How Old Is My Dishwasher?
A dishwasher's serial number is on the inner edge of the door — you have to open the door and look at the side of the door panel itself, which is why so many people never find it. Enter the serial below to decode the manufacture year.
How Old Is Your Dishwasher — and Is It Worth Repairing?
Most pages answering this question stop at the number. Finding the age is the easy half: the serial is on the inner edge of the door, which you only see with the door open — that is why so many people never find it. The decoder below reads the year from it. What matters more is what the number tells you to do next.
Dishwashers have the shortest life in the kitchen: 7 to 12 years, averaging about 9. That is meaningfully shorter than a fridge or a washer, because the pump and heating element run continuously in hot, mineral-heavy water. It also means the repair-or-replace line arrives sooner than people expect, and a quote that would be obviously worth paying on a 9-year-old refrigerator is often not worth paying on a dishwasher of the same age.
Where is the serial number on a dishwasher?
- 1On the inner edge of the door — open the door fully and look along the left or right side of the door panel.
- 2On the tub rim, along the top edge of the opening where the door seals.
- 3On the side of the tub, visible when the door is open.
- 4Under the toe-kick panel at the very bottom on some European models.
Not the number you want: the E-Nr (Enummer) on Bosch, Siemens and Neff machines — that is the model number. Bosch dishwashers carry their date in the separate FD number, not the serial.
Brand exceptions worth knowing
Bosch is the important exception: the serial carries no date. Look for the FD number — the year is the first two digits plus 1920, so FD 0301 is January 2023. Our decoder accepts it with or without the FD prefix.
GE dishwashers follow the standard GE two-letter month-and-year scheme at the start of the serial.
Decode your serial number
Pick the manufacturer, then type the serial exactly as it appears. We'll read the manufacture date out of it.
Pick your manufacturer above and we'll show the exact serial format to look for.
Pick your manufacturer and we'll show you exactly what its serial number looks like and where to find it.
Reading the date code by brand
The decoder above handles all of these automatically. This is the reference if you want to read the serial yourself, or check its work. Where the sticker is on a dishwasher is covered in step 1 — below is how each brand encodes the date once you’ve found it.
How old is my Whirlpool, Maytag or KitchenAid dishwasher?
- Covers:
- Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Amana, Jenn-Air, Kenmore (Whirlpool-built) — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- A letter, then a year code (letter or digit), then digits — e.g. C21234567. The 3rd-4th digits are the week (01-53).
- Reading the year:
- Whirlpool reuses letter year codes about every 30 years (e.g. A = 2021 or 1991) — the week digits and your purchase era settle it.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (starts with letters like WRF, MVW, KDT). The serial is the second code on the same tag.
- Worked example:
C21234567 → March 2012
How old is my GE dishwasher?
- Covers:
- GE, GE Profile, Café, Monogram, Hotpoint (US only) — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Two letters + 6 digits, sometimes a letter at the end (e.g. TL123456B)
- Reading the year:
- GE reuses year letters every 12 years, so one serial can match two or three plausible years — pick the one that matches when you bought or moved in.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (the longer code with digits and letters mixed throughout, e.g. GTS18GTHWW).
- Worked example:
TL123456 → October 2018
How old is my Samsung dishwasher?
- What the serial looks like:
- 15 characters — the 8th is the year letter, the 9th the month (on short 11-character serials it's the 4th and 5th)
- Reading the year:
- Samsung reuses year letters every 20 years, so the letters that have come round again (L, R, T, W, X, Y) match two plausible years — your purchase era settles it.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (starts with RF, WF, DW etc.). The serial is on the same sticker, usually below a barcode.
- Worked example:
0AB74AEKA00123Z → October 2018
How old is my LG dishwasher?
- Covers:
- LG, Kenmore (LG-built) — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Starts with 3 digits: first = year, next two = month 01-12 (e.g. 810KW... = Oct 2018)
- Reading the year:
- The year is a single digit, so it repeats every 10 years (8 = 2018 or 2008) — your purchase era settles it.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (starts with letters, e.g. LFXS26973S).
- Worked example:
810KWXX12345 → October 2018
How old is my Bosch dishwasher?
- Covers:
- Bosch, Thermador, Gaggenau, Siemens, Neff — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- The FD number: "FD" + 4 digits (FD 0301 = Jan 2023), often with extra digits after it (FD030100233 works too)
- Don’t use:
- NOT the E-Nr — that's the model number, and it's the first thing you'll see on the tag. The date lives only in the FD number next to it.
- Worked example:
FD030100233 → January 2023
How old is my Frigidaire or Electrolux dishwasher?
- Covers:
- Frigidaire, Electrolux, Kenmore (Electrolux-built), Gibson, Kelvinator, Tappan, White-Westinghouse — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Two letters + 8-10 digits (e.g. NF81064326): 3rd character = last digit of the year, 4th-5th = week 01-53
- Reading the year:
- Only the last digit of the year is encoded, so it repeats every decade (8 = 2018, 2008 or 1998) — go by when you bought the home or unit.
