Is there a free PPSR check? Yes, two ways, and here's the catch

Budget Direct, the insurer, arranges a free PPSR certificate by VIN through its website. You enter the VIN and your mobile number, verify by SMS, agree to marketing contact and the certificate is emailed, Budget Direct says, within about ten minutes. The limit is two certificates per mobile number.

It is the same certificate the PPSR issues to anyone else. The price is your contact details and consent to be marketed to. If you are happy with that trade and have the VIN, it is the cheapest check in Australia.

The Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA) runs the PPSR and charges $2 for a vehicle search by VIN or chassis number. You pay by card, the certificate arrives by email, and you can retrieve it again free at any time with its search number. No account is needed.

The certificate includes the finance result and the NEVDIS block. That block covers stolen status (except Tasmania), written-off status with damage codes, and the plate, expiry, make, model and colour on record. Our step-by-step guide to the $2 search walks through it.

One caution. If you mistype the VIN, the PPSR still runs the search and charges you, and there is no refund for a nil result. Check all 17 characters twice before you pay.

The PPSR cannot be searched by registration plate, through any channel. Budget Direct inherits the same limit. If you are looking at an online ad that shows the plate but not the VIN, neither free option works until you find the VIN.

The free state rego checks sometimes help. Only Victoria prints the full 17-character VIN from a plate. Queensland probably does. NSW and South Australia show the last four characters, WA now masks half, and Tasmania, the ACT and the NT show no VIN at all. Everywhere except Victoria, you are asking the seller for the VIN or paying someone to look it up.

Every state and territory offers a free registration check by plate. It is not a PPSR check and shows no finance. It does show registration status and expiry, usually make and model, and in NSW the last three yearly odometer readings and the CTP insurer. South Australia adds a general warning if the car is recorded stolen or written off. Queensland shows the purpose of use, private or commercial. Run it alongside any PPSR check; it costs nothing and takes a minute.

Our basic price is $12.95: $2.00 PPSR search fee paid to the Australian Government, plus $10.95 for what we do around it.

• Search by number plate and state. We convert the plate to the VIN and show you the make, model and year before you pay.
• The official PPSR certificate, unaltered, with its search number, attached to the report and emailed to you.
• A plain-English verdict page: finance, stolen, written-off and registration on one screen.
• A free re-run if you mistype the plate or VIN, or if the register returns no vehicle data. The $2 search charges you again.
• A full refund if no certificate arrives, and no subscription or trial anywhere in the process.

Have the VIN and do not mind marketing calls? Budget Direct. Have the VIN and want it clean? Spend $2 at ppsr.gov.au. Have only the plate, or want the result explained and the decoded write-off codes and recall data of the $27.95 report? That is what we are for.