Louis Vuitton Date Code Check: What the Numbers Mean

A Louis Vuitton date code check gives the factory and the production month or week, not whether the bag is real. Type the code into the checker to decode it.

How Louis Vuitton Date Codes Work

A Louis Vuitton date code is a short heat stamp that records where and roughly when a piece was made. It is not a serial number. Two bags of the same model finished in the same week at the same workshop carry the same code. Louis Vuitton has never published the system, so everything known about it comes from comparing codes on thousands of bags against receipts.

The code has had four shapes since it appeared around 1980. Bags made before 1980 have no code. The first codes were digits only. Workshop letters were added after the digits around 1983, moved in front of them around 1986, and the digit block settled at four characters in 1990. From 1990 to 2006 the four digits encode a month and a year. From 2007 to early 2021 they encode a week and a year.

Louis Vuitton stopped stamping date codes on leather goods around March 2021. Newer pieces carry a tiny RFID microchip in the lining instead. Bagaholic’s date code guide, built on more than 500 photographed examples, dates the change to items made after 1 March 2021. A modern bag with no stamp is therefore normal. A modern bag with a stamp that decodes to 2022 or later is not.

The two letters name a workshop, not a country. Louis Vuitton has workshops in France, Spain, Italy, the United States, Switzerland and Germany. Several letter pairs were used in two countries, so the letters alone cannot tell you where a bag was made. The “made in” line of the heat stamp resolves that.

One rule holds across every era. The date code should agree with the bag. A code that decodes to 2004 on a model first sold in 2013 is wrong, however well the stamp is made. A code from a Spanish workshop on a bag stamped “made in France” is wrong. The lookup checks shape and date; the agreement check is yours.

Date Code Format Table by Era

Use the table to place a code in time before reading anything else. Positions are counted left to right as the code is stamped.

The two modern formats look identical and are told apart only by the year. Read the second and fourth digits first. A year from 90 to 06 means the first and third digits are a month. A year from 07 to 21 means they are a week. A code such as SP0012 is January 2002, not week 1 of 2012, because 02 falls in the month era.

The boundary years for the 1980s formats are approximate. Different guides place the switch from digits-only to digits-plus-letters anywhere from 1983 to 1985, and the move of the letters to the front anywhere from 1986 to 1987. The lookup on this page uses 1983 and 1986 as dividing lines. A code that lands one year either side of a boundary is not suspicious.

Reading a 2007-2021 Code Position by Position

The week format is the one most people need to read, because most bags on the second-hand market were made between 2007 and 2021. Take SD1019 as a worked example.

1. Split the code into two letters and four digits. SD is the workshop. 1019 is the date block.
2. Take digits 1 and 3 for the week. Digit 1 is 1 and digit 3 is 1, so the week is 11.
3. Take digits 2 and 4 for the year. Digit 2 is 0 and digit 4 is 9, so the year is 09, meaning 2009.
4. Write it out. Week 11 of 2009 is mid-March 2009, at workshop SD.

A second example shows why the interleaving matters. AR2168 splits into AR and 2168. Digits 1 and 3 are 2 and 6, so the week is 26. Digits 2 and 4 are 1 and 8, so the year is 2018. Read naively as “2168” the digits mean nothing; read by position they give late June 2018.

Week numbers set a hard limit. The week must fall between 01 and 53. A code whose first digit is 6, 7, 8 or 9 cannot be a week code, because no week begins with those digits. Week 00 does not exist either. The lookup treats any two-letter, four-digit code that breaks these limits as a caution and asks you to re-read the stamp.

Week 53 deserves its own note. In the ISO week calendar only some years have 53 weeks. Within the week-code era those years are 2009, 2015 and 2020. A code reading week 53 of 2013 is therefore odd, though Louis Vuitton has never confirmed which calendar its workshops follow. The lookup passes week-53 codes for 2009, 2015 and 2020 and flags the rest for a second look.

Factory Codes by Country

The two letters identify a workshop, and the list has grown to more than 70 pairs since the 1980s. The table gathers the pairs most often seen on bags. It is compiled from published collector guides, not from Louis Vuitton, so a missing pair is not proof of a fake.

Seven pairs appear under two countries. SD, FL and LA were used in both France and the United States. SA was used in France and Italy. BC was used in Italy and Spain. LM and LW were used in France and Spain. For any of these pairs the letters cannot settle the country; the “made in” line of the heat stamp must do that.

A0, A1 and A2 are the only workshop codes that contain a digit. They belong to French workshops and appear on codes from the week era. The lookup accepts a digit in the second position for the 1990-onward formats for this reason. A digit in the first position is never a workshop code.

The United States workshops matter for buyers who assume every Louis Vuitton bag is French. Louis Vuitton has produced leather goods in California and Texas since the 1980s, and a bag stamped “made in U.S.A.” with an SD, FC or TX code is consistent. The reverse mismatch, a TX code on a bag stamped “made in France”, is not.

Where To Find the Date Code on a Louis Vuitton Bag

The date code is inside the bag, either on a small leather tab sewn into a seam or heat-stamped straight into the lining. The location depends on the model and, for older bags, on the year. Removing nothing is required; a torch and patience are.

On a Monogram or Damier Neverfull, open the bag and look inside the interior pocket. The code sits on a short leather tab sewn into the pocket seam, usually on the right when the pocket faces you. On an Epi leather Neverfull the code is stamped on the inside of one handle, where the handle meets the top trim.

On a Speedy, lift the interior pocket and look at the two leather tabs underneath. The code is stamped on one of them. On older Speedys from the 1980s and 1990s the tab can be small and the stamp faint, so tilt the bag under light.

