To access the Manufacturer Portal, you must use a standard web browser. This application works best in recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Only authenticated users who have registered with NHTSA and who have a valid EWR account and user account on Login.gov can log on. When you sign into the Manufacturer Portal, you will sign in through Login.gov and be required to enter your email address and password and one of your selected authentication methods. Upon login, the User Guide for the NHTSA Manufacturer Portal is available under the Help menu.

User account setup and secured access to the NHTSA Manufacturer Portal is managed by Login.gov. Note that your Login.gov email and the email on your NHTSA EWR account must match. For information on how to set up your account, please visit the Help link at Login.gov.

Users who have trouble logging into Login.gov can view the Help link located at the bottom of the Login.gov home page to troubleshoot their issue. If they need further assistance, they may click the Contact link and submit a form describing their issue. A Login.gov team member will contact the user to assist in resolving the issue.

Review the steps to setting up an account, and submit an account application to NHTSA.

Once you prepare your EWR report in the correct format, select your manufacturer under the Submissions menu. A “Submit a Report” form will be displayed which you will need to complete. Simply complete the form, attach your report, and click “Submit.” The file will be uploaded, and the results will be displayed in the Submitted Reports section below the form. Note: You will have to click on the refresh icon to the far right of the Submitted Reports title to see updates to the processing of your submitted report. The status may take several minutes to update. For example, a Field Report submission may take a significant amount of time (several minutes and, in rare cases, hours) to process.

49 CFR Part 579 outlines reporting requirements, as well as on the Overview Section of NHTSA’s EWR website.

The Reporting categories for EWR Submissions are:

• Child Restraints/Seats
• Equipment
• Buses, Medium and Heavy Vehicles (Including Emergency Vehicles)
• Light Vehicles
• Motorcycles
• Tires
• Trailers
• Low Volume (Under threshold volumes as defined in 49 CFR Part 579)

EWR Submission due dates can be found on NHTSA website.

The EWR data types are Manufacturer Communications, Foreign Recalls, Substantially Similar Vehicles Listing, Non-Dealer Field Reports (Field Reports), Production Counts, and Aggregate Submissions of Death and Injury Counts, Warranty Claims, Field Reports Counts, and Property Damage Claims.

Click the NHTSA icon at the top left corner and it will take you to the Manufacturer Portal main page.

All existing manufacturer associations should be migrated to your account. If you do not see your associated manufacturer under the Submissions or Inquiries menu items once logged in, please contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov.

The Aggregate, Death and Injury, and Substantially Similar Vehicles reports must be filed in XML format. If you normally prepare these reports in Excel, they must be converted to XML format before upload. You can use NHTSA’s Excel to XML Converter Tool to convert your Excel document to XML and validate it.

The file type for Field Reports (Non-Dealer Field Reports) must be a ZIP file containing individual Field Report files. Allowed file types for individual Field Reports inside the ZIP file are: PDF, DOC/DOCX, RTF, HTM/HTML, TIF, JPG, and TXT. The previous file naming convention for Field Reports within a ZIP file is still required and validated by NHTSA.

There are Microsoft Excel templates and Extensible Markup Language (XML) schema and instance files available for downloading to your local machine. These templates, schema, and instance files are updated from time to time. You should check these sections on NHTSA’s EWR web site periodically to see if any information has changed.

 Data files should not exceed 5GB in size each.

The NHTSA Manufacturer Portal will provide error messages explaining why the upload process failed. You will need to troubleshoot your file submission based on the error message received. You must correct the problem before attempting to resubmit the report. You can review the User Guide (in the Manufacturer Portal) and Training Materials to assist in troubleshooting. If your file does not upload after troubleshooting, contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov.

If a submission fails either schema or data validation three times for the same Category, Report Type, and Year/Quarter, the submission is set to Hold status and you must contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov to resolve the issue.

Yes, you can work in Excel. You will need to convert the Excel document to XML before you upload your submission. You can use NHTSA’s Excel to XML Converter Tool in the Manufacturer Portal to convert your Excel document to XML and validate it.

NHTSA provides an Excel-to-XML conversion tool which is available either online or may be downloaded and run offline on your local computer (assuming your computer account permissions allow you to run downloaded applications).

