Bike verification in Pakistan: the motorcycle registration check online, region by region

12 min read · Facts checked 2026-10-08

Motorcycles sit on the same excise registers as cars, so you check a bike the way you check a car: in the register that issued its plate. An Islamabad bike can be checked here from the plate alone. Punjab's MTMIS needs the plate, the registration date and a picture captcha, and Sindh's lookup takes the plate behind a Google reCAPTCHA. A plate lookup is not a theft check.

Motorcycles are covered the same way as cars, on the same excise registers. Islamabad and each province keep their own register, and the letters on a plate will not tell you which one issued it. So before the format of the number, the question that matters is which register holds the bike, because each one asks for something different.

You can only check a bike in the register that holds it. This is what each official lookup asks for, and whether this site can run it for you.

The official lookups in Islamabad, Punjab and Sindh are free. Check the address before you type anything into a page that looks official: the excise departments' own lookups sit on islamabadexcise.gov.pk, mtmis.excise.punjab.gov.pk and excise.gos.pk.

The Prime Minister's fuel relief scheme takes Rs 100 a litre off petrol for motorcycles and three-wheelers, and its registration SMS to 9771 asks for three things about the bike: the registration number without dashes or spaces, the letter of the province that registered it, and the registration date as eight digits. The date is the one printed in the registration book. The 9771 SMS format, part by part.

Islamabad's official vehicle lookup asks for two things: the registration number and the registration date. There is no captcha. Get the date wrong and the portal returns nothing at all. It looks exactly the same as a vehicle that does not exist. On this site the plate alone is enough, for a motorcycle as for a car, because we work the date out.

A motorcycle record carries the same fields as a car's: make, model, year, colour, body type, engine size, the engine and chassis numbers, the registration and purchase dates, the assessed value and how far the token tax is paid. How much of it is filled in depends on what the register holds for that bike.

HPA

Hire Purchase Agreement: the vehicle is under bank finance. The bank has to endorse the transfer form before ownership can move. The release is called HPT, and it costs nothing. What HPA means on a vehicle record.

Tax paid upto

An old date is not proof the tax has not been paid. The department says token tax paid at a post office may not reach its computer record, and that you have to go in to have the record updated.

Punjab's MTMIS lookup needs three things: the vehicle number, the registration date and a picture captcha. The plate on its own will not open it, for a motorcycle or for anything else, and we cannot run it for you.

The form keeps changing, which is why so many guides describe one that no longer exists. Until at least 8 November 2023 it had one field, the vehicle number. On 26 August 2026 it also asked for the chassis number. When we checked on 4 October 2026, the chassis field had been replaced by the registration date.

1. Open MTMIS on the Punjab Excise website.
2. Enter the vehicle number.
3. Pick the registration date, as printed on the bike's registration book or smart card.
4. Type the picture captcha and press Search.

If it comes back empty, the format is the usual culprit. Punjab's own form suggests trying different formats: lxz 123, lxz 0123, lxz 1111, lxz-07-1111. Try a leading zero, and try it with and without a space. The form also asks for the registration date, so check that against the registration book.

The chassis number, for matching a bike to its papers

It is on your papers

Your chassis number is on your registration book or smart card. It is also on the sale invoice and the sale certificate. On Pakistani papers it is labelled Chassis No., not VIN.

It is not the engine number

The chassis number and the engine number are two different numbers. MTMIS no longer asks for either, but both are what you match the bike against its papers with. Check each against its own entry.

It is often shorter than 17 characters

Do not assume your chassis number is 17 characters long. Motorcycles and older locally assembled vehicles often carry shorter frame numbers, so a short number is not in itself a sign that anything is wrong.

We do not tell you where the number is stamped on the bike itself. Locations vary by make and model, and we found no official source for it. More on the Punjab register on our Punjab page.

Sindh's lookup asks only for the registration number, but it sits behind a Google reCAPTCHA, so you run it yourself on Excise Sindh's Online Vehicle Verification. It searches two-wheelers separately from four-wheelers, so check that you are searching for a two-wheeler before you conclude a bike is not on the register.

