If you bought an electric car between April 2020 and now with a list price over £40,000, you’ve been paying an extra £410 per year in road tax (officially called Vehicle Excise Duty, or VED) for up to five years. Now that the rules are changing from April 2025, with EVs facing different VED treatment, many drivers are wondering: can I claim any of that back?
The short answer is no, you can’t reclaim VED you’ve already paid on an EV just because the policy is changing. HMRC doesn’t offer retrospective refunds when tax rules shift. You paid what was legally due at the time, and that’s that.
But there are specific situations where you might be owed money back, and with the April deadline approaching, it’s worth checking whether you qualify.
When You Can Get a VED Refund
You can claim a refund for any full months of road tax remaining if you’ve sold your EV, scrapped it, or taken it off the road with a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN). This isn’t new, it’s always been how VED works, but it matters now because some EV drivers who’ve been stung by the expensive car supplement might not realise they’re owed money from a vehicle they’ve already moved on from.
Here’s the crucial bit: DVLA should refund you automatically when you sell or scrap your vehicle, but only if the process is completed correctly. If you sold privately and the buyer didn’t register the change of ownership promptly, or if paperwork went astray, you might still be paying for a car you no longer own.
How to Check and Claim
Log into your DVLA online account or check the reminder letters you’ve been receiving. If you’re still seeing VED charges for a vehicle you sold months ago, you need to contact DVLA directly. You can do this online through the government’s vehicle enquiry service or by calling 0300 790 6802.
You’ll need your vehicle registration number and the exact date you sold, scrapped, or SORNed the vehicle. DVLA will refund any full remaining months. If you sold your car on 15 March, for example, and had paid until 30 September, you’d get back six months of VED (April through September). The refund typically arrives by cheque within six weeks, though it can be faster.
What About the April 2025 Changes?
From 1 April 2025, EVs registered before that date will start paying standard VED rates, which means the expensive car supplement will still apply to eligible vehicles but the first year rate structure is changing for new registrations. This doesn’t trigger any automatic refunds for existing owners.
If your EV cost over £40,000 when new and was registered between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2025, you’ll continue paying the supplement until the vehicle is six years old (from the date of registration, not the date you bought it). If you bought a two-year-old EV in 2023, you’ve got roughly two more years of the supplement ahead of you.
The Company Car Angle
If you’ve been driving an EV through a salary sacrifice scheme or as a company car, you won’t have been paying VED directly. Your employer handles that, and there’s no personal refund due to you if the vehicle is sold or returned early. The company might get a refund, but that’s between them and DVLA.
However, if you’re coming to the end of a lease on an expensive EV and considering whether to get another, the April changes might affect your decision. New EVs registered from April 2025 will pay £10 in the first year, then standard rates thereafter, with the expensive car supplement still kicking in for vehicles over £40,000. It’s not dramatically different, but it’s worth factoring into your sums if you’re on the fence between a £39,000 and a £42,000 model.
Don’t Leave Money on the Table
The key action here is simple: if you’ve sold, scrapped, or SORNed an EV in the past year and haven’t received a VED refund, check with DVLA now. The refund window doesn’t technically close in April, but with policy changes happening, it’s easy for old paperwork to slip through the cracks. If you’re owed £200 or £300 from an early sale, that’s a meaningful chunk of money, roughly equivalent to two or three months of home charging for an average driver.
And if you’re currently running an expensive EV and planning to sell before the six-year supplement period ends, remember that the buyer won’t be taking on your specific tax situation. The supplement applies to the vehicle, not the owner, so anyone buying your three-year-old £45,000 EV will face another two years of the higher rate. It might be worth mentioning in your listing, because informed buyers will already have factored it in.