Is there a central database of UK car service history?

No. Unlike MOT data, which the DVSA holds centrally and publishes free, there's no government or industry-wide record of servicing — each garage keeps its own records, and there's no requirement for them to report anywhere central. A 'full history check' that claims to show servicing from a single database is checking something else, usually MOT and mileage data, not servicing.

What can I check for free before buying a used car?

The full MOT history — every test, pass or fail, advisory and recorded mileage, going back to the car's first test — is free to check by registration on the DVSA's own service. It's the single most useful free check available, even though it doesn't cover servicing directly.

How do I check if a car's mileage is genuine?

The MOT history's recorded mileage at each test is the best free cross-check — if the mileage has dropped between tests, or jumps unusually, that's worth asking the seller about directly. It isn't a guarantee against clocking, but an unexplained inconsistency across several tests is a real warning sign.

Car service history check: what you can and can’t verify

If you’re buying a used car and searching for a way to “check its service history”, it helps to know upfront what’s actually checkable and what isn’t. There’s good free data available in the UK — just not the data most buyers expect.

What you can check for free: MOT history

Every car over three years old has a full MOT history, held by the DVSA and free to look up by registration. It shows every test the car has had, whether it passed or failed, any advisories the tester noted, and the mileage recorded at that point. This is genuinely useful: it gives you a mileage trail across the car’s life, which is one of the better free defences against a clocked odometer, and advisories can hint at recurring problems even if a car has since passed.

What you can’t check: there is no central service database

This is the part that catches most buyers out. Unlike MOT data, servicing isn’t held anywhere central. Each garage — independent or main dealer — keeps its own records, in its own system, with no obligation to share them anywhere else. There is no government register of oil changes, cambelt replacements or brake work, and no single company holds that data for every UK car either. If a checking service claims to show you a car’s “full history” from a single search, look closely at what it’s actually pulling — in almost every case, it’s MOT, mileage and write-off/finance data, not servicing.

That gap is exactly why sellers still rely on a stamped book or a folder of invoices to prove servicing — because there’s no external database to check against, the proof has to come from the seller, and a buyer has to judge how much to trust it.

How to get closer to a real answer

Ask the seller for documents, not claims. “Full service history” in an advert is a claim. Ask to see the actual invoices, and note whether they’re for this specific registration.

Cross-check dates against the MOT mileage trail. If a service invoice says the car had 40,000 miles in March but the MOT six months later shows 38,000, something doesn’t add up and it’s worth asking about.

Look for a verified digital record, not just a claim. Where a seller has put their history onto a platform where each entry is marked garage confirmed, invoice attached or owner reported, you’re seeing something closer to a real check than a stamped book alone can offer — particularly the garage-confirmed entries, which don’t depend on trusting the seller at all.

Other checks worth knowing about

Separate from servicing, there are a couple of other checks worth doing before buying a used car that people sometimes confuse with a “service history check”. An HPI or similar vehicle-history check (usually paid) can flag whether a car has outstanding finance owed against it, has been recorded as a write-off, or has had its mileage previously flagged as suspicious by a garage or inspector — genuinely useful information, but again, not servicing. A pre-purchase mechanical inspection, either from an independent inspector or a marque specialist, is the closest thing to an actual audit of a car’s current condition, and can sometimes reveal whether recent maintenance claims match what the car’s actually had done to it — a cambelt that’s supposedly just been changed but shows its original marking, for instance.

Where CarKept fits

CarKept doesn’t claim to hold a central database of every UK car’s servicing — no one does, and any service that implies otherwise is overstating what it can check. What it does is give owners a free page for their car, seeded from the same public MOT history described above, where they can add their own maintenance records and have garages confirm them directly. Over time that becomes the closest thing to a real, checkable service history a given car has — built by the owner, not assembled from a database that doesn’t exist.

That distinction matters for how much weight to put on any given check. A free MOT-history lookup tells you what the DVSA has actually recorded — genuinely reliable, but narrow. A vehicle’s CarKept page tells you what its owner has chosen to add and, where relevant, what a garage has independently confirmed — potentially far richer, but only as complete as what’s been put there, since a car with no records added simply hasn’t started building that history yet. Neither replaces the other; used together, they cover most of what a careful buyer can actually check before committing to a used car.

Check the MOT history, see what's been recorded

Look up any UK car by registration to see its free MOT history and any service records its owner has added.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a central database of UK car service history?: No. Unlike MOT data, which the DVSA holds centrally and publishes free, there's no government or industry-wide record of servicing — each garage keeps its own records, and there's no requirement for them to report anywhere central. A 'full history check' that claims to show servicing from a single database is checking something else, usually MOT and mileage data, not servicing.
What can I check for free before buying a used car?: The full MOT history — every test, pass or fail, advisory and recorded mileage, going back to the car's first test — is free to check by registration on the DVSA's own service. It's the single most useful free check available, even though it doesn't cover servicing directly.
How do I check if a car's mileage is genuine?: The MOT history's recorded mileage at each test is the best free cross-check — if the mileage has dropped between tests, or jumps unusually, that's worth asking the seller about directly. It isn't a guarantee against clocking, but an unexplained inconsistency across several tests is a real warning sign.