A PPSR check costs $2
Not $25, not $35. The official search is $2.00, it takes about a minute, and you run it yourself at ppsr.gov.au. We don't resell it. We read the certificate you get back.
Run it yourself, in four steps
- Get the VIN from the seller. Not the plate — the 17-character vehicle identification number. It's on the compliance plate under the bonnet or in the driver's door frame, and on the registration papers. Ask for a photo of it.
- Go to ppsr.gov.au and choose the motor vehicle search.
- Pay the $2 and save the certificate as a PDF. Keep it — the date and time on it are part of what makes it worth having.
- Read it properly, or have something read it for you. That's the step most people skip, and it's the step that matters.
What the $2 certificate actually covers
| Money owing | Whether a lender has a registered security interest over the car. If there is one and it isn't paid out before you buy, the lender can potentially repossess the car from you — you'd own the debt problem, not the seller. |
|---|---|
| Recorded stolen | Whether the vehicle has been reported stolen to a police service and recorded against the VIN. |
| Written off | Whether it's been recorded as a write-off, which state recorded it, the type, and often the damage and cause. |
| Vehicle details | Make, model, year, colour, body and often the plate — which is your chance to check the certificate is actually describing the car in the ad. |
Why the paid report sites exist
The sites charging $25–$35 are wrappers around this same $2 search. What you're paying the difference for is extras — odometer history, a valuation, a registration check — and for someone turning the legal wording into English. Some of those extras are genuinely useful. None of them change what the PPSR itself says.
Our position is simple: pay the government their $2, keep the certificate, and let us do the reading part. We charge for the reading, not for the search.
What it doesn't tell you
- Whether the car is mechanically sound. A certificate can come back completely clear on a car with a dead gearbox.
- Whether the seller actually owns it. It tells you about the vehicle, not about the person messaging you.
- Whether the listing is real. A scammer who has never owned the car can send you a genuine clear certificate for a VIN they copied from a real ad.
- Anything that happened after the search. The certificate is a snapshot of one moment, which is why you run it close to when you buy, not weeks before.
General information only, not legal advice. The authoritative source on what a search covers and what protection it gives you is ppsr.gov.au.
Where RegoSnap fits
Two things the $2 search can't do, which is the entire reason this app exists.
Before you have a VIN, you're looking at a listing. RegoSnap reads a screenshot of it and checks the seller's own words for the patterns that show up in vehicle-sale scams — a deposit to hold the car, a seller who can't meet you, a shipping agent, an unusual payment method. Every warning quotes the line from the listing that triggered it, so you can judge it yourself.
After you have the certificate, RegoSnap reads it, tells you in plain English what each finding means for you, checks the certificate actually matches the car in the ad, and writes you the questions worth asking the seller.
See a worked example of a certificate with money owing and a write-off →