For the online version please do the following:

1. Select the “Excel to XML (Online)” item from the Tools menu.
2. Select the report category for the Excel document you want to convert.
3. Click the “Choose File” button to select a file from your computer. Click “Open.” The name of the file is displayed on the right of the “Choose File” button.
4. Click the “Process” button to convert the Excel file to XML and validate it.
5. The results of the validation will be displayed in the lower pane of the page.
6. You can save the file by clicking on the large “SAVE FILE” bar at the bottom of the page (it spans the whole page).

For the offline version please do the following:

1. Select your platform from the “Excel to XML (Windows | Mac | Linux)” item from the Tools menu. This will initiate a download of the application.
2. Unzip the downloaded file.
3. Open the README.md file and follow the instructions contained in it.

Many users may not have administrative privileges on their workstation to download and/or run the NHTSA Excel-to-XML conversion tool. The online version is available to use in such cases.

The requirements for each field in an XML file is defined in the XML schema. An XML schema is available for each reporting category and report type on NHTSA.gov. Any file that does not conform to the schema will fail schema validation.

If you manually craft or edit your XML, you are likely to see syntax errors, where XML elements are not properly formatted. For example, missing or extra closing or opening brackets (<, >), incorrect escaping of text, mismatched opening/closing element names, incorrect XML declarations, etc. Many of these “well-formedness” errors can be avoided by using XML-aware editors that can highlight XML syntax, format XML for easier reading and detect syntax errors.

Assuming your XML is well-formed (no syntax errors), the most common reasons for XML schema validation failures are as follows:

• Incorrect data type. For example, providing a non-numeric value where a numeric value is expected. In the Production section of the Aggregate report, for instance, if you enter a non-numeric value or anything that is not four digits for the Model Year data element, the XML schema validation will fail. Here is an example validation error message due to the XML file having “1.0” for the ReportVersion data element, which is invalid (it should be an integer):
  • element ReportVersion: Schemas validity error : Element 'ReportVersion': '1.0' is not a valid value of the local atomic type.
• Incorrect selection of value from list. Some XML data elements require a selection from a list of possible values. Example: The value for the FuelPropulsionSystem data element in the Aggregate report must be one of a list of values (CNG, CIF, EBP, etc.). Providing a value outside of the allowed list will result in an XML schema validation error. Here are example validation error messages due to the XML file having “ABCD” for the FuelPropulsionSystem data element, which is invalid (in this case, there are multiple lines of errors for one violation, which is common in XML validation error messages). One of the error messages also indicates the possible valid “drop-down” values for this data element.
  • element FuelPropulsionSystem: Schemas validity error : Element 'FuelPropulsionSystem': [facet 'enumeration'] The value 'ABCD' is not an element of the set {'CNG', 'CIF', 'EBP', 'FCP', 'HEV', 'HCP', 'PHV', 'SIF', 'OTH'}.
  • element FuelPropulsionSystem: Schemas validity error : Element 'FuelPropulsionSystem': 'ABCD' is not a valid value of the local atomic type.
• Incorrect data length. Many XML data elements will constrain the length of free form text data elements (Make or Model in the Aggregate report, for example). Providing a value that is too short or too long will cause an XML schema validation error. Here are example validation error messages due to the XML file having “ACME INCORPORATED SPECIAL MAKE” for the Make data element which is restricted to a maximum of 25 characters (in this case, there are multiple lines of errors for one violation, which is common in XML validation error messages):
  • element Make: Schemas validity error : Element 'Make': [facet 'maxLength'] The value has a length of '30'; this exceeds the allowed maximum length of '25'.
  • element Make: Schemas validity error : Element 'Make': 'ACME INCORPORATED SPECIAL MAKE' is not a valid value of the local atomic type.
• Incorrect date format. Example: The date format for ReportGeneratedDate must be in the format: “YYYY-MM-DD”. Any other format will result in an XML scheme validation error. Here is an example validation error message due to the XML file having 1/15/2020 (wrong format, should be YYYY-MM-DD) for the ReportGeneratedData data element:
  • element 'ReportGeneratedDate': '1/15/2020' is not a valid value of the atomic type '{http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ewr/XMLSchema/LightVehicles}MyDate'.

If you primarily generate your reports in Excel, understanding the constraints placed on each field (data element) will help you avoid XML schema validation errors. The constraints by category and report type are available for your convenience on NHTSA.gov.

