UK 'safest country' in Europe to buy a used car
Wed, 17 Dec 2025
The UK is one of the safest countries to buy a used car, ranking top in Europe and also outperforming the USA.
Britain has the fewest clocked cars, lowest share of previously-damaged vehicles and, thanks to our right-hand drive market, the lowest number of imported vehicles – lowering the risk of being scammed or defrauded.
That's according to new data from vehicle history checking service CarVertical, which shows just 17% of UK vehicles have a damage record. This compares to 45% of cars in the US, while Poland ranked worse with nearly two in three used cars having a history of damage.
Just 2.3% of checked cars in the UK were clocked, compared to more than 1 in 10 in Latvia. Again, the share of clocked vehicles in the US is more than double that in the UK.
And when odometers are rolled back in the UK, the data shows the rate of tampering is among the lowest, at ‘just’ 35,000 miles. This compares to over 63,000 miles in Latvia and Finland, where mileage tampering was highest.
Little more than one in 50 used cars in the UK checked by CarVertical were imported, compared to more than four in five in Bulgaria and a global average of nearly 54%.
The risk of fraud is greater with imported vehicles as the cars are more likely to carry falsified histories or undisclosed damage.
"Buying a used car always carries some level of risk, but motorists in the UK are far less likely to fall victim to fraud or serious scams than buyers in many other countries," says CarVertical’s Matas Buzelis.
"The secondhand market here is generally safer because we import fewer vehicles and operate under much stricter regulations. Most used cars remain in the UK for their entire lifespan, meaning there is less cross-border trade and greater transparency around a vehicle’s history.
"As a result, UK drivers are less likely to end up with a car that has been badly damaged, repaired poorly or had its mileage tampered with – issues that are far more common across parts of Europe and the US."
The data also revealed a growing shift to older vehicles in the UK. The average age of cars checked by CarVertical has risen to 11.2 years, up from 10.8 years in 2024.
Indeed, the UK has one of the oldest used car profiles, higher than the average of 9.9 years and just shy of Latvia at 11.4 years.
Slovenia recorded the youngest used car age profile, at 7.9 years.
