UK Car Tax (VED) Calculator 2026/27

How It Works

UK car tax is officially Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). For cars first registered on or after 1 April 2017 it works in two stages. The first-year rate is paid once, when the car is first registered — it is usually rolled into the on-the-road price of a new car — and it is set by the car’s official CO2 emissions: £10 for a zero-emission car, rising to £5,690 for a car emitting over 255 g/km. From the second licence onwards, almost every car pays the same flat standard rate of £200 a year, whatever its CO2 figure or fuel type. The only exception is the expensive-car supplement, explained below.

The table below shows the full first-year rates for 2026/27, taken from the DVLA’s V149 rate tables. Petrol cars, diesel cars that meet the RDE2 standard, hybrids and electric cars all use the middle column. Diesel cars that do not meet the RDE2 standard pay the higher rate in the right-hand column — effectively one band up.

Notice the cliff at 151 g/km: a petrol car at 150 g/km pays £560 in its first year, but one gramme more costs £1,410 — an extra £850 for a single g/km. From year two onwards, though, the CO2 figure stops mattering: a 90 g/km hatchback and a 300 g/km sports car both pay £200 a year.

The expensive-car supplement is the one exception to the flat standard rate. If a car had a list price of more than £40,000 when new, an extra £440 a year is charged on top of the £200 standard rate for five years, from the second licence onwards (years 2–6), taking the annual bill to £640 — £2,200 extra over the five years. For zero-emission cars the threshold is £50,000 from 1 April 2026, and electric cars first registered before 1 April 2025 never pay it at all. The list price is the manufacturer’s published price including VAT and factory-fitted options — not the discounted price you negotiated.

Electric cars pay car tax too. The old exemption ended on 1 April 2025, so guides that still call EVs tax-free are out of date. A new electric car pays £10 in its first year and then the £200 standard rate like everyone else; one registered between April 2017 and March 2025 pays £200 a year, and an older one (March 2001–March 2017) sits in band A at £20 a year. Hybrids have also lost their old £10 annual discount and now pay the same rates as petrol cars.

How you pay changes the price. The £200 standard rate is the cost of a single 12-month payment; six months costs £110, and monthly Direct Debit costs £17.50 a month (£210 over the year, 5% more). With the supplement the figures are £640, £352 or £56 a month (£672 a year). The first-year rate must be paid in full at registration and cannot be spread out.

Worked Example

A petrol car emitting 120 g/km with a list price of £28,000, first registered in 2026. Its CO2 figure falls in the 111–130 g/km band, so the first-year rate is £455. The list price is under £40,000, so no supplement applies, and from year two onwards the car pays the £200 standard rate. Over the first six years the total tax is £455 + (5 × £200) = £1,455.

Compare an electric car with a £55,000 list price, first registered in June 2026. Its first-year rate is £10, but its list price is over the £50,000 electric threshold, so from year two it pays £200 + £440 = £640 a year for five years, dropping to £200 from year seven. Over the first six years the total is £10 + (5 × £640) = £3,210 — more than double the petrol car’s total, entirely because of the supplement.

Assumptions

• Cars registered on or after 1 April 2017 only. Older cars use different systems (bands A–M for 2001–2017, engine size before 2001) and are not covered.
• 2026/27 rates (1 April 2026 – 31 March 2027), from the DVLA V149 tables. Rates are usually uprated each April and can change at a Budget.
• The first-year rate applies once, at first registration. If you buy a used car, that rate was already paid by the first owner and you pay the standard rate.
• List price means the manufacturer’s published price including VAT and factory-fitted options at first registration, not the price you paid.
• Not included: the disabled exemption, the historic-vehicle exemption (vehicles built more than 40 years ago), SORN (off-road) declarations, and vans, motorcycles or motorhomes, which have their own rates.

Sources: GOV.UK — Vehicle tax rate tables; DVLA V149, Rates of vehicle tax (April 2026); GOV.UK — Vehicle tax for electric, zero and low emission vehicles. Last reviewed: 13 November 2026.

How to Use This Calculator

Start with the registration date: choose whether the car was first registered on or after 1 April 2025, between April 2017 and March 2025, or before April 2017. The date matters mainly for electric cars, because the supplement rules changed in April 2025 and again in April 2026. Then pick the fuel type — for a diesel, the RDE2 question matters: diesels that do not meet the RDE2 standard pay one band higher in the first year, so a non-RDE2 diesel at 140 g/km pays £1,410 instead of £560. Your V5C logbook or the manufacturer’s data will tell you which standard your car meets.

Enter the CO2 figure — printed on the V5C logbook — and the list price when new. Electric cars skip the CO2 field because they are zero-emission by definition. The headline result is the first-year rate, and the table underneath shows the standard rate, any supplement, the annual cost in years 2–6 and from year seven, the six-year total, and the monthly Direct Debit cost.

Tips and Practical Advice

Watch the supplement cliff. A car listed at £40,000 pays no supplement; one listed at £40,001 costs an extra £2,200 over five years. Factory-fitted options count towards the list price, so a £39,500 car with £1,000 of options crosses the line. For electric cars the cliff sits at £50,000 instead.

Check the CO2 band edges before you buy. The jump from the 131–150 band (£560) to the 151–170 band (£1,410) is £850 in the first year alone, so two versions of the same car can cost very different amounts to tax when new. From year two the difference vanishes — both pay £200.

Pay annually if you can. Monthly Direct Debit adds 5%: £210 a year instead of £200, or £672 instead of £640 with the supplement — £160 extra over five years of supplement payments. And remember the first-year rate is a one-off cost of buying new: buy nearly-new and the first owner has already paid it.

Frequently Asked Questions