Whirlpool and KitchenAid serial number lookup: find the manufacture date

Where the serial number is on a Whirlpool appliance

The model and serial number share one label. Open the door or lid first; on most Whirlpool appliances you won’t need to move the unit.

Basis: Whirlpool's official help pages. Diagrams are simplified; your model's exact spot can differ.

Basis: official (Whirlpool Product Help, “Where is my Model and Serial Number Located?”).

The serial is the line marked “S/N” or “Serial”. Don’t decode the model number by mistake.

KitchenAid serial numbers

KitchenAid major appliances are a Whirlpool Corporation brand, and a KitchenAid serial follows Whirlpool’s layout: plant code, year code, week (see how to read the date below). KitchenAid says all its appliances carry an adhesive model and serial label, usually silver on major appliances. For fridges, dishwashers, ranges, wall ovens and over-the-range microwaves the spots are the same as in the Whirlpool table above; the table below also covers KitchenAid’s other products.

Basis: official (KitchenAid Product Help location pages and KitchenAid’s “Locate Model Number” page).

Once a KitchenAid or Whirlpool microwave’s serial gives you its build year, set that against how long microwaves last.

KitchenAid notes that the registration card that comes with every refrigerator also shows the model and serial. Ask a seller for it, especially on a quad-door model that’s already built in. KitchenAid says its standard limited warranties typically run a year from the date of delivery (dishwasher warranties can run longer) and cover only the original buyer; they can’t be transferred (as of October 2026). So a used KitchenAid normally comes without the factory warranty, whatever its build date. This page covers major appliances, not KitchenAid countertop products such as stand mixers.

How to read the date

A Whirlpool serial has three parts:

1. Plant code: one letter, or on some serials two letters.
2. Year code: one letter or digit, right after the plant code.
3. Week: the next two digits, 01 to 53.

On most serials the year is the second character, so the week is characters 3–4. Where the plant code is two letters, the year moves to the third character and the week to characters 4–5.

Some decoding sites say a 9-character serial uses position 2 and a 10-character serial uses position 3. Character count alone isn’t reliable. The Maytag dryer serial MX06404786 has 10 characters but decodes from position 2 (X, week 06). Read from position 3 it would give week 64, which doesn’t exist. The fix: pick the reading where the two digits after the year code form a real week (01–53).

Year-code table

Basis: Whirlpool doesn’t publish this table. It comes from electrical-forensics.com’s Whirlpool date-code table, which is cross-checked against several independent decoding references and against real serials. The letters I, O, Q, V and Z are not used as year codes. electrical-forensics says N isn’t used either, but Sears PartsDirect’s Kenmore guide uses N for 2003.

An official record shows R = 2004 by its serial ranges and sale dates. US Consumer Product Safety Commission recall 05-123 (February 2005) covered Whirlpool dishwashers with serials FR2200000 to FR2499999 and Whirlpool-made Kenmore dishwashers with serials FR2200000 to FR4599999, sold from June 2004 through January 2005. Those serials carry the year letter R and weeks 22 to 45. Weeks 22 to 45 of 2005 came after the recall was announced, so R can only be 2004. Basis: our reading of an official record (CPSC recall 05-123).

Worked examples

• Whirlpool washer, model WTW5000DW1, serial C60842986. C is the plant. 6 is the year, and on a modern-style serial a digit means 2016. 08 is the week, so the washer was built in late February 2016 (electrical-forensics).
• Maytag dryer, model MED7230HW0, serial MX06404786. Maytag has used Whirlpool’s code since Whirlpool bought it. M is the plant, X is the year (2020 for this current-era model), and 06 is the week. That puts it in early February 2020 (electrical-forensics).
• Serial CR3949348 (an illustrative serial). R means 2004, as CPSC recall 05-123’s serial ranges and sale dates show (Sears PartsDirect’s table reads R as 2005), and 39 is the week, so late September 2004. No decade guesswork is needed.
• Kenmore washer, serial starting RA01. Sears PartsDirect reads this as the first week of 1991 or 2021. Whirlpool built many Kenmore laundry units.

A Whirlpool-family appliance built during 2026 carries F in the year position.

Real serial numbers, decoded

Whirlpool built Kenmore appliances for Sears with this same code, so one row is a Kenmore unit: a documented 1992 refrigerator. The dishwasher serial is a range limit from CPSC’s 2005 recall.

Basis: electrical-forensics.com documents the refrigerator and its build week; for that serial the checker lists April 2022 first, then April 1992, because B repeats every 30 years. The FR serial is the upper limit of CPSC’s recalled Whirlpool range, not an individual unit, and its reading is ours; the CPSC sale dates in the paragraph above fit it.

The decade problem and how to settle it

The code repeats, so one serial can point to two or three different years:

• K, L, M, P, R, S, T, U, W, Y only ever mean 2000–2009, so there’s no ambiguity.
• Digits 0–9 can mean the 2010s, or the 1970s or 1980s on very old units. On a unit you’d find for sale today, a digit is almost always 2010–2019. A 1980s appliance looks and feels its age.
• X and A–J mean the 1990s or the 2020s. That 30-year gap is the one to check.

To settle it:

1. Look up the model number in Whirlpool’s Product Lookup. If current manuals and parts come up for that exact model, a 1990s reading is very unlikely.
2. Check the owner’s manual. A print or revision date on the cover or back page should be close to the build year.
3. Ask for paperwork. A receipt, delivery note or registration confirmation gives a firm “no later than” date: the unit was built on or before it. If it was bought new, a reading 30 years earlier is very unlikely.
4. Look at the design. Touch controls, app connectivity and current styling rule out the 1990s.

What the age means if you’re buying used

The build date is the start of the appliance’s clock, not the start of its warranty. Warranties are normally counted from the original purchase or delivery date, so ask the seller for the receipt if coverage matters.

Once you know the year, compare it with typical service life:

• How long do refrigerators last?
• How long do washing machines last?
• How long do dryers last?
• How long do dishwashers last?

Age also feeds into price. See used washer prices and used refrigerator prices.

Limitations

• The serial gives the build week, not the install date, the hours of use or the condition.
• Whirlpool publishes no official decoder. The table above is a well-corroborated independent reference, not a Whirlpool document.
• Some websites publish Whirlpool tables with different letters. For example, Sears PartsDirect’s Kenmore guide lists N=2003, P=2004, R=2005 (no S), one year off from the table above for 2003–2005, and some unreliable sites claim J means 2020. CPSC recall 05-123 shows R = 2004, which matches the table above, not Sears’. Where a table disagrees with the one above, check it against a unit whose age you know before you trust it.
• Units built for Whirlpool by other factories can use other formats. If the serial doesn’t fit plant + year + week, contact Whirlpool support with the model and serial.

Next steps

1. Enter the serial in the checker above.
2. Run a recall check with the model and serial.
3. Work through the used appliance buying checklist before you pay.
4. For Maytag (including older Maytag codes), see the Maytag page; KitchenAid is covered above. For Sears units, see the Kenmore page. To see other brands’ codes side by side, use how old is my washer, dryer, refrigerator or dishwasher.

Checked against the sources below on 26 September 2026; the CPSC recall and paperwork notes on 6 October 2026; the real-serial table on 20 October 2026. The KitchenAid section moved here from its own page on 19 October 2026, with its KitchenAid sources.