Vehicle Tax & ULEZ Guide

How much is car tax in 2026?

For most cars on the road today, anything registered after April 2017, road tax (officially Vehicle Excise Duty, or VED) is a flat £200 a year, or £110 for six months. If the car's list price was over £40,000 when new, an extra £440 a year applies in years two to six of its life, taking the bill to £640. These are the rates in the DVLA's April 2026 schedule, and you can get the exact figure for any specific vehicle by putting its registration into our car tax calculator.

The reason car tax confuses people is that the rules changed twice, so three different systems run side by side depending on when the car was first registered. The car's age decides which system applies, and nothing the current owner does can move it between systems.

How is car tax worked out for older cars?

Cars registered between March 2001 and March 2017 are taxed on their CO2 emissions, using bands that run from A to M. After the April 2025 changes removed the free bottom band, those bands now cost from £20 a year for the cleanest cars up to roughly £790 for the thirstiest. This is the system where a careful choice saves real money: a 119g/km car and a 121g/km car can sit in different bands, so two grams of CO2 on the spec sheet can mean a permanent difference in the annual bill.

Cars registered before March 2001 use the oldest and simplest system: engine size. There are only two bands, under and over 1549cc, currently costing roughly £220 and £360 a year. The exact figures for every band and era are published in the DVLA's V149 rate table, which our calculator follows.

Brand-new cars pay a one-off first-year "showroom" rate based on CO2 before dropping to the standard £200. Since April 2025 those first-year rates have been steep, from £10 for an electric car to over £5,000 for the highest-emitting petrol models, which is worth knowing if you are comparing a nearly-new car against a brand-new one.

Do electric cars pay road tax now?

Yes. Since April 2025, electric vehicles pay road tax like everyone else: £10 in the first year, then the standard £200 annual rate. The expensive car supplement also applies to EVs, although their threshold is higher, at £50,000 rather than £40,000, recognising that EVs tend to carry higher list prices.

EVs still come out ahead overall. They remain exempt from ULEZ and Clean Air Zone charges, electricity per mile is cheaper than petrol, and servicing costs are lower with fewer moving parts. But the days of completely free road tax are over, so factor £200 a year into any EV ownership maths.

What counts towards the £40,000 supplement?

The expensive car supplement catches more people out than any other tax rule. The £40,000 test uses the manufacturer's list price when the car was new, including factory-fitted options and delivery, not what anyone actually paid and not what the car is worth now. A three-year-old car you buy for £18,000 can still owe the supplement if its original list price crossed the line, and you inherit the remaining supplement years when you buy it.

Before buying any premium-badge used car registered after April 2017, check whether the original list price was over £40,000. The difference is £440 a year until the car's sixth birthday, and sellers rarely volunteer it.

Is my car ULEZ compliant?

London's Ultra Low Emission Zone covers every London borough and runs 24 hours a day, every day except Christmas Day. Petrol cars need to meet the Euro 4 emissions standard, which broadly means registered from 2006 onwards. Diesels need Euro 6, broadly September 2015 onwards. A non-compliant vehicle pays £12.50 every day it is driven inside the zone, with no annual cap, so a non-compliant daily commute costs over £3,000 a year before fuel.

The cut-off years are only a rule of thumb, because compliance is set by the vehicle's certified emissions standard rather than its age, and some models met the standard early. Check your specific vehicle with our ULEZ checker rather than guessing from the registration year. Miss a payment (due by midnight the following day) and the penalty is £180, halved if paid within 14 days; enforcement is by camera, so there is no talking your way out of it.

Central London's separate Congestion Charge rose to £18 a day in January 2026, and electric cars lost their full exemption at the same time, keeping only a discount through Auto Pay. Outside London, several cities run their own Clean Air Zones with different rules: Birmingham charges non-compliant cars £8 a day and Bath £9, while some zones, like Bradford's, charge vans and taxis but not private cars. If you regularly drive into a city centre, ten minutes on that council's website can save you a recurring daily charge.

Who doesn't pay road tax?

Vehicles built more than 40 years ago qualify for historic status and pay nothing, the same rolling exemption that frees them from MOT testing. Disabled drivers can apply for an exemption through the DVLA, and certain specialist vehicles such as agricultural tractors are outside the system entirely. And if a car is parked on private land and never driven, declaring it off the road with a SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) stops the tax clock legally; an untaxed car without a SORN collects an automatic £80 fine, even if it never moves.