VCA eCoC Portal is live: everything you need to know from the 16 June webinar

The portal is live

The VCA's eCoC submission portal opened on 17 June 2026. UK vehicle manufacturers can now upload signed IVI XML files through the portal or via the API — both feed the same VCA database.

For questions and support, the dedicated team can be reached at ECOCdatainquiries@vca.gov.uk — this is separate from the type-approval team.

The VCA will publish an account-creation guide, a full portal user guide, and a screen recording on the VCA website. Slides from the webinar are available on request from the same inbox.

Deadline update: mandatory from 29 November

The mandatory requirement has shifted. eCoC submission is now only compulsory for vehicles manufactured from 29 November 2026 onwards. Until then, supplying eCoCs is optional — but if you don't, you must keep issuing paper COCs. There is no retrospective requirement for vehicles built before 29 November.

Despite the extended deadline, opening an account and testing uploads now is strongly advisable — approval takes up to 5 working days and you don't want to be queuing for access in late November.

Getting registered

Nobody is auto-registered. One person must register the manufacturer account first, then add colleagues. To register, you'll need: your name, the email address you intend to log in with (this must match exactly), your manufacturer name, and a verification code from the VCA. You'll receive a "request received" notice, and VCA will verify the request — confirming you are a legitimate manufacturer and that no one else has already registered under that manufacturer name.

Two invitation email formats

Once approved, you get one of two emails depending on whether you already use the type-approval portal:

• New to VCA portals: email contains a link plus a complex temporary password. Copy the password first, click the link, then sign in via Microsoft and set a new password.
• Existing type-approval portal user: you get just a link. Log in with your existing type-approval email and password — the same credentials work for both portals automatically.

User roles

There are three roles. The first person to register becomes the primary user by default.

New users can only be added as upload or view — promoting someone to primary requires a separate email request to VCA with authorisation from an existing primary user. You can have multiple primary users. Removing all roles strips portal access entirely (the login still works but shows no data). Group emails for primary users are strongly discouraged due to Microsoft authentication and data security issues.

Uploading IVI XML files

Go to the "upload eCoC file" area and read the on-page guidance the first few times. Key constraints:

• Format: XML only. One XML file = one vehicle.
• Batch size: max 100 files per upload, each under 1 MB. For higher volumes, use the API.
• Source: choose files from local or network drives, or drag-and-drop from OneDrive, SharePoint, or File Explorer. Unsuitable files are flagged immediately.

Before the "send files for processing" button activates, you must tick both declaration statements confirming the data is complete and accurate and that you agree to the Terms and Conditions. The declarations stay ticked while you remain on the page (so you can fix and re-upload without re-ticking), but clear once you navigate away.

Reading submission statuses

The submissions area shows all submissions under your manufacturer account — not just your own. You can search by full or partial VIN (wildcard), filter by failed status, and view created dates.

What's not in Phase 1 (coming in August)

The portal is intentionally limited at launch. These features are not yet available:

• Previous-stage IVI retrieval — not available via the current portal or API. This comes in a separate public-facing portal in August (Phase 2), where you'll be able to view and download previous-stage XML by VIN.
• ICM (Information Checking Module) checks — not run at submission initially.
• Signature validation — at upload, the system checks for the presence of a digital signature, not its validity. Ensure your signing process is correct before relying on upload success as confirmation.

Note on the August public portal: there is no restriction on editing downloaded XML, so stage 2 manufacturers will be able to extract previous-stage data to populate their own IVI files.

Multi-stage manufacturers

The portal accepts multiple eCoCs for the same VIN — this is how multi-stage builds work. Duplicate detection is based on VIN + IVI version number + stage of completion/manufacture. This also means corrected versions can be re-uploaded simply by incrementing the version number.

Stage 2+ manufacturers only need to complete the sections relevant to what they changed, plus mandatory fields. There is no requirement to carry over unchanged previous-stage data — though you'll need to retrieve it from the August public portal to verify what was submitted upstream.

Portal limitations: what you still need to solve upstream

The VCA portal is an upload interface — it accepts XML files and routes them to the VCA database. Everything that needs to happen before that upload sits outside the portal entirely, and the gaps add up quickly for manufacturers submitting at volume.

The portal is the right tool if you are submitting occasionally and already have a signing workflow in place. For manufacturers with regular production output, the overhead of managing XML generation, signing, ICM corrections and previous-stage retrieval across multiple tools quickly outweighs any savings versus a system-to-system integration.

UK vs EU XML differences

The UK uses the EU IVI XML template with additional options added in limited-option fields. The key practical difference: the EU template will not accept a G11 or N11 approval number (the UK scheme codes). Identical templates across UK and EU are not possible — your UK IVI files must use the UK-specific schema with the correct scheme identifiers.

There is also no link between the UK and EU eCoC systems. The UK is a non-EU state with no EUCARIS access, so VCA cannot act as an EU national access point. If you sell into both markets, you need to submit to the VCA portal for UK registrations and to the relevant EU national access point separately — these are entirely independent systems.