4 Free Tools to Check Car Tax, MOT, Insurance and More

How often do you wonder "is my car taxed" now that we're no longer issued with Tax Discs? How about "is my car MOT'd" if you can't find your paperwork? I try to commit the car tax, MOT and insurance renewal dates of my cars to memory. But it can be tricky. If you need this information quickly, luckily there are websites willing to help for free. Here I'll show you the best resources I've found to check car tax, insurance and more on the web.

Check Car Tax, Car MOT and Insurance for Free

I personally use the following 4 websites to tell me almost everything I ever need to know about my (or anybody else's) cars. Perfect if you're considering buying a vehicle you've seen and want a little more information. Or you just need a reminder about the vehicle(s) you're driving yourself:

#1 Free MOT Check at MOT.tools

We'll start with the most important, yet easily forgettable. Your MOT! This is my new favourite MOT history check tool online. It's totally free, blazing fast, mobile responsive, super easy to use - and very easy to find with the catchy domain name mot.tools.

It'll tell you how successful any vehicle was in passing previous MOT's. It'll also give you an exact list of issues that might have triggered an Advisory Note or failed the MOT altogether.

For mobile viewers it even has a neat camera upload trick - where you can take a picture of your registration plate on your phone and it'll automatically find your car. Very clever!

You'll also find basic vehicle information which is great if you're just looking for a simple registration lookup too. I quite often find myself looking up personalised registrations to find a vehicle's model year.

A brilliant tool if you perhaps want to prove the authenticity of past successful MOT's. Maybe you've lost your own MOT paperwork or you might even want to keep an eye on past Advisory/Fail notes for future reference. It's all here in a very useful table!

#2 Total Car Check

A really nice all-in-one check that provides a ton of information about your enquired vehicle. It shows past MOT's including advisory notes, recall notices, CO2 emissions, mileage charts, whether a car is marked as stolen and more. All for free! It also has the option for a paid check to return info regarding outstanding finance or insurance write-offs, much like a HPI check.

The ease of use and simple design combined with the wealth of information it provides is very efficient.

I have noticed in recent months that more and more information is being put behind a login form, such as MOT advisories. But it's free - so you've nothing to lose.

#3 Gov.uk Car Tax Check & Vehicle Enquiry

A very basic car tax check direct form the Government telling you whether your car is Taxed and MOT'd, and when the renewal for both is due. It states car tax costs, plus some basic information about the vehicle in question. And you know it's 100% accurate as the data is coming straight from the DVLA themselves. This is the newer version of the original DirectGov vehicle check website that is now obsolete.

#4 AskMID Car Insurance Check

askMID is still the only accurate website that informs you if your car is insured or not, and it's very easy to use. It returns the Make/Model of your enquired vehicle and whether it is showing as insured on the Motor Insurance Database.

It's very important you don't forget your insurance - it's one of the more serious driving offences. And with askMID you can check your car insurance for free at any time.

Technically you're only allowed to enquire about vehicle(s) you own. However if you happen to be feeling curious about another car perhaps, there's nothing stopping you.

These are my most recommended 100% FREE tools to check car tax, MOT, insurance and more. But do remember they're not just limited to cars. You can check the details of many vehicles including bikes and trucks - providing they have a valid UK registration.