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.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
22.0/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 20/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0
AccessFreemium
1 APIs
Federal-GovernmentSafetyTransportationVehicles

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0
Composite quality — 22.0/100 · emerging
Contract Quality 7.8 / 19
Developer Ergonomics 2.9 / 15
Access Clarity 2.4 / 15
Operational Transparency 0.8 / 10
Contract Governance 0.0 / 9
Discoverability 4.4 / 8
Regulatory Posture 1.7 / 15
Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10
Agent readiness — 20/100 · 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
Delegated User Identity 0 / 6
Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5
Registration Without a Human 0 / 6
Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5
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.
Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.
The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% 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/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. 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. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

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 Reference API

Reference variables and value lists

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Types API

Endpoints related to vehicle types

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 Equipment API

OPEN COLLECTION

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Equipment Makes and Models API

OPEN COLLECTION

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Equipment Manufacturers API

OPEN COLLECTION

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Equipment Reference API

OPEN COLLECTION

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Equipment Vehicle Types API

OPEN COLLECTION

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle Equipment VIN Decoding API

OPEN COLLECTION

NHTSA vPIC Vehicle API

OPEN COLLECTION

Scroll for all 8

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

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

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Finops

FINOPS

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

Portal
Portal

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess
AgenticAccess

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Company 2

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn
LinkedIn
 Website
Website

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
deliveryModel:
  model: unknown
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: true
  label: Delivery model not determined — needs a product licence on record
  confidence: low
  source:
  - openapi
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
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

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