If you registered your electric car before 1 April 2025, you’re still exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty (VED, or road tax). If you registered on or after that date, you’re now paying road tax for the first time, and if your car cost more than £40,000 when new, you’ll be paying quite a lot of it.
Here’s what you’re actually paying, with real examples using popular models.
The Basic Rate: What Every New EV Pays
From the second year of registration onwards, all electric vehicles registered from 1 April 2025 pay the standard rate of VED. At the time of writing, that’s £195 per year, or about £16 per month.
This applies whether you’re driving a £26,000 MG4 or a £95,000 Porsche Taycan. For the first twelve months (the first tax year), you pay nothing, which is the same zero rate that EVs have always paid in their first year.
So if you bought a base-spec Volkswagen ID.3 in May 2025, you’ll pay nothing until May 2026, then £195 per year after that.
The Expensive Car Supplement: An Extra £425 Per Year
Here’s where it gets expensive. If your car had a list price above £40,000 when new, you pay an additional £425 per year on top of the standard rate. That’s a total of £620 per year, or about £52 per month, for years two through six of the car’s registration.
The expensive car supplement (technically called the “premium rate”) applies from the second tax year and ends after the sixth. From year seven onwards, you drop back to the standard £195 rate.
This catches a lot more EVs than you might think. A Tesla Model Y Long Range has a list price of around £51,990. A Kia EV6 GT-Line costs about £48,000. Even the popular Hyundai Ioniq 5 in Premium trim sits at roughly £46,000. All of these will pay £620 per year in road tax for five years.
How to Check If You’re Affected
The £40,000 threshold is based on the list price when the car was new, not what you actually paid. If you negotiated a discount or bought through a broker, that doesn’t matter. It’s the manufacturer’s published list price, including any factory-fitted options and delivery charges, that counts.
Your V5C registration document (the logbook) shows the list price in the “revenue weight” section, though this isn’t always clear. The most reliable way to check is to look up your exact model and specification on the manufacturer’s website or contact them directly with your VIN (vehicle identification number).
If you’re buying a used EV that was registered after 1 April 2025, ask the seller for the original list price before you commit. A car registered at £39,900 will cost you £975 less over five years than one registered at £40,100.
Pre-2025 EVs: Still Exempt
If your EV was registered before 1 April 2025, none of this applies to you. You continue paying zero road tax for as long as you own the car, regardless of its value.
This creates some unusual situations. A 2024 Porsche Taycan pays nothing. An identical 2025 model pays £620 per year for five years, then £195 thereafter. If you’re buying used, a late 2024 registration suddenly becomes rather more valuable than an early 2025 one.
What About Company Cars?
If you’re driving an EV through a company car scheme or salary sacrifice arrangement, your employer typically pays the road tax, not you. You’re still benefiting from the 2% Benefit-in-Kind rate for electric cars (at the time of writing), which remains the bigger saving.
However, if you’re considering buying your company car at the end of a lease, factor in that you’ll be taking on the VED payments personally.
A Worked Example: Tesla Model 3
Let’s say you registered a Tesla Model 3 Long Range in June 2025. The list price is approximately £49,990.
Year one (June 2025 to June 2026): £0. Year two through year six: £620 per year, total £3,100. Year seven onwards: £195 per year.
Over ten years of ownership, you’ll pay £3,880 in road tax, or about £32 per month averaged out.
Compare that to a pre-April 2025 Model 3, which pays nothing, and a comparable petrol car like a BMW 330i, which pays £220 in year one, then around £600 per year thereafter (based on current rates for vehicles emitting 161-170g/km CO2), totaling approximately £5,620 over ten years.
What This Means for Your Running Costs
Road tax is now a line item in your EV running costs, but it’s still relatively modest compared to fuel savings. If you’re charging at home on a cheap overnight tariff, you’re probably still spending £600 to £800 per year less than you would on petrol or diesel, even after paying the VED.
The policy change does narrow the financial advantage of EVs, particularly for more expensive models. If you’re deciding between a £39,000 car and a £41,000 one, that extra £2,000 will now cost you an additional £2,125 in road tax over five years, which is worth factoring into your calculations.
Before you buy any EV registered after 1 April 2025, check the original list price and work out your actual road tax liability over your intended ownership period. For cars hovering near the £40,000 threshold, it’s worth being absolutely certain which side of the line they fall on.