Sindh notified a new registration series on 13 February 2026: four letters and three digits for four-wheelers, three letters and four digits for motorcycles and three-wheelers. The series list its excise department publishes is organised by vehicle class, not by district. It has not changed since 2019, so it does not tell you what Sindh is issuing now. More on our Sindh page.

Less than many guides claim. The letters on a Pakistani number plate do not tell you which province issued it. Punjab, Sindh and Islamabad have each worked through the same three-letter space, each starting at AAA, so the same old-format plate can be a valid mark in more than one register at the same time.

The province name is no help on a bike either. Punjab's prescribed car plate and motorcycle front plate carry the word PUNJAB. The prescribed motorcycle rear plate and rickshaw plate do not: they carry only the emblem and the mark. You cannot rely on reading a province name off the back of a bike.

In Sindh's February 2026 series, the format itself separates a bike from a car: three letters and four digits for a motorcycle, four letters and three digits for a four-wheeler. A three-wheeler shares the motorcycle format. And no single format covers Pakistan: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's own examples of a registration number are B 9838 and 2012110046.

A bike can also change register. Punjab announced re-registration of vehicles registered outside Punjab in January 2026, so even the register a plate sits in is not fixed for life. Why the letters do not identify a province.

From 1 July 2026, Islamabad token tax on a private car above 1000cc became a percentage of invoice value. Motorcycles were not changed: Rs 1,000, Rs 2,000 or Rs 5,000 for life. That is a one-time amount for the life of the motorcycle, not a yearly charge. The department's fee schedule page has the current rates. Islamabad token tax in 2026.

Islamabad also fines non-standard number plates. For a motorcycle the fine is Rs 1,000, and it is multiplied by five for a repeat offence by the same owner, which makes Rs 5,000.

Not in a way you can rely on. An excise register is a tax and title record, and theft sits with the police, in systems only officers can query. Our lookup cannot answer that question. Excise Sindh's lookup shows a CPLC status tile next to tax and HPA (on a lookup run on 8 October 2026 it read 'Vehicle is Clear'), and a clear status still does not prove that the vehicle in front of you is the one on the record.

A clean record proves less than it seems. A cloned plate returns a real, clean record belonging to a different vehicle, and one excise department printed the limit on its own lookup page:

“does not reflect the genuineness of the vehicle or its documents/informations”

Punjab: Police Khidmat Markaz

You can have a vehicle checked against police records and a forensic expert report. It costs Rs 500 for a motorcycle and Rs 2,000 for anything else, and takes about 40 minutes. Ring your nearest centre first: not every one lists the service.

Karachi: CPLC, by telephone

CPLC publishes a 24-hour line for checking a vehicle against its stolen and snatched database: 1102, 021-35662222 or 021-35682222. Have the registration, engine and chassis numbers ready. We have not tested that the line answers.

Everywhere else

We could not establish a citizen-facing theft check we would be willing to send you to. Take the bike and its papers to a police station instead. How to check whether a vehicle is stolen.

1. Compare the chassis and engine numbers stamped on the bike with the registration book, character for character. If they do not match, stop there.
2. Check the record in the register that issued the plate. For Islamabad you need only the plate. For Punjab you need the registration date from the seller's papers.
3. On an Islamabad record, look for HPA. If the bike is under bank finance, the bank has to endorse the transfer form before ownership can move.
4. Have the bike checked against police records where that service exists, before any money changes hands.

Islamabad: 30 days, and it is the buyer's job

You have 30 days to report a transfer of ownership, and the law puts that duty on the buyer, not the seller. Until it is done, the register still names the seller. The transfer needs biometric verification of both buyer and seller, plus a physical inspection of the vehicle.

Punjab: biometrics through PAK-ID

Punjab now requires biometric verification through the NADRA PAK-ID app to register or transfer a vehicle. Any transfer checklist written before 2026 is out of date.

Punjab: two official fee tables

Punjab Excise publishes two different transfer fee tables on its own website, and they differ by the same proportion in every band. We cannot tell you which figure your office will charge, so get the total at the counter. Transferring a vehicle in Pakistan.

VehicleCheckPK is independent and not affiliated with any government department. The excise departments and police forces named here hold the authoritative records; for any legal purpose, confirm with them directly.