Choosing a child car seat Isofix car seats

Isofix car seats can be secured without seatbelts

If you have an Isofix child car seat, and your car has Isofix mounts, you can probably forget about securing your car seat with seatbelts.

Isofix is the standard system for all new cars and seat manufacturers, designed to make installing your child safety seat quick and easy.

Many parents worry about fitting a child car seat correctly, but with Isofix you simply ‘plug in’ a compatible car safety seat to mounting points in the car.

It’s more secure than the seatbelt method, so your child will be better protected in a crash. Our child car seats review shows you how Isofix child car seats performed in our rigorous tests.

Two-point and three-point Isofix

Most cars made since 2002 have two fixing points, but some cars now have three, where the third (top) tether attaches to a mount behind the rear seat to stop it tipping forward in an accident.

The three-point fixing should work even better than two-point fixing, because it holds the child car seat even more securely. However, the two-point fixing is still generally much better than using seat belts to secure car safety seats.

If you're buying a new car, make sure it comes with Isofix mountings – sometimes they're an included option.