EV Road Tax Calculator
Electric cars have paid Vehicle Excise Duty since April 2025. Enter a list price to see the first-year rate, the standard rate, and whether the Expensive Car Supplement applies — the threshold for electric cars is not the same as for petrol.
Vehicle Excise Duty
The threshold that catches people out
There are two Expensive Car Supplement thresholds, not one, and the difference is worth real money.
Since 1 April 2026, a fully electric car crosses the threshold at a £50,000 list price. A petrol, diesel or hybrid car crosses it at £40,000, unchanged. Above the threshold the supplement adds £440 a year for five years, charged in years two to six, on top of the standard rate.
So a car listed at £45,000 pays the supplement if it is petrol and does not if it is electric — a difference of £2,200 across those five years, on identically priced cars. If you are comparing an electric model against a combustion equivalent anywhere between £40,000 and £50,000, that gap belongs in the comparison.
List price, not what you paid
The threshold uses the manufacturer's list price including factory-fitted options, not the price you negotiated. A car with a list price of £50,500 pays the supplement even if you bought it discounted at £47,000. It is also why specifying options can be expensive twice over: £600 of extras that push a car from £49,800 to £50,400 cost you a further £2,200 in duty across five years.
If you are near the line, it is worth checking the exact list price with the dealer before adding anything.
How the charge is structured
Three separate things add up, and they do not all start at the same time.
The first-year rate is paid once, with the car's first registration, and is usually rolled into the on-the-road price. For an electric car it is a nominal £10. For petrol and diesel it is banded on CO₂ emissions and can run into thousands on a high-emitting car, which is the one place road tax still strongly favours electric.
The standard rate is £200 a year and starts in year two. It is the same for electric, petrol and diesel.
The Expensive Car Supplement is £440 a year, also starting in year two, and runs for five years — so years two through six. It stops after that, which is why a car's road tax drops sharply once it turns seven.
Rates are uprated most years and the electric threshold has just moved, so confirm with the DVLA before relying on these near a purchase. This page covers cars registered under the current system; classic vehicles, vans and cars registered before April 2017 follow different rules that are not modelled here. This is a reference tool, not advice.
Has road tax stopped favouring electric cars?
Largely, yes — and it is worth being straight about that rather than pretending otherwise.
Until April 2025 an electric car paid no VED at all, which was worth £190-odd a year against a petrol equivalent. That exemption is gone. From year two an electric car now pays the same standard rate as everything else.
Two advantages remain. The first-year rate is £10 rather than a CO₂-banded figure that can reach four digits on a large petrol car. And the supplement threshold sits £10,000 higher, which matters for anything listed between £40,000 and £50,000.
What has not changed is the running cost. Road tax was never the main financial argument for an electric car; the energy cost was, and still is. Charging overnight on an EV tariff costs a fraction of petrol per mile, and that gap is far larger than any duty difference. The EV vs petrol cost calculator puts the two side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Do electric cars pay road tax in the UK?
Yes, since 1 April 2025. Before that they were exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty entirely. An electric car now pays a nominal £10 in its first year and the £200 standard rate from year two, the same standard rate as petrol and diesel. Cars above the list-price threshold also pay the Expensive Car Supplement.
What is the Expensive Car Supplement?
An additional £440 a year charged on cars above a list-price threshold, payable in years two to six of the car's life — five years in total, then it stops. It is added to the standard rate rather than replacing it, so an affected car pays £640 a year rather than £200. Because it runs on the car rather than the owner, buying a three-year-old car above the threshold means inheriting the remaining years of it.
Is the threshold really different for electric cars?
Yes, and this is the detail most often got wrong. Since 1 April 2026 a fully electric car crosses the threshold at £50,000, while petrol, diesel and hybrid cars cross it at £40,000. On a car listed between those two figures the electric version escapes the supplement and the petrol version does not, a difference of £2,200 across the five supplement years.
Does the threshold use the price I paid?
No. It uses the manufacturer's list price including factory-fitted options, before any discount. A car listed at £50,500 pays the supplement even if you negotiated it down to £47,000. It also means optional extras can be expensive twice: a few hundred pounds of options that push a car over the line add £2,200 in duty across five years.
What about a used electric car?
The first-year rate is long paid, so you pay the standard rate, plus the supplement if the car was above the threshold when new and is still within its first six years. Buying a five-year-old car that attracted the supplement means one more year of it. From the seventh year onward the supplement stops and the car reverts to the standard rate alone.
Does road tax still make an electric car cheaper to own?
Only marginally now. The first-year rate is far lower than a CO₂-banded petrol equivalent, and the higher supplement threshold helps on cars between £40,000 and £50,000. Beyond that the duty is the same. The financial case for an electric car in the UK now rests on running cost rather than tax, and on an overnight EV tariff that case is still substantial.
