There is a myriad of reasons that a person may need to look up a New York license plate. Sometimes plate numbers can help track down the perpetrators of hit-and-run accidents. A license plate owner lookup is also helpful if you’re interested in potentially purchasing a vehicle, but want to be sure all the vehicle information is accurate and up-to-date.

The New York DMV has a vanity plate lookup search feature available on their website. If you have a vanity plate in mind, you can use this search feature to see whether or not it’s been registered. You’ll be prompted to check the type of plate you’re requesting, and then you can enter a customized plate combination. When your preferred plate is available, you’ll be shown a preview of the potential license plate and order it online.

How to Find Registered Owner of a Car With a Reverse License Plate Lookup

The New York DMV’s website will allow you to do a limited search for a vehicle license plate. This search will tell you the make of the vehicle, the vehicle’s model year, and the vehicle’s date of registration and you can find out who a vehicle is registered to. However, you won’t be able to access details about the vehicle’s history and ownership.

If you need to find more detailed information about a vehicle using the license plate, your best bet is to use an online public database. These databases catalog and sort information about everything from vehicle records to personal records. They’re operated by outside third parties rather than the government, but usually, have access to all publicly available government records.

You’ll need to create an account with the online database of your choice and then pay any required fees for usage of the site. After that, you’ll be able to use the search tools to look up the license plate. The amount of information available varies from site to site, so be sure to use a database that contains the information you need.

If you can’t afford to pay a fee, you can use this website to perform a license plate search completely free of charge. You’ll be given access to the following information:

Should you need to get in contact with the owner, a second search for their name will often yield contact information like a phone number or email address.

The one potential drawback of a third party site is that they don’t always have the most up-to-date records. But you’ll have better luck finding any records through outside means that you will through the DMV itself.