The motor vehicle registrations dashboard shows all vehicles registered in New Zealand for the first time, during the most recent calendar month. It also shows a subset of reregistered vehicles – full reregistration data will be available in the future. The dashboard is designed for websites, please be aware it is not ideal to use on smart devices.
You can filter and analyse the data using one or many dimensions – for explanations of each, see the list of dashboard term definitions below.
There is a helpful guide to assist you in using this online resource. Try our training video:
View training video(external link)
You can export the data by clicking on the 'export data' icon at the top right of the dashboard.
Motor vehicle registrations dashboard user guide [PDF, 998 KB]
Data reuse and data quality caveats
If you have any questions or feedback on this dashboard and open data, email us at StatisticalAnalysis@nzta.govt.nz
Register to get emails when we improve the dashboard(external link)
7 October 2024: A training video has been added to assist you in using this online resource.
1 November 2023: data set update and compliance review: administrative changes across the data set, numbers may differ from those previously supplied.
1 August 2022: 8 new dimensions have been added in the Reports filters, and the number of dimensions selectable at once has increased from 6 to 12. An additional 3 years of data has also been added. Please note that export times will increase if you include more data.
12 August 2021: 22 new reports have been added to the dashboard. These reports can be found by selecting the Reports list button in the dashboard below.
17 May 2021: data covering 2020 and 2021 is now available. You can find 24 pre-set bookmarks for year-to-date reports (starting with the letter ‘Y’) in the Reports list.
Note: These numbers are a snapshot of the data at the end of every month. Some attributes may have an “undefined” value. This happens when the data isn’t recorded initially, but is updated after first registration.
Where a term has an asterisk (*) you can find more detail in the entry certification Vehicle Inspection Requirements Manual (VIRM).
Entry certification VIRM – vehicle attribute definitions(external link)
Vehicle make and model cleansing code (GitHub)(external link)
The way we've recorded vehicle year in the Motor Vehicle Register (MVR) has changed over time. The table below outlines these changes.
| Date of 1st NZ registration or certification | Recorded in the MVR | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1994 | All vehicles: Year of manufacture | Up to the early 1990s this was simple, because vehicles were generally assembled new in New Zealand. |
| From 1994 |
Used imports and re-registrations: Year of first registration or year of manufacture New vehicles: year of manufacture or model year |
In the early 1990s the market changed – the local vehicle assembly industry was dying and more vehicles (new and used) were being imported. This meant a mixture of model year, year of first registration and year of manufacture being provided. Finding the year of manufacture for used vehicles was difficult, particularly from Japan. As a result, year of first registration was the default, as Japanese transport authorities do not record year of manufacture. For new vehicles, the default was model year. 1 July 1995 saw an upgraded MVR, and the current licence label format was introduced. The year provided was entered into a data field named year of manufacture, but printed on the licence label as vehicle year. The data field was later renamed to vehicle year to cover the varying types of date provided. In addition, the date of first registration and year of first registration anywhere in the world were recorded in the MVR for all vehicles. |
| From November 1999 | All vehicles: Year of manufacture, or if unknown, year of first registration |
With the implementation of Land Transport Rule: Vehicle Standards Compliance 1998, pre-registration procedures matched the definition of vehicle year provided in the rule: The calendar year in which the construction of the vehicle was completed provided that, if there is no means of demonstrating the year of manufacture, the year of manufacture is the year the vehicle was first registered in any country. Year of first registration continued to be the default, due to difficulties finding year of manufacture for used vehicles. For new vehicles, the model year was still used because the model year was set by the manufacturer, who used year of first registration. |
| From 28 February 2005 |
Used vehicles and re-registrations: Year of manufacture, or if unknown, year of first registration New vehicles: Year of manufacture |
No change for used vehicles. The change using only year of manufacture for new vehicles was set by the Ministry of Transport to match the recording of fuel consumption information, and was based on the year of manufacture. Model year was no longer used, as it could be after the year of manufacture – for example a 2007 model may have been manufactured in 2006. Used vehicles still sometimes recorded year of first registration sometimes – instead of year of manufacture – because it was difficult to give the year of manufacture. |
| From 5 December 2005 |
All vehicles: Year of manufacture or model year |
Vehicle year matched the definition in the Consumer Information Standards (Used Motor Vehicles) Regulations 2004.
|
| From 1 January 2007 | All vehicles: Year of first registration | This change happened because of and agreement between the motor industry, the Ministry of Transport and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. The agreement recognised that:
The Motor Industry Association defined the year of first registration as the same as model year for new vehicles. This may change in future, for example if government databases want to record extra information, for example year of manufacture. |
In most situations, the data will be available at the start of each month. The dashboard shows the last updated date as a timestamp.
This data and its accompanying information are released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0)(external link)
If you have any questions or feedback on this dashboard and open data, email us at StatisticalAnalysis@nzta.govt.nz