On a Pochette Métis, close the flap and turn the bag over. The code is inside the zipped pocket on the back. On a Keepall, look along the interior near the zip for a leather tab; the exact side varies by production year.

On wallets and small leather goods the code is stamped directly into the lining of a pocket or card slot rather than on a tab. It is small and often low-contrast against dark leather. A 10x loupe and a raking light angle make it legible.

If you search the whole interior and find no code, check the age of the design. A bag from before 1980 has none. A bag made after March 2021 has none either, because a microchip replaced the stamp. A bag from the 40 years between those dates should have one, and a missing code on such a bag is a question for the seller.

Date Code vs Style Number vs Microchip: Three Codes People Mix Up

Louis Vuitton attaches three different identifiers to a bag, and only one of them is the date code. The table separates them so you enter the right one into the lookup.

The style number is the code most often typed into a date code checker by mistake. M40156 identifies a Monogram Neverfull MM. Thousands of bags share it. It never appears as a heat stamp inside the bag, and it tells you nothing about when your bag was made. The lookup recognises the M or N plus five digits shape and tells you to look inside the bag instead.

The microchip is the successor to the date code. LVMH co-founded the Aura Blockchain Consortium with Prada Group, OTB and Cartier to give each product a unique digital identity tied to its supply chain. Louis Vuitton staff can scan the chip in store. A buyer with an NFC phone app may detect a tag but sees only an encoded string, not a date or a model name. There is no consumer-facing lookup for the chip.

Bags Made After March 2021: No Date Code, a Chip Instead

A Louis Vuitton bag made after March 2021 has no date code, and its absence is the correct finding. Lollipuff reported the change as it happened: as of March 2021, many Louis Vuitton handbags and accessories no longer come with a date code, with an embedded microchip in their place. Bagaholic puts the cut-off at items made after 1 March 2021.

The chip is a passive RFID tag a few millimetres across, sewn into the lining or a side panel. It stores a unique identifier that links to Louis Vuitton’s internal record of the exact production date, materials and workshop. That record is richer than a date code, which only ever gave a week. It is also closed. Louis Vuitton has not opened a public tool for reading it, and boutiques generally scan chips only when handling a return or repair.

For a buyer this changes the checklist. A post-2021 bag cannot be dated from a stamp, so the receipt and the box label carry more weight. A seller who shows a stamped date code on a bag from a 2023 collection is showing something that should not exist. And a counterfeiter who omits the code on a fake of a 2015 design has made a different mistake, because that design should carry one.

The transition was not a single day. Some accessories and some workshops kept stamping for a few weeks into spring 2021, which is why the lookup flags week 13 onward of 2021 as a caution rather than a risk. A code from week 5 of 2021 is ordinary. A code from week 40 of 2021 needs a receipt to explain it.

What This Lookup Cannot Tell You

A valid date code does not mean a genuine Louis Vuitton bag, and this is the most important limit of any date code check. Counterfeiters copy real codes from real bags and stamp them on fakes. A copied SD1019 passes every format test because it was a real code to begin with. Format checking rules out badly made fakes with impossible codes. It does not rule in a genuine bag.

This lookup cannot tie a code to a model. Louis Vuitton’s own records link each production week to the pieces made, but that database is internal and has never been exposed. The only public statement Louis Vuitton makes about authenticity is about distribution: Louis Vuitton products are sold exclusively in Louis Vuitton stores, on louisvuitton.com and on 24s.com, and the brand states that it never discounts. Louis Vuitton does not authenticate items bought elsewhere and does not answer date code questions by email or phone.

This lookup cannot date a bag made after March 2021. Those bags have no stamped code. The chip inside them is readable by Louis Vuitton staff, not by you, and not by this page.

This lookup cannot see the stamp. Heat-stamp depth, letter spacing, the alignment of the tab and the colour of the leather are physical checks. A code in the right format stamped in the wrong font is still wrong. Resellers such as Fashionphile describe checking craftsmanship, stamping, stitching, engravings, hardware, date codes, materials and serial numbers together, because no single element decides the question. Counterfeit handbags remain one of the largest categories in seizures reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the copies that reach buyers carry plausible codes.

Finally, this lookup stores nothing. The code you type is checked in your browser against the patterns described on this page and is not sent anywhere.

From Format Check to Physical Check

The date code is the first filter, not the last. A sensible order for a second-hand purchase runs in four steps.

1. Decode the date code here. Confirm the shape is valid and the week or month is possible.
2. Check agreement. The year must not precede the model’s launch. The workshop country must match the “made in” stamp. The style number on the receipt must match the bag in hand.
3. Photograph the stamp and the code. A pre-screen from photos can flag font, spacing and tab problems before you pay. The measured version of that step, covering heat-stamp height, stitch count and hardware weight, is in how to tell if a Louis Vuitton bag is real.
4. Get a physical inspection for high-value pieces. An authentication service or a reseller with a money-back guarantee should see the bag itself.

Every luxury house numbers its bags differently, and the differences matter when a seller tells you what a code should look like. Coach creates a creed patch rather than a heat stamp, read in the Coach serial number lookup. Gucci prints two lines on a leather tab, decoded in the Gucci serial number lookup. Hermes blind-stamps a letter that moves with the year, charted in the Hermes date stamp guide. If you are weighing several houses at once, fake designer bags sets the checks side by side.

Our Louis Vuitton hub collects the physical checks by model, and the bags category covers other brands. The tools index lists the remaining code lookups.