South Africa Vehicle Registration OCR with Python SDK

Reading the South Africa vehicle registration certificate (RC1)

South African vehicles are registered on the national eNaTIS system, and the registration certificate shows the vehicle register number, VIN, engine number, make, series name, licence number and the title holder and owner. Dealers, financiers and fleet operators capture these fields at every change of ownership or financing.

A Server-Side Python Workflow

The StructOCR Vehicle Registration OCR API returns standardized fields for every country (VIN, plate, make, model, year and colour) and a localized block for country-specific fields. Fields such as the vehicle register number and engine number are returned under localized.generic.unmapped_fields when printed. For the business use cases, see South African NaTIS RC1 OCR.

Where Teams Use It

• Vehicle finance: Read the certificate during credit applications and match the VIN with the invoice.
• Dealers: Capture registration details on trade-ins and sales.
• Fleet operators: Keep VIN, engine number and licence number on file for each vehicle.

South Africa Vehicle Registration OCR with Python SDK

The official Python SDK reads a local file and calls /v1/vehicle-registration. The API reference documents every field.

Prerequisite: `pip install structocr`; set the server-side `STRUCTOCR_API_KEY` environment variable.

import os
from structocr import StructOCR

client = StructOCR(os.environ["STRUCTOCR_API_KEY"])
result = client.scan_vehicle_registration("registration.jpg")

if result.get("success"):
    data = result["data"]
    std = data["standardized"]
    print(std["vin"], std["plate"]["formatted"], std["make_normalized"], std["year"])
    print(data["localized"])
else:
    print(result.get("error"))

JSON Response Example

An illustrative response with fictional values.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "document": {
      "country_code": "ZA",
      "document_type": "VEHICLE_REGISTRATION",
      "confidence_score": 0.93
    },
    "standardized": {
      "vin": "AHTFR22G106012345",
      "plate": {
        "number": "CA123456",
        "letters_normalized": "CA",
        "formatted": "CA 123-456"
      },
      "make_raw": "TOYOTA",
      "make_normalized": "TOYOTA",
      "model_raw": "HILUX",
      "model_normalized": "HILUX",
      "year": 2020,
      "color_raw": "WHITE",
      "color_normalized": "WHITE"
    },
    "localized": {
      "generic": {
        "unmapped_fields": {
          "vehicle_register_number": "ABC123D",
          "engine_number": "1GD1234567"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}