A Lexus VIN is often located on the driver’s side door jamb, though it may occasionally be found on the passenger side. The VIN contains a combination of 17 letters and numbers. These alphanumeric characters contain important information about your car, including vehicle type, country of origin, and a unique serial number.

You will be asked to provide your VIN if you’re renewing your license, updating your registration, or attempting to sell your car. After you find your VIN and write it down or take a picture of it, you may find yourself a bit curious. What does this seemingly random string of numbers and letters mean?

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is here to tell you. In this guide, we’ll explain where to find your Lexus’s VIN, what the characters stand for, and how to decode them properly.

How to check your Lexus’s VIN

VIN is shorthand for vehicle identification number. The 17 digits of the VIN are entirely unique to the specific Lexus you drive.

Your VIN can be found on the car’s registration certificate or title. It will also be stamped somewhere on the vehicle itself, one of the most common locations being the driver’s side door jamb. There are a few other places you could find it, too:

Stamped on the passenger side door jam

Under the windshield on the driver’s side

Written near the firewall

Stamped on the steering column

Varying locations under the hood

How to decode a Lexus VIN

Your VIN is an important tool used for tracking and cataloging the history of your vehicle—but what do those numbers and letters mean?

VINs have been standard on cars since the 1950s, but it wasn’t until the early 1980s that they were standardized across all manufacturers, makes, and models. Since then, the 17 digits of a VIN have had distinct, precise meanings that are now the worldwide standard model.

VINs use all ten digits (0-9) and most letters of the alphabet. The letters I, O, and Q are not used because they could easily be confused for 1, 0, and 9, respectively.

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First position: country of manufacture

The first three digits of a VIN represent the world manufacturer identifier (WMI) code. For a Lexus, the first digit shows the country where the vehicle was built.

The numbers 2 and 5 indicate that your Lexus was assembled in North America—either Canada or the US. The letter J shows that it was made in Japan.

Positions 2-3: manufacturer information

The two digits following the first represent the manufacturer information. The second digit is the manufacturer, which would be Toyota. The third digit denotes the vehicle type. For example, TH, T1, or T8 would be a passenger vehicle, whereas TJ or T2 represent an SUV.

Positions 4-8: vehicle-specific information

The next five characters contain vehicle-specific information like trim level, number of doors, engine size, and much more. These letters and numbers help narrow down exactly what kind of car you’re driving.

Position 9: the VIN check digit

The VIN’s ninth position is the special “check digit” that helps detect fraudulent VINs. Informed by the other characters in the VIN, the check digit verifies the number’s authenticity.

Position 10: model year

Position 10 tells you what year your car was built. Because VINs have been forced to recycle numbers from earlier model years, this system gets more complicated with each passing year. In addition to I, O, and Q, the characters U, Z, and 0 do not appear in the tenth position, either.

The last 20 years of VIN model year codes look like this:

Code	Year
1	2001
2	2002
3	2003
4	2004
5	2005
6	2006
7	2007
8	2008
9	2009
A	2010
B	1981 OR 2011
C	1982 OR 2012
D	1983 OR 2013
E	1984 OR 2014
F	1985 OR 2015
G	1986 OR 2016
H	1987 OR 2017
J	1988 OR 2018
K	1989 OR 2019
L	1990 OR 2020
M	1991 OR 2021

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Position 11: assembly plant

The 11th position describes which Toyota plant assembled your Lexus. Every auto manufacturer has a unique code for this part of the VIN. Lexus has two plants in North America—one in Ontario and the other in Kentucky.

Positions 12-17: vehicle serial number

The final six positions in the VIN are your car’s serial number. The serial number on your Lexus’s VIN is entirely unique to your vehicle, typically representing a production sequence number.

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