UK Vehicle MOT History API

Look up complete MOT history for any UK vehicle registration. Retrieve pass/fail results, advisories, defects, odometer readings, test dates, and current MOT status in seconds — at scale.

What You'll Get

• MOT Status — Current status and expiry date
• Full MOT History — Each test’s date, result, and station ID (where available)
• Defects & Advisories — Major/Dangerous defects and advisory notes per test
• Odometer Readings — Value and unit at each MOT test
• Vehicle Snapshot — Make, model (when available), fuel type, colour
• Data Provenance — Source timestamps and run metadata for traceability

Perfect For

• Vehicle Traders — Assess condition trends and red flags pre‑purchase
• Fleet Managers — Track compliance and upcoming MOT expiries at scale
• Insurers — Validate risk using historical failure and advisory patterns
• Automotive Services — Prepare work orders from known advisories/defects
• Compliance & Risk Teams — Audit odometer consistency and safety defects
• Developers & Data Teams — Embed MOT histories into apps and pipelines

How It Works

Submit UK vehicle registration numbers. The service validates inputs, queries official UK MOT history sources, normalizes the results, and returns a structured record for each registration.

Recommended batch size: 1–50 registrations per run.

Example input:

{
  "registrations": ["AB12CDE", "XY99ZXY"],
  "includeAdvisories": true,
  "sinceDate": "2015-01-01"
}

Example output (per vehicle):

{
  "registrationNumber": "AB12CDE",
  "motStatus": "Valid",
  "motExpiryDate": "2026-06-11",
  "make": "VAUXHALL",
  "fuelType": "PETROL",
  "colour": "WHITE",
  "history": [
    {
      "testNumber": "123456789012",
      "testDate": "2025-06-11",
      "result": "PASS",
      "odometerValue": 54821,
      "odometerUnit": "mi",
      "defects": [],
      "advisories": [
        "Nearside front tyre close to legal limit"
      ]
    },
    {
      "testNumber": "123456789011",
      "testDate": "2024-06-10",
      "result": "FAIL",
      "odometerValue": 51200,
      "odometerUnit": "mi",
      "defects": [
        { "category": "MAJOR", "text": "Brake pad(s) worn below 1.5mm" }
      ],
      "advisories": []
    }
  ],
  "run": {
    "fetchedAt": "2025-10-24T17:30:00Z",
    "source": "UK MOT history"
  }
}

Views available:

• Overview — Current status and next expiries
• Errors Only — Registrations that failed to return results
• Full History — All tests, defects, advisories, and readings

API Access (via Apify)

Use the standard Apify run pattern to execute the actor and fetch results.

• Start a run:

  POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/<username>~<actor-name>/runs?token=<APIFY_TOKEN>

  Body:

  {
    "registrations": ["AB12CDE"],
    "includeAdvisories": true,
    "sinceDate": "2015-01-01"
  }
  

• Poll run status:

  GET https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/<runId>

• Fetch results (dataset items):

  GET https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<datasetId>/items?format=json

Common input fields:

• registrations (required) — Array of UK registrations
• includeAdvisories (optional, default true) — Include advisory notes
• sinceDate (optional) — ISO date to filter older tests
• maxVehicles (optional, default 50) — Soft cap for batch size

Error format (example):

{
  "registrationNumber": "NOTAREG",
  "error": {
    "code": "NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "No MOT history found for registration"
  }
}

Key Benefits

• Official UK MOT history data
• Bulk lookups (1–50 vehicles per run)
• Detailed defects and advisory notes
• Odometer consistency checks across tests
• Fast, reliable, structured results
• Simple pay‑per‑use pricing on Apify

Export Options

• JSON
• CSV
• Excel
• HTML

Getting Started

1. Collect registrations to check
2. Run the actor with your input JSON
3. Retrieve dataset results (JSON/CSV/Excel/HTML)
4. Filter by status or inspect full histories

Notes & Limits

• Registrations must be valid UK formats (case‑insensitive; spaces optional)

• Historical coverage follows official MOT records availability

• Throughput and concurrency align with your Apify plan and actor settings The actor includes a small delay (100ms) between requests to avoid rate limiting. For large batches, consider:

• Breaking into multiple runs

• Increasing delay in src/services/motApi.js#L86

• Using cache to minimize API calls