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How it works
Three steps and about a minute. Nothing is charged until you have chosen what you are searching for, and a plate search always confirms the vehicle with you before the register is searched.
- 1
Enter VIN or plate
The 17-character VIN, or switch to Number Plate and pick the state it's registered in.
- 2
Pay securely
a one-off fee by VIN, a one-off fee by Number Plate. Visa, Mastercard or American Express.
- 3
Confirm, then your report
By plate we show you the vehicle we matched and you confirm before the search runs.
Searching by VIN
The VIN is the vehicle's own 17-character identifier. It never changes and it cannot be transferred, so a VIN search is the one that cannot be confused with another car. You will find it on the build plate under the bonnet, stamped on the driver's door frame, in the lower corner of the windscreen, and on the seller's registration papers.
A VIN never contains the letters I, O or Q — they were left out so they could not be mistaken for 1 and 0. If you are reading one off a dusty plate and see what looks like an O, it is a zero.
Once you pay, the search runs immediately and the report is emailed to you.
Searching by number plate
The PPSR itself has no plate search. It accepts a VIN, a chassis number or a manufacturer's number, and nothing else. So a plate has to be matched to a vehicle before the register can be searched, which we do through the national registration database.
That extra lookup is the difference between a one-off fee and a one-off fee.
Because a plate can be transferred between cars, we never guess which vehicle you mean. After payment we show you what the plate matched — make, model, year and colour — and the PPSR search only runs when you confirm it is the right car. If the plate matched more than one vehicle, you pick.
If we cannot match your plate
The usual cause is the wrong state: a plate registered in Queensland will not be found under Victoria. If we cannot match it, no PPSR search is run and you are not charged for one. You can try another state on the same payment, switch to a VIN search, or take a refund.
Email, SMS, or both
Every search is emailed. At checkout you can add SMS — free — for one text with the headline answer and your report link, sent the moment the result lands, plus a text if the finance changes during the free 14-day re-check.
You need an Australian mobile for the SMS option. Reply STOP to any message to opt out permanently.
How long it takes
A PPSR search is three sequential calls to the register, and the certificate has to be generated and retrieved before it can be sent. In practice that is tens of seconds. You do not have to wait on the page — the search runs on our servers and the report is emailed either way.
If the register is inside a scheduled maintenance window, we say so before taking payment rather than selling you a search that cannot run.
What it costs
| Search | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| By VIN | a one-off fee | PPSR search, plain-English summary, official certificate (PDF) |
| By Number Plate | a one-off fee | As above, plus the plate-to-vehicle lookup and confirmation step |
One-off. No account to create, no subscription to cancel.
Ready to check?
Enter a VIN and you'll have the report before you finish reading the ad.
* Delivery time. Reports are issued within minutes while the Personal Property Securities Register is available. The register has scheduled maintenance windows, set out in our Terms & Conditions. A search requested during a maintenance window is issued as soon as the register reopens.
† Free re-check. The 14-day free re-check applies only to vehicles that returned a registered security interest (finance owing). It re-checks whether those security interest details have changed. Stolen and written-off records are not re-checked.