What Is an MOT History Report?

Every MOT test carried out in England, Scotland and Wales is recorded by the DVSA and published as part of the public MOT history for that vehicle. An MOT history report is simply that record, laid out so you can read it — every test the vehicle has ever been put through, in order, with the result, the mileage and the exact wording the tester used.

This report is free and instant. You need the registration and nothing else — no account, no email address, no card details, and no permission from the current owner, because MOT results are public information by design.

What the Report Shows You

• Every test result — pass or fail, with the date it was carried out, listed newest first.
• The recorded mileage at each test. This is the single most useful column in the whole report, and the one worth reading most carefully.
• Every defect on a failure, in the tester’s own words, with the severity the tester assigned it.
• Every advisory — the things that passed but were flagged as heading towards a problem.
• The expiry date of the certificate issued by each passing test.

All of it comes straight from the official DVSA MOT History API — the same source the government’s own MOT checking service reads. We don’t scrape it, estimate it or edit it.

How to Read a Mileage Column

Mileage is recorded by hand by the tester at every single MOT, which makes the history a year-by-year record of how far the car actually travelled. Three patterns are worth looking for:

• Mileage that goes backwards. A reading lower than the year before is the clearest warning sign in the whole report. It is occasionally an honest typo by the tester, and it is occasionally a clocked car. Either way you want an explanation before money changes hands.
• A sudden drop in annual mileage. A car that did 12,000 miles a year for five years and then did 2,000 is telling you something — often that it sat unused, which brings its own problems with brakes, tyres and batteries.
• A gap with no test at all. A missing year usually means the car was declared off-road (SORN) or simply wasn’t tested. Worth asking about.

Checking a Car Before You Buy It

The MOT history is the closest thing to an honest, unedited service record that exists for most used cars, and it is written by someone with no interest in the sale. Run the report before you drive out to view a car, not after.

Read the advisories across several years rather than just the last test. The same advisory appearing three years running — corrosion, a worn bush, a brake pipe “slightly corroded” — tells you about an owner who does the minimum, which is far more useful than any single result. Our guide to buying a used car walks through exactly what to look for.

Free Report or the AI Agent?

This page gives you the full official record at no cost, and for most people that is genuinely all they need.

If you would rather have the pattern read for you — recurring faults across years, mileage anomalies, parts that have likely already been replaced, every advisory translated out of test-centre language — the MOT History AI Agent does that analysis for £1.49 with no subscription. If your car has just failed, the free Failure Analysis explains each defect, and On The Day Agent will tell you the result on the day of the test itself.