Central Registration and Identification System

The Central Registration and Identification System (CRiS) is the UK's national register of caravans.

History
CRiS was launched in 1992 by the National Caravan Council (NCC) in conjunction with Hire Purchase Information (HPI) in an effort to prevent caravan theft.

Operation
Since launch, all NCC member caravan manufacturers assign each new caravan a 17 digit Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) with the number etched into the side windows of the vehicle, and stamped into the chassis. Upon purchasing a new caravan, the dealership registers the caravan with CRiS and the owner is provided with a Touring Caravan Registration Document which details the make and model of the caravan along with its VIN. It is also possible to register caravans built before 1992 retrospectively with CRiS. The CRiS registration can be checked when purchasing a second-hand caravan to verify the caravan is not stolen and also has no outstanding finance or been written-off. CRiS also introduced the supplementary VIN CHIP upgrade kit which adds a scannable QR code sticker, tamper-evident window stickers bearing the VIN of the vehicle, and an RFID tag which is placed anywhere in the vehicle and can be read by law enforcement by a scanner.

Unlike the V5C registration document used by the DVLA for registering motor vehicles, it is not a legal requirement to hold a CRiS registration for a caravan, however most insurers require a CRiS registration document in order to provide cover.

VIN encoding
The assigned VIN number whilst being unique to each vehicle also encodes certain information about the vehicle. For example, the VIN  can be broken down as follows:

Where manufacturer codes are defined as follows:

and where year of build codes are defined as:

After 2021, the letters roll over back to N, and thus N-Y denote each year from 2022 to 2030.
 * Letters N to Y denoting each year from 1992 to 2000 respectively
 * Numbers 1 to 9 denoting each year from 2001 to 2009 respectively
 * Letters A to M denoting each year from 2010 to 2021 respectively