Buying a vehicle from abroad without having the document translated

A dealer is offered a vehicle from France, a recycler one from Poland. The documents follow foreign layouts, the fields are named differently, and the identification number is not where you know it from at home. Retyping means mistyping; having it translated costs days.

The international document reading delivers both: the canonical fields in a uniform structure and alongside them the original value with its source code. The identification number read is then the key to vehicle data, recalls and the revenue estimate — without a single translation.

What this case requires

• The registration document as a retrievable file. The call takes fileUrl or imageUrl; for personal documents only the standard level is provided.
• The entitlement to process. Registration documents and plates are personal data and need a legal basis.
• Photos of the vehicle showing the plate. Plate reading takes up to three images.
• A framework for the revenue estimate. Country, condition and vehicle type determine which market it is calculated against.
• The entitlement to query the vehicle. With the call you confirm that you are the keeper, the owner or demonstrably authorised or otherwise legally entitled, and that you use the identification number solely for the stated permissible purpose.

The sequence

The table names the responsible call per stage and what exists afterwards. The reasoning for why a stage cannot be skipped follows below it.

Why each stage is needed

1. Read the document. POST /scanner/document/registration/international returns document with countryCode and documentType, registration, holder, inspection with validUntil, and vehicle with vin, make and fuelType. In fields every field additionally appears with sourceCode and sourceValue — so what the original said stays verifiable.
2. Read the plate. POST /vision/license-plate reads per plate text, normalized, country, confidence, position and obstructions. Only what is in the image is output: no keeper lookup, no register match, no statement on whether the plate is genuine. Matching it with the document is your plausibility check.
3. Identify the vehicle. GET /vin/{vin}/vehicle returns series and technical attributes for the identification number read. The vehicle data come from reference data, not from the foreign document — and are therefore independent of its layout.
4. Check recalls. GET /recalls/vehicles/{vin} returns the hits from the official registers with their data status. An open recall changes the purchase price, and it is easier to negotiate before buying than after.
5. Estimate the revenue. GET /vin/{vin}/economic-evaluation takes country, condition and vehicleType and returns a purchase recommendation on the price minimum. This recommendation is thus available before negotiating and must be verified independently before use.

curl -X POST \
  -H 'X-Api-Key: <API_KEY>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Idempotency-Key: ankauf-import-fr-0412' \
  -d '{"fileUrl":"https://example.com/zulassung-frankreich.pdf","quality":"standard"}' \
  'https://api.tapinomahub.com/scanner/document/registration/international'

What you end up with

What remains is a purchase whose data come from the original document and from reference data rather than a translation — with a read plate, a known recall status and a purchase recommendation before the first round of negotiation.

Where to find this in the documentation

The binding field lists, error codes and sample responses live in this surface’s OpenAPI contract at docs.tapinomahub.com (tapinoma-hub). All use cases arranged by surface and role: overview of the use cases.