Types of vans, with real examples

Vans come in three sizes, and each size comes in a few body styles. That's most of it. Then there are the vehicles people also call vans: minivans (which are really cars), camper vans and minibuses.

Below are all of them, with real models from VehiclesDB, a catalog of 808 van models from 133 makes built from official vehicle registers. Every model links to its page.

Van sizes: small, medium and large

Van makers sell their ranges in three sizes, and the sizes line up across brands:

Size	Ford	Citroën	Fiat	Peugeot	Opel / Vauxhall
Small (compact)	Transit Courier, Transit Connect	Berlingo	Doblò	Partner	Combo
Medium (mid-size)	Transit Custom	Jumpy (Dispatch in the UK)	Scudo	Expert	Vivaro
Large	Transit	Jumper (Relay in the UK)	Ducato	Boxer	Movano

The Stellantis brands (Citroën, Fiat, Peugeot, Opel and Vauxhall) list their vans as compact, mid-size and large in that order (Stellantis, October 27, 2023). Ford calls the Transit Courier a "small panel van" (Ford UK) and sells the Transit for "maximum space and payload" (Ford UK).

Other makers have the same three steps: Renault with the Kangoo, Trafic and Master (Renault); Volkswagen with the Caddy, Transporter and Crafter; Mercedes-Benz with the Citan, Vito and Sprinter.

Why 3.5 tonnes matters. In the EU a goods vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes is category N1, the light one (Regulation (EU) 2018/858, Article 4), and in the UK an ordinary car licence covers vehicles up to 3,500 kg (gov.uk). Heavier versions of the large vans exist, and registers file them as trucks: the Sprinter, the Transit and the Iveco Daily are in our truck list as well as our van list.

Types of vans by body

The same van is sold with different bodies. The common ones:

• Panel van (cargo van). A closed metal box behind the front seats, no rear windows. The default van, from the Berlingo to the Sprinter.
• Crew van (double cab). A second row of seats behind the driver and the cargo space behind that. Ford sells a "Double Cab-in-Van" Transit Custom (Ford UK).
• Passenger van and minibus. Windows and seats all the way back. Ford's Transit Custom Kombi seats up to nine (Ford UK); bigger versions are minibuses, which is why the Sprinter and the Transit are in our bus list too.
• Chassis cab. Just the cab and a bare frame, for a body builder to fit a box (a Luton van in the UK), a dropside, a tipper or a refrigerated body. Ford sells a "Transit Chassis Cab" (Ford UK) and Renault a Master chassis cab (Renault).
• Camper van. A van fitted out to sleep in. Some are factory-built: Volkswagen groups its vans as "Passenger carriers", "Panel vans" and "Camper vans and motorhomes" (Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles), and the Volkswagen California has its own entry in the registers.

Minivans (MPVs)

A minivan is a car, not a van: a family car with a tall body, three rows of seats or a big flexible cabin, and wide or sliding doors. Registers record them as passenger cars, and our catalog gives them the MPV body type. Some of the most registered: Ford Galaxy, SEAT Alhambra, Renault Espace, Toyota Alphard and Ford C-Max. See them all in the list of MPVs.

Pickups registered as vans

Here's something most guides miss: in many registers, pickups are vans. A pickup under 3.5 tonnes is a light goods vehicle, the same category as a panel van. So our van list includes the Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger, Nissan Navara, Mitsubishi L200, Isuzu D-Max and Volkswagen Amarok. Tax rules can differ again: in the UK, HMRC treated double cab pickups with a payload of at least one tonne as vans for company car tax until April 5, 2025, and expects them to be classed as cars from April 6, 2025 (HMRC).

The most registered vans

These are the van models most often found in the registers that record vans by make and model, with how many of those registers record each:

Van	Registers that record it
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter	12
Volkswagen Transporter	10
Renault Master	11
Mercedes-Benz Vito	12
Toyota Hilux	11
Ford Transit	10
Citroën Berlingo	11
Renault Trafic	10
Ford Ranger	11
Renault Kangoo	11
Volkswagen Caddy	10
Peugeot Boxer	11

The order is by popularity: for every model the registers give a rank per country, and we combine them. Every size is here, from the small Berlingo, Kangoo and Caddy to the large Sprinter, Master and Transit, and two of the twelve are pickups. The full list, most registered first, is on the vans page.

Where this data comes from

Every van in VehiclesDB appears in official vehicle registration data, mostly from European registers plus Australia, Israel, Argentina and Thailand. The US has no open register of vans by make and model, so American full size vans are in the catalog only where other countries register them. The size and body facts above come from the makers' and regulators' own pages, read on November 11, 2026.

More guides

• Types of trucks: light, medium and heavy duty, and where a heavy van becomes a truck.
• Truck brands: every truck maker and the groups that own them.
• Types of motorcycles: the same guide for bikes.
• All vans, A to Z: every van make and model in the catalog.

Running a fleet, a rental desk or a van marketplace? The same makes and models come from the vehicle API with kind=van, or as a download.