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UK Car Tax (VED) Checker

Vehicle Excise Duty rates for 2026/27. Pick a car or enter its CO2 figure.

How UK car tax works

Vehicle Excise Duty — still widely called road tax — is the annual charge for keeping or using a vehicle on UK public roads. For cars registered since 1 April 2017 the system has two parts. In the first year you pay a CO2-based “showroom tax” when the car is new: the more it emits, the more you pay, from £10 for zero-emission cars up to £5,690 for the heaviest polluters (2026/27 rates). From the second year onwards every car pays the same flat £200 standard rate, regardless of emissions.

There is one catch: cars with a list price over £40,000 pay an extra £440 a year for five years (years two to six). For zero-emission cars that threshold rises to £50,000. And since 1 April 2025, electric cars are no longer exempt — they pay £10 in the first year and the £200 standard rate after that.

Rates shown are the 2026/27 figures and are uprated most Aprils. This checker is guidance only — confirm the exact amount for a specific vehicle on GOV.UK. See also our True Cost calculator and VED glossary entry.

2026/27 first-year VED bands

Sources: gov.uk VED figures (via Confused.com) and FleetNews, September 2026.