasing a subscription see the Auth documentation for details on obtaining a JWT.

Supported Countries

US, CA, AU, UK, FR, IE, NZ, MX, CZ, PT

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
country_code	Yes	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (e.g. US, CA, UK)
lookup	Yes	The license plate (or registration number) to look up
region	Conditional	Province, state, or region — required for US, CA, and AU

Testing

Append #TEST to any plate to receive test data without consuming API credits:

• US: /api/license-plate?country_code=US&region=NY&lookup=830UNL#TEST
• Canada: /api/license-plate?country_code=CA&region=BC&lookup=#TEST
• UK: /api/license-plate?country_code=UK&lookup=#TEST-LD59YMR

Sample Request

cURL

curl "https://carapi.app/api/license-plate?country_code=US&region=NY&lookup=830UNL%23TEST" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN_HERE"

NodeJS

const params = new URLSearchParams({
  country_code: 'US',
  region: 'NY',
  lookup: '830UNL#TEST'
});

const response = await fetch(
  `https://carapi.app/api/license-plate?${params}`,
  { headers: { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${jwt}` } }
);

const data = await response.json();
console.log('License plate lookup:', data);

Python

import requests

headers = {
    'Authorization': f'Bearer {jwt}'
}

params = {
    'country_code': 'US',
    'region': 'NY',
    'lookup': '830UNL#TEST'
}

response = requests.get(
    'https://carapi.app/api/license-plate',
    headers=headers,
    params=params
)

data = response.json()
print('License plate lookup:', data)

PHP (Guzzle)

use GuzzleHttp\Client;

$client = new Client();

$response = $client->get('https://carapi.app/api/license-plate', [
    'headers' => [
        'Authorization' => 'Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN_HERE',
    ],
    'query' => [
        'country_code' => 'US',
        'region'       => 'NY',
        'lookup'       => '830UNL#TEST',
    ],
]);

$data = json_decode($response->getBody(), true);
print_r($data);

PHP (cURL)

$url = 'https://carapi.app/api/license-plate?' . http_build_query([
    'country_code' => 'US',
    'region'       => 'NY',
    'lookup'       => '830UNL#TEST',
]);

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
    'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN_HERE',
]);

$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$data = json_decode($response, true);
print_r($data);

Sample Response

{
  "year": 2009,
  "make": "Kia",
  "model": "Rio Base / LX / SX",
  "body": "Sedan 4D",
  "vin": "KNADE223696445551",
  "engine_description": "1.6L I4 MPI",
  "assembled_in": "South Korea"
}

Best Practices

• Always test first: Use the #TEST suffix to verify your integration before going live.
• Region is required for US, CA, AU: Omitting it for these countries will return a 400 error.