Car age calculator
The age of a vehicle from its first registration date, in years, months and days. Registration date, not model year; they are frequently a year apart, and every schedule attached to a car — first MOT, warranty, tax class — counts from the registration.
How to use the car age calculator
The distinction matters financially. Manufacturers release a model year ahead of the calendar year, so a car sold in late 2024 may be a 2025 model, and a car built in 2024 may not have been registered until 2025 if it sat on a forecourt unsold. Valuation, warranty and inspection schedules almost always run from first registration rather than manufacture, and a car registered on 31 December against one registered on 1 January is a full year apart on paper for the sake of a day.
UK plates encode the registration date directly, in a two-character age identifier that changes twice a year: 25 for a car registered between March and August 2025, 75 for one registered between September 2025 and February 2026, the second number being the first plus fifty. That is why the used market moves in March and September rather than smoothly, and why a car three days younger can wear a plate that reads a half-year newer.
Three ages are worth watching for. The first MOT in Great Britain falls three years after first registration, not three years after purchase. Manufacturer warranties run from the same date, so a pre-registered "new" car arrives with months already spent. And at forty years a vehicle in the UK becomes historic: exempt from both the MOT and vehicle tax, on a rolling basis, which is the one anniversary that makes a car cheaper rather than dearer.
What people use it for
- Working out when a car is due its first MOT
- Reading a used listing where the plate year and the registration year disagree
- Checking how much of a manufacturer warranty a pre-registered car has already spent
- Timing a sale before a car crosses a round-number age
- Checking whether a vehicle has reached the forty-year historic threshold
Questions
No, from first registration. Model years run ahead of calendar years, so the two often differ by a year.
The registration period. 25 is March to August 2025; 75 is September 2025 to February 2026. The autumn identifier is the spring one plus fifty.
Three years after first registration in Great Britain, regardless of when the car was bought or how far it has been driven.
At forty years old in the UK, rolling. It is then exempt from the MOT and from vehicle tax, though it still has to be roadworthy.
A car registered on 31 December is a year older on paper than one registered the next day, and the listing price follows the paper.
The V5C logbook in the UK, the kenteken in the Netherlands. It is a different field from the date you bought it.