Build date proof › Any market
The manufacturer's own date-of-manufacture label
The single best evidence there is, and it is free. Look for it before you pay anyone anything.
- covers
- Any
- issuer
- The original manufacturer, at the factory
- cost
- Free
- time
- Immediate
Build date
States when the car was built. This is the date every import rule is measured from.
What you have to supply
Nothing but a torch and a phone camera.
Who can order it
Export-market cars almost always carry one. Japanese domestic-market cars almost never do.
Limits and gaps
A JDM-market car normally has no date-bearing label at all. Its caution plate carries model code, chassis number, engine model and paint and trim codes - and no date.
Notes
NHTSA puts this first: the 25-year period runs from the date of manufacture, and the agency looks for that date on a label permanently affixed to the vehicle by its original manufacturer. Everything else on this site exists because that label is missing. Photograph the driver's door aperture, the passenger door aperture, the engine bay bulkhead and the centre pillars before you conclude there isn't one.
Checked against the issuer's own page issuer page · retrieved 25 September 2026
The Build Date Proof Pack
This page tells you which document to order. The pack gets it ordered — and tells you what to do when the answer is that no document exists.
- A ready-to-send request for every archive, in the language it wants
- Exactly which numbers to photograph, and where they are on the car
- What to ask the seller for before you pay the deposit
- The fallback ladder when the manufacturer has no records
- What US, Canadian and Australian officials each accept as proof