WinZIP, PKZIP and Windows compressed folder types are acceptable. The file must have an extension of .zip.

Note: If a report cannot be submitted, contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov.

You will see an “Accepted” status in the Submitted Reports section of the Manufacturer Portal. Note: You will have to click on the refresh icon to the far right of the Submitted Reports title to see updates to the processing of your submitted report. The status may take several minutes to upload. For example, a Field Report submission may take a significant amount of time (several minutes and, in rare cases, hours) to process.

The Manufacturer Portal has a facility to allow you to request a one-time extension of your due date for responses to an inquiry. If you request an extension, you must do so prior to the inquiry response due date. If granted, an extension provides you an additional two weeks from the original due date.

You are required to use the same file naming conventions for Field Reports (Non-Dealer Field Reports), but not for other submission types. However, NHTSA encourages companies to continue to use the same naming convention that you have in the past for all submissions as a best practice to prevent duplication, errors, and to ensure organization of your submission.

Yes, resubmit the submission until you receive an Accepted status. If you continue to experience the problem, contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov.

Batch upload capability is not currently available. However, it is being considered as a future enhancement.

The correct format is YYYY-MM-DD. Other date formats will be rejected.

You may use either your primary or secondary EWR contact information provided to NHTSA. If you have new contacts or contact information, please contact mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov to update your information.

In a Field Report (Non-Dealer Field Report) submission, the sequence number is used to identify each unique Field Report (incident). The sequence number must be unique within the container file and must start with the number 00001. If you are submitting multiple field reports, the sequence numbers must be sequential. For example, if you were submitting 100 field reports, the sequence numbers would be 1 through 100. Gaps in the sequence numbers are not permitted.

In a Death and Injury submission, sequence numbers are used to uniquely identity each record (incident) in that submission. Death and Injury sequence numbers are referenced in NHTSA inquiries and serve to pinpoint the specific records in the Death and Injury submissions.

Typically, it will take NHTSA two business days or less to respond to your extension request.

NHTSA employs a technology that scans files on-the-fly as they are uploaded (for example, to ensure they are safe and have no malicious content). The Submit button will not be activated until all files you have uploaded have been scanned. Typically, the time to process each file is much smaller than the time it takes to upload the file and you should not experience a delay before the Submit button is enabled. In some cases, however, the delay can be in the order of minutes. Should you experience this worst-case scenario, and are unable to wait, you can choose to log off and log back in later to submit your files, but only after all files uploaded are in the “Processing” or “Draft” state. Files in this state will not be lost if you log out.

No, you will not be able to submit your response until you have provided at least one file for each required report type in the inquiry. However, you can upload your files selectively across multiple login sessions and submit them once you have uploaded all required report files.

Confidentiality and release of information is addressed by the CFR in parts 512 and 579. If you are requesting confidentiality outside of what is outlined in the CFR, please contact the Counsel's Office at NHTSA to submit your request. You will need to upload your submission to the Manufacturer Portal as well and place “Confidential Business Information” on each page that you are requesting confidentiality.

No, Manufacturer Communications (including TSBs) are submitted through the Manufacturer Communications Portal. Continue to send Foreign Recalls via email to frecalls@dot.gov.

No, NHTSA no longer has the ability to upload EWR Submissions on behalf of manufacturers.

If you want to submit a revision to your Aggregate submission or Field Report submission, you will need to contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov. If you are attempting to revise your Death and Injury submission and are unable to it means there is an inquiry with this data created and you will need to contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov. You can revise the Substantially Similar Vehicle Listing submission.

All EWR requirements can be found in CFR Title 49 CFR Part 579.

To update your contact information, contact mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov.

Upon login, the Glossary of Terms is available under the Help menu.

NHTSA makes available Death and Injury data (with redacted PII), property damage claims, and light vehicle production numbers publicly on a quarterly basis. The data can be searched under the “Data Search” section of the website.

The Component Codes are defined in the Glossary of Terms and are listed in the XML schemas with what is acceptable for each reporting category.  

Because you will be submitting data separately and therefore will have separate primary and secondary contacts, you must apply for separate manufacturer EWR accounts. If you have account questions, please contact mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov.

Contact NHTSA at mfrewrhelpdesk@dot.gov.

Legal interpretations of the "Early Warning Reporting" Final Rule (49 CFR Part 579) can be found on the EWR web page.