UK road tax explained
UK road tax is officially called Vehicle Excise Duty, or VED. The amount you pay falls into one of five systems, and which system applies depends on when your car was first registered. The difference between systems is significant. A car in one system might pay £0 a year. A similar car in a different system might pay several thousand pounds in its first year alone. This guide explains all five.
The five systems at a glance
Every car on UK roads is taxed under exactly one of these rules:
- Built before 1 January 1986. The historic vehicle exemption. The car pays £0 but the owner still applies for the historic tax class each year.
- Registered before 1 March 2001. Tax is based on engine size only.
- Registered between 1 March 2001 and 31 March 2017. Tax is a flat annual rate set by CO2 emissions band.
- Registered between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2025. A two-part system: a CO2-based first-year rate, then a flat standard rate from year 2.
- Registered on or after 1 April 2025. The same two-part structure, but now including fully electric cars.
The current new-car rules are published in the gov.uk vehicle tax rate tables, which DVLA updates each April when new rates take effect. For older cars, the rate is whatever was published the year your car was registered, increased for inflation in line with Retail Price Index each spring.
Cars registered before 1 March 2001
Cars in this group are taxed on engine size and nothing else. There are two rates. If the engine is below 1,549cc the rate is £230 a year for the 2026-27 tax year. If the engine is 1,549cc or larger the rate is £375. Neither fuel type nor CO2 emissions affect the rate. Many cars in this group are also approaching the historic cutoff, so a 1999 car with a 1.6 litre engine in 2026-27 pays £375 now but will move to the historic class around 2039.
Cars registered between 1 March 2001 and 31 March 2017
DVLA introduced CO2-based bands in 2001. Each band is given a letter from A to M and covers a range of grams of CO2 per kilometre. The lowest-emitting cars sit in Band A. The dirtiest sit in Band M. The rate is flat and you pay it every year for as long as you own the car.
Band A used to be £0. From April 2025 it rose to £20. Band B is also £20 in 2026-27. The most expensive band, M (over 255 g/km), is £790 a year. Cars in this period are not subject to the first-year-only rate that came in for cars registered in April 2017 and after. Whatever CO2 band they fall into is the rate, every year. The full band table is on the gov.uk rate page for this period.
Cars registered between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2025
The 2017 reform split the tax bill in two. The first year of ownership is taxed at a rate set by CO2 and fuel type. From year 2 onwards every petrol, diesel, hybrid and (since April 2025) electric car pays the same flat standard rate, currently £200.
The first-year rate climbs steeply with emissions. A car emitting 1 to 50 g/km pays around £115 in year 1. A car emitting 191 to 225 g/km pays around £3,420. A diesel car that does not meet the Real Driving Emissions step 2 standard pays one CO2 band higher in its first year, which on a high-emission car can add over £1,000. RDE2 became mandatory in January 2021, so any diesel registered after that meets the standard automatically.
Cars in this group are also subject to the expensive car supplement, explained further down. Fully electric cars in this period were exempt entirely from VED until April 2025 and now pay only the standard rate. The supplement does not apply to them retrospectively, only to electric cars registered from April 2025 onwards.
Cars registered on or after 1 April 2025
The April 2025 reform was the moment electric cars stopped being exempt. The structure is unchanged from the 2017 system, but electric cars are now in it. A new electric car pays a first-year rate of £10, then the standard rate of £200 from year 2. A new petrol or diesel pays the same first-year and standard rates it would have done before, adjusted for that year's inflation uplift.
The expensive car supplement also caught up with electric cars in 2025. From April 2026 the threshold for zero-emission cars is £50,000 of list price. For petrol, diesel and hybrid cars it stays at £40,000. The full rules for electric cars are set out in the gov.uk EV guidance.
The historic vehicle exemption
Cars built before 1 January 1986 pay £0 road tax. The cutoff rolls forward by one year every April, so in the 2027-28 tax year cars built before 1 January 1987 will qualify. The test is the build date, not the registration date, but gov.uk accepts the registration date as a proxy if the build date is unknown and the car was registered before 8 January 1986.
Historic status is not automatic. The owner must apply to put the vehicle in the historic tax class each year, at a Post Office, using the V5C. No money changes hands but the form has to be filled in. Full details on gov.uk/historic-vehicles.
The expensive car supplement
Cars with a list price over £40,000 (£50,000 for fully electric) at first registration pay an extra £440 a year for five years, starting from the second time the car is taxed. So a £45,000 petrol Golf R registered in 2026-27 pays the £200 standard rate plus £440 every year from year 2 to year 6. From year 7 the £440 supplement ends and only the £200 standard rate remains. The trigger is list price at first registration, not the current second-hand value. Dealer discounts do not reduce it.
The supplement was introduced in April 2017 alongside the rest of the two-part system. For the first eight years it only applied to combustion-engined cars. Electric cars were exempt because the policy aim was to nudge buyers towards them. From April 2025, electric cars registered on or after that date became subject to the supplement, with a higher threshold of £50,000 from April 2026 in recognition of the typically higher list price of comparable electric vehicles.
Paying monthly versus annually
DVLA offers monthly direct debit as well as six-monthly and twelve-monthly lump sums. Paying monthly adds a 5% surcharge over the annual lump sum. A car with a £200 standard rate costs £200 as an annual payment or £210 in total across twelve monthly direct debits.
The convenience of spreading the cost is what it is. The surcharge is small enough that most owners simply choose whichever option fits their cash flow.
Frequently asked questions
How much is UK road tax?
The amount depends on when the car was first registered and, for newer cars, on CO2 emissions and list price. A new petrol or diesel car registered in the 2026-27 tax year pays anywhere from £10 to £5,690 in year 1, then £200 from year 2 onwards. Cars older than 25 years often pay a flat rate based on engine size. Cars built before 1 January 1986 are exempt entirely.
Do electric cars pay road tax in the UK?
Yes, since April 2025. Pre-April 2025 electric cars were entirely VED-exempt and only started paying road tax from 1 April 2025, at the standard rate. New electric cars registered on or after 1 April 2025 also pay a £10 first-year rate and may pay the expensive car supplement if their list price was over £50,000.
How do I know which tax system applies to my car?
Check the date of first registration on your V5C. Cars registered before 1 March 2001 use the old engine-size system. Cars registered between 1 March 2001 and 31 March 2017 pay a flat annual rate based on CO2 band. Cars registered between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2025 use the two-part system, with a first-year rate based on emissions and the standard rate from year 2. Cars registered on or after 1 April 2025 use the same two-part system but with electric vehicles now included.
What is the expensive car supplement?
An extra £440 a year on top of the standard rate, payable from year 2 to year 6 inclusive on cars with a list price over £40,000 at first registration. For zero-emission cars the threshold is £50,000 and the supplement only applies to cars registered on or after 1 April 2025.
Are vintage and classic cars exempt from road tax?
Vehicles built before 1 January 1986 qualify for the historic vehicle tax class and pay £0. The cutoff rolls forward by one year every April. Owners still have to apply for the historic tax class each year using their V5C, even though the rate is zero.
How much will road tax be next year?
Road tax rates are announced by the Treasury in the Autumn Budget each November and take effect from the following April. Standard rates are uprated by Retail Price Index inflation each year. Until the Budget announcement no one outside government has the figures. We update this site within a week of the Budget once the new V149 rate document is published on gov.uk.
For the exact numeric rate that applies to a specific vehicle, look up the model directly or refer to the gov.uk vehicle tax rate tables for the year that vehicle was first registered.