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Appliance Age Finder

Whirlpool serial number lookup

Whirlpool is one of the few brands that encodes the production week, so a good Whirlpool lookup gets you to within a few days — provided you can settle which decade the year code belongs to.

Look up a Whirlpool appliance

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How Whirlpool serial numbers work

The first character is a manufacturing division code, the second is the year, the next two digits are the week of that year, and the rest is a build sequence. The year character runs on a thirty-year cycle: ten letters for the 1990s, a different ten for the 2000s, then the digits 0-9 for the 2010s, after which the 1990s letters come round again.

A Whirlpool serial number is built from four parts. The first character is a manufacturing division code identifying which plant built the unit. The second is the year. The next two digits are the week of that year, counted from the first week of January. Everything after that is a build sequence recording the order units came off the line that week.

The week digits are the useful part. Most American brands stop at the month, and several do not even encode the decade, so Whirlpool's week-level precision is unusually good. It also means a Whirlpool lookup can be checked for internal consistency: a week number above 53 is impossible, and we reject it rather than round it down to something plausible.

Whirlpool Corporation builds under a lot of badges, and the same system runs across them for a given period. KitchenAid has used it since 1986, Maytag and Amana since the 2006 acquisition, and Roper and Estate throughout. That is why a Maytag serial from 2008 decodes here but a Maytag serial from 1998 does not — the brand changed hands and changed system.

One thing we deliberately do not do is name a factory. The first character identifies a manufacturing division and Whirlpool has never published a public table mapping those letters to plants. Sites that name a specific factory from that letter are guessing, and we would rather leave the field blank.

Example Whirlpool serial format

An example built from published documentation. We never use real customer serial numbers.

MX06404786

M is the division, X is the year code for 2020, 06 is the sixth week of the year, and 404786 is the build sequence. That reads as early February 2020.

Appliance types we can decode for Whirlpool

  • Refrigerator
  • Freezer
  • Washing machine
  • Clothes dryer
  • Dishwasher
  • Range
  • Oven
  • Cooktop
  • Microwave
  • Ice maker

Categories not listed here are either not made under this brand or not covered by a rule we can source.

Where to find the label on a Whirlpool appliance

  • Refrigerators: inside the fresh-food compartment on the left wall, or on the ceiling near the front.
  • Washers and dryers: around the door opening, under the lid on top loaders, or on the rear panel.
  • Dishwashers: on the edge of the door, visible only when the door is open.
  • Ranges: behind the storage drawer or on the frame behind the oven door.

Production-period caveats

  • Before 1990 the year position was a bare digit, so pre-1990 serials cannot resolve to a single decade.
  • Because the letters repeat after thirty years, a 1993 appliance and a 2023 appliance share the same year code. The model number or your purchase date is what tells them apart.
  • Whirlpool has never published a public table of division letters, so we do not name a factory or country from the first character.

Why a lookup commonly fails

  • The serial was copied from the energy label or a shipping carton rather than the appliance data plate.
  • A three-letter prefix was entered. Our rule covers the documented two-letter layout, and we would rather return nothing than force a different shape through it.
  • The letter O was typed where the digit 0 appears, or vice versa.

Sources for the Whirlpool rules

Official Whirlpool support: Whirlpool product help. Rules last reviewed 29 July 2026.

Spotted a wrong result? Report it

Whirlpool serial number questions

My Whirlpool serial has three letters at the start. Why does it not decode?
Our rule covers the two-letter layout that Whirlpool's documented format describes: division letter, year character, two week digits, then the sequence. Some serials carry a different shape, and rather than force those through a rule that was not written for them, we return no result and say so. If you have a three-letter serial and know the appliance's real age, reporting it helps us source the variant properly.
Does the serial number tell me when I bought the appliance?
No. It records when the unit was built. Appliances routinely spend months in a warehouse or on a showroom floor, and clearance stock can be a year or more old at the point of sale. If you bought it new, expect the purchase date to be somewhere between a few weeks and about eighteen months after the build date.
Can I tell the model from the serial number?
No. The serial identifies the individual unit and its build date. The model number is a separate field on the same label, and it is the one you need for parts, manuals and recall checks.
Which is the serial number on a Whirlpool label?
The label carries both. The model number is usually the longer alphanumeric string beginning with letters that identify the product line, such as WRS or WTW. The serial is typically ten characters and starts with two letters. If the label is worn, the serial is normally the field marked SERIAL NO. or S/N.

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