What is a WMI (World Manufacturer Identifier)?
The first three characters of a VIN, which identify the manufacturer and the region or country where it is registered.
WMIs are assigned under ISO 3780; in the US, SAE International administers them for NHTSA. The first character roughly indicates the region (1, 4 and 5 for the United States, 2 for Canada, 3 for Mexico, J for Japan, K for South Korea, W for Germany).
Small manufacturers that build fewer than 1,000 vehicles a year use a 9 as the third character and extend their identifier into positions 12–14.
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Related terms
- VIN (Vehicle Identification Number)The 17-character code that identifies one vehicle. Recall lookups use it to tell whether that exact vehicle is in a campaign and whether it has been fixed.
- VIN check digitThe 9th character of a North American VIN: a digit 0–9 or X calculated from the other 16 characters, used to catch typos and fake VINs.