- Don’t use:
- Not the model number (mixes letters throughout, e.g. FFTR1814TW).
- Worked example:
NF81064326 → March 2018
How old is my Kenmore dishwasher?
- Covers:
- Kenmore, Kenmore Elite, Kenmore Pro — they share one dating scheme.
- What the serial looks like:
- Whatever the actual builder uses — Sears sold other makers' machines under the Kenmore name. Enter the serial and, if you have it, the model number.
- Reading the year:
- Kenmore units were built by Whirlpool, LG, Frigidaire and others, each with its own dating scheme. Where a serial reads plausibly on more than one of them, the model number settles it.
- Don’t use:
- The MODEL number is genuinely useful here (it starts with three digits and a dot, e.g. 110.45862400) — it tells us who built the unit. Enter it in the model box if the serial alone is ambiguous.
- Worked example:
810KWXX12345 → October 2018
Is your dishwasher broken, or are you just checking?
The age means different things depending on the answer. Pick one and we'll show you only what applies.
What tends to fail, and when
| Age | What typically goes |
|---|---|
| Years 1-3 | Spray-arm blockages and detergent-dispenser latches. Usually cleaning rather than repair. |
| Years 4-7 | Drain pumps, door-latch switches and worn door seals that let water weep onto the floor. |
| Years 8-10 | Circulation pump, heating element and control board failures — the expensive tier. |
| Years 11+ | Past typical service life. Rack tines corrode, and older machines use substantially more water per cycle. |
*Actual lifespan depends on usage, maintenance and quality. Well-maintained appliances often exceed these averages.
What the age actually means for a dishwasher
Signs it's time to replace rather than repair
Any one of these usually settles it on its own, whatever a repair quote says — each is the enclosure or the core going, not a part.
How long a dishwasher lasts
9
years average
7
typical minimum
12
well maintained
*Actual lifespan depends on usage, maintenance, and quality. Well-maintained appliances often exceed these averages.
Under 7 years, what fails is cheap — spray-arm blockages, drain pumps, door-latch switches, worn seals. Repair. From year 8 the failures move to the expensive tier: circulation pump, heating element, control board. Apply the 50% rule, but apply it harder here: a repair costing more than half a new machine is rarely worth it past year 8, because average service life is only 9 and you are buying a very short extension.
Two failures are replace signals on their own, at any age: visible rust on the tub floor, and a door that still leaks after a new gasket. Both mean the enclosure itself is going, and neither is economically repairable.
Enter the serial below and the decoder will identify the manufacturer and read the date. Bosch is the exception worth knowing — its serial carries no date at all, so look for the FD number instead, where the year is the first two digits plus 1920. The decoder accepts it either way.
Things worth knowing about your dishwasher
It beats washing by hand
A modern dishwasher uses only a few gallons per cycle, well under what a running tap gets through doing the same dishes by hand. Scraping rather than pre-rinsing is the single biggest thing you can do for both water use and results.
Quieter machines need you to clean the filter
Older dishwashers ground food waste up with a built-in disposal, which was effective and loud. Most machines sold in the last decade dropped that in favour of a removable filter — much quieter, but it needs rinsing out by hand every few weeks. A great many "my dishwasher stopped cleaning" complaints are a clogged filter.
The shortest life in the kitchen
At roughly 9 years on average, dishwashers wear out faster than any other major kitchen appliance. The pump and heating element work continuously in hot, mineral-heavy water, which is simply harder duty than a fridge compressor faces.
Common questions
How old is my dishwasher?
Open the door and find the serial number on the inner edge of the door panel or the tub rim, then enter it above. The manufacture date is encoded in the serial for most brands — Bosch is the exception and uses its FD number instead.
Where is the serial number on a dishwasher?
Open the door fully and look along the inner edge of the door itself, on the left or right side. If it is not there, check the tub rim along the top of the opening.
How long does a dishwasher last?
Dishwashers last 7 to 12 years, averaging about 9 — the shortest life of any major kitchen appliance because the pump and heating element work in hot, mineral-heavy water.
Is it worth repairing a dishwasher?
Under about 7 years old, yes for most faults. Past 8 years, a failed circulation pump or control board typically costs enough that a new machine is the better buy.
Protect your home appliances before they break
A home warranty covers breakdowns on your working home appliances — the kitchen and laundry machines you use every day, plus the systems that run the house.
- Not the same as home insurance
- Insurance covers disasters and theft. A home warranty covers breakdowns from normal wear and tear — the washer that simply stops working.
- One plan, the whole house
- Coverage spans the appliances and the systems together rather than a single machine, so it is bought per home, not per unit.
- Arranged before a breakdown
- Plans cover appliances that are working when you sign up, and an inspection usually is not needed. That is simply how the product works — it is bought ahead of a failure, not after one.
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