What do I do if my car is stolen?
Short answer
Check first that it has not been towed or clamped. Then call 101 — or 999 if the theft is happening now — with the registration, make, model and colour, and get the crime reference number. Tell your insurer the same day and hand over every key. Tell DVLA you have sold the vehicle to the insurer only once the claim is paid.
Verified · 6 cited sources
Our advice is to spend two minutes ruling out a tow before you report a theft. None of the cited pages put the checks in that order, but a towed vehicle and a stolen one look identical from the kerb, and a theft report you have to withdraw costs you the crime reference number the insurer wants. In London, London Councils runs TRACE on 0300 077 0100, twenty-four hours a day, and it covers vehicles towed by a London borough council. Elsewhere in England, and in Wales and Scotland, there is no equivalent lookup — ring the council for the street you parked in. If the vehicle was untaxed it may have been clamped or impounded instead: GOV.UK says to call 101, or NSL on 0343 224 1999, and an INF32 leaflet left on a clamped vehicle carries the number to ring.
Then the police call. GOV.UK's stolen vehicle page tells you to dial 101 and ask to be put through to your local police with the registration number, the make and model, and the colour; dial 999 instead if the theft is in progress or anyone is in danger. Calls to 999, 101 and 0800 numbers are free. Add the VIN, the mileage and any tracker details, and ring the tracker provider at the same time. The output that matters is the crime reference number.
Call the insurer the same day, with that number in front of you. Expect to be asked for every key. The Financial Ombudsman Service says it checks whether you gave the insurer all the keys and, if not, why — and whether your account to the police matched your account to the insurer. Where an insurer argues the keys were left in the car because there was no sign of forced entry, the ombudsman says that does not always follow, and expects the insurer to explore copied keys, keys fished through a letterbox and keyless entry.
Do not tell DVLA anything about ownership yet. GOV.UK says the police notify DVLA of the theft, so that report is already made. What you do — and only once the insurer pays — is tell DVLA you have sold the vehicle to the insurance company, online or by sending the yellow section of the log book with a letter giving the date the payment was accepted and the insurer's details. The vehicle tax is then cancelled and refunded for full remaining months, calculated from the date DVLA receives the information rather than the date of the theft.
Two things are genuinely urgent at the DVLA end. If the vehicle carried a personalised registration number you want to keep, GOV.UK says to get it back before you tell DVLA you no longer own the vehicle. And keep the car insured until the claim closes, because you are still the registered keeper until the transfer is recorded. Allow eight weeks for the tax refund cheque before chasing DVLA.
If the insurer refuses the claim or the offer is too low, complain formally. The Financial Ombudsman Service says its service is free, that you should complain to the firm first, and that you can bring the case to it if the firm has not sent a final response within eight weeks or you are unhappy with the one it sent. Where it finds you were treated unfairly it will usually tell the insurer to pay out what the vehicle was worth on the day it was stolen, and will consider compensation for distress and inconvenience on top.
Our reading is that the insurance half of this problem is uniform across the United Kingdom while the policing half is not. The ombudsman sets out a single route without distinguishing between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the mechanics of the process — final response, eight weeks, free complaint — do not change with your address. Policing does: GOV.UK points readers in Scotland to a postcode search for their local policing team rather than to one national line. The cited pages do not draw that contrast themselves.
- Rule out a tow first — TRACE on 0300 077 0100 in London, the council elsewhere, NSL on 0343 224 1999 if untaxed
- 101 for the report, 999 if it is happening now; give registration, make, model and colour
- The crime reference number is what the insurer, the tax refund and any penalty appeal all run on
- Tell the insurer the same day and disclose any key you cannot hand over
- Tell DVLA you sold the vehicle to the insurer only after the claim is paid — the tax refund runs from that date
- Retrieve a personalised registration number before you notify DVLA of the transfer
People also ask
Sources & provenance
Facts verified
- 1.What to do if your vehicle has been stolen OfficialUK GovernmentUsed for: Dialling 101 for your local police, the registration, make, model and colour to give, the crime reference number needed for the insurance call, that the police tell DVLA about the theft, the online and yellow-log-book routes for notifying DVLA once the insurer pays, and getting a personalised registration back first
- 2.Contact the police OfficialUK GovernmentUsed for: 999 for a crime in progress or immediate danger, 101 or online reporting otherwise, that calls to 999, 101 and 0800 numbers are free, and the postcode search for local policing teams in Scotland
- 3.Cancel your vehicle tax and get a refund OfficialDriver and Vehicle Licensing AgencyUsed for: That a refund covers full months remaining and is calculated from the date DVLA receives the information, that telling DVLA the vehicle was sold or stolen is the only way to cancel the tax, the exclusions for credit card fees and the Direct Debit and six-month surcharges, and the eight-week point at which to chase the cheque
- 4.Vehicle theft — complaints we can help with RegulatorFinancial Ombudsman ServiceUsed for: That it checks whether all keys were handed over and whether your account to the police and to the insurer is consistent, that no obvious sign of a break-in does not always mean the key was left in the vehicle, the copied-key, letterbox and keyless possibilities it expects insurers to explore, that its service is free and follows a final response or eight weeks, and that a successful complaint usually means the insurer pays what the vehicle was worth on the day it was stolen plus any distress and inconvenience award
- 5.Towed vehicle tracing (TRACE) OfficialLondon CouncilsUsed for: That TRACE covers vehicles towed by a London borough council, runs 24 hours a day 365 days a year, gives the location and release procedure, and is reached on 0300 077 0100
- 6.Get a clamped or impounded vehicle released OfficialUK GovernmentUsed for: Clamping and removal of untaxed vehicles, the INF32 leaflet left on a clamped vehicle, and calling 101 or NSL on 0343 224 1999 to find a vehicle that has been removed
Not a source — AI-assisted analysis on this page
- AI-assisted analysis — triage order and the UK-wide reading — Two conclusions on this page are ours, reasoned from the cited documents rather than taken from them. First, that you should rule out a tow or an impound before reporting a theft: GOV.UK publishes the stolen-vehicle route and the clamping route as separate pages and does not sequence them, and no cited body advises checking one before the other. Second, that the insurance side of a stolen-car claim is uniform across the four nations while the policing side is not: the Financial Ombudsman Service describes a single complaints route without distinguishing jurisdictions, and GOV.UK directs readers in Scotland to a separate postcode search, but neither draws the contrast we draw.
The reporting sequence, the details the police ask for, the crime reference number, the fact that police notify DVLA, the DVLA notification routes and the tax refund mechanics are lifted from the GOV.UK stolen vehicle, contact-the-police and vehicle tax refund pages; the key and consistency arguments, the free service and the eight-week or final-response escalation from the Financial Ombudsman Service; the towing and clamping checks from London Councils and GOV.UK. Two things are our reasoning and are labelled as such in the text and in the source list: the instruction to rule out a tow before reporting a theft, and the reading that the insurance route is UK-wide while policing is not. Refund processing times, helpline numbers and insurer claim handling change — confirm the current position with DVLA and your insurer.
Facts on this page are taken from the sources listed above — UK government departments, devolved administrations, regulators, statutory bodies and official statistical releases. Comparisons, judgements and "which option suits whom" conclusions are AI-assisted analysis written over those sources; they are marked in the text and listed as an AI-analysis entry in the sources, not attributed to any authority. Rates, thresholds, fees and processing times change, usually at the start of a tax year in April; figures are current as at the review date shown and should be confirmed with the responsible body before you rely on them. Much of what follows differs between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — where it does, this site says so.