National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website screenshot

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) provides APIs for vehicle safety information including vehicle recall data and the Product Information Catalog Vehicle Listing (vPIC) for decoding Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) and accessing vehicle specifications submitted by manufacturers.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration publishes 6 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Equipment API, Makes and Models API, Manufacturers API, and 3 more. Tagged areas include Federal-Government, Safety, Transportation, and Vehicles.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s developer surface includes developer portal and 4 more developer resources.

21.7/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 24/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0
AccessFreemium
6 APIs
Federal-GovernmentSafetyTransportationVehicles

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0
Composite quality — 21.7/100 · emerging
Contract Quality 9.1 / 21
Developer Ergonomics 1.6 / 17
Access Clarity 2.7 / 17
Operational Transparency 0.9 / 11
Contract Governance 0.0 / 10
Discoverability 5.5 / 9
Regulatory Posture 1.7 / 15
Agent readiness — 24/100 · agent aware
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10
Documented Reversibility 0 / 6
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 7 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Government & Public Sector regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.
The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 6

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Equipment API

Equipment, parts, and Canadian vehicle specifications

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Makes and Models API

Endpoints for vehicle make and model information

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Manufacturers API

Endpoints for manufacturer and World Manufacturer Identifier (WMI) data

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration VIN Decoding API

Endpoints for decoding Vehicle Identification Numbers

Open Collections 8

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

API Collection

OPEN COLLECTION

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle API

OPEN COLLECTION

Scroll for all 8

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Agentic Access

24 operations · 1 acting

24 operations · 1 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑
aid: national-highway-traffic-safety-administration
name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
description: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) provides APIs for vehicle safety information including
  vehicle recall data and the Product Information Catalog Vehicle Listing (vPIC) for decoding Vehicle Identification Numbers
  (VINs) and accessing vehicle specifications submitted by manufacturers.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2024-03-30'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
tags:
- Federal-Government
- Safety
- Transportation
- Vehicles
tags_raw:
- Federal Government
- Safety
- Transportation
- Vehicles
apis:
- aid: national-highway-traffic-safety-administration:national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-equipment-api
  name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Equipment API
  description: Equipment, parts, and Canadian vehicle specifications
  humanURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
  baseURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles
  tags:
  - Equipment
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-equipment-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
- aid: national-highway-traffic-safety-administration:national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-makes-and-models-api
  name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Makes and Models API
  description: Endpoints for vehicle make and model information
  humanURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
  baseURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles
  tags:
  - Makes and Models
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-makes-and-models-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
- aid: national-highway-traffic-safety-administration:national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-manufacturers-api
  name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Manufacturers API
  description: Endpoints for manufacturer and World Manufacturer Identifier (WMI) data
  humanURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
  baseURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles
  tags:
  - Manufacturers
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-manufacturers-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
- aid: national-highway-traffic-safety-administration:national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-reference-api
  name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Reference API
  description: Reference variables and value lists
  humanURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
  baseURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles
  tags:
  - Reference
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-reference-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
- aid: national-highway-traffic-safety-administration:national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-vehicle-types-api
  name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Types API
  description: Endpoints related to vehicle types
  humanURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
  baseURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles
  tags:
  - Vehicle Types
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-vehicle-types-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
- aid: national-highway-traffic-safety-administration:national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-vin-decoding-api
  name: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration VIN Decoding API
  description: Endpoints for decoding Vehicle Identification Numbers
  humanURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
  baseURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/vehicles
  tags:
  - VIN Decoding
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-vin-decoding-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-domain-security.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-nhtsa
- type: Website
  url: https://www.nhtsa.gov/
- type: Portal
  url: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com