Car Tax Calculator

What the car tax calculator does

Car tax in the UK, properly called Vehicle Excise Duty or VED, is the annual charge for keeping a car on the road, and how much you pay depends mostly on what the car emits and what it cost. This tool estimates it using the rates for the 2026/27 tax year. You pick the year of the car's life, the fuel type, and the car itself, or enter the CO2 figure by hand, add the list price, and it gives you the VED for that year, including the extra charge that applies to more expensive cars.

It covers cars registered under the current system, the one that has applied since April 2017, where the tax is built from emissions, fuel type, and price.

How UK car tax is worked out

For cars on the current system, three things decide the tax: the car's CO2 emissions, its fuel type, and its list price. Emissions do most of the work in the first year. The list price brings in an extra charge once a car is expensive enough. And from the second year, fuel type and emissions stop mattering altogether, because almost every car settles onto the same flat annual rate. The tool takes these and matches the car to the right band to find the figure.

How to use it

1. Year. Whether you want the first-year rate or a later year. The first year is the steep one; years two onward are the flat rate, with the expensive-car supplement falling away after year six.
2. Fuel Type. Petrol, diesel, alternative fuel, or all.
3. Make, Model, Description. Pick the car, and its CO2 figure is filled in for you.
4. Manual CO2 input. Tick this to type the CO2 figure in grams per km yourself instead.
5. List Price. The car's list price, which decides whether the supplement applies.

Press Calculate for the VED estimate, or Reset to clear it.

The big first year, then the flat £200

The system has two phases, and the gap between them surprises people. The first year, sometimes called the showroom tax, scales steeply with emissions. A zero-emission car pays just £10, a typical petrol car around 120 g/km pays in the region of £455, and a high-emission car over 255 g/km pays up to £5,690 in that first year alone. After that, the car drops onto the flat standard rate, which is £200 a year for the 2026/27 tax year, the same for petrol, diesel, hybrid, and electric alike. So the emissions figure hits hard once, at the start, and then steps aside for a fixed annual charge. That is why the first-year cost of a thirsty car can be eye-watering while its later years look ordinary.

The £440 charge on pricier cars

There is a separate charge for more expensive cars, the expensive car supplement. If a car's list price is over £40,000, it pays an extra £440 a year on top of the standard rate, which brings the annual bill to £640. This runs for five years, from the second year to the sixth, then drops back to the plain £200. For electric cars the threshold is higher, £50,000 rather than £40,000, a change that took effect in April 2026. The tool adds the supplement when your list price crosses the relevant threshold and the year is one it applies to. It is worth knowing about second-hand, because it is tied to the list price when the car was new, not what you paid, so a pricey used car can still carry it.

A worked example

Take a petrol car emitting 120 g/km with a list price of £25,000.

• First year: 120 g/km falls in the 111 to 130 band, so about £455
• Second year onward: the flat standard rate of £200
• Supplement: none, because £25,000 is under the £40,000 threshold

Now swap in a car emitting over 200 g/km with a list price of £45,000. Its first year jumps to several thousand pounds, and from year two it pays £200 plus the £440 supplement, so £640 a year through year six. That contrast, a steep one-off first year and then a flat rate nudged up by the supplement on expensive cars, is the whole shape of the system.

Where electric cars stand now

This is the part that changed most recently, so it is worth being clear. Electric and zero-emission cars used to pay nothing, but that exemption ended on 1 April 2025, and they now pay VED like everything else. A new electric car pays the lowest first-year rate of £10, then moves to the same £200 standard rate from year two. The one piece of good news for EV buyers is the higher supplement threshold: an electric car only pays the £440 supplement if its list price tops £50,000, rather than the £40,000 that applies to petrol and diesel. One exception worth noting is that zero-emission cars first registered before April 2025 are not charged the supplement at all.

A few things to check

The figures here are the 2026/27 rates, but VED is reviewed every year, usually each April in line with inflation, so for a future year it is always worth confirming the current amount on GOV.UK. A couple of finer points the tool does not split out: older diesels that do not meet the RDE2 emissions standard pay one CO2 band higher in their first year, so a pre-RDE2 diesel will cost a little more than the figure shown, and the manual CO2 entry uses the standard rate column, which is correct for petrol, RDE2 diesels, alternative-fuel, and electric cars. For these edge cases, and for the exact figure for a specific car, GOV.UK is always the definitive source.

Questions people ask

How is UK car tax calculated?

For cars on the current system it is based on CO2 emissions, fuel type, and list price. The first year scales steeply with emissions, then the car moves to a flat £200 standard rate, with an extra £440 supplement for cars over the price threshold.

What is the standard rate of car tax?

For the 2026/27 tax year it is £200 a year for most cars registered after April 2017, the same regardless of fuel type or emissions, from the second year onward.

Do electric cars pay car tax?

Yes, now they do. The exemption ended in April 2025. A new electric car pays £10 in the first year and the £200 standard rate after that, with the expensive car supplement only applying above a £50,000 list price.

Are these the current rates?

These are the 2026/27 rates. VED is reviewed each year, usually in April, so for a later year check the official rates on GOV.UK.

References

1. GOV.UK, Vehicle tax rate tables. https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables
2. GOV.UK, Vehicle tax for electric, zero and low emission vehicles. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vehicle-tax-for-electric-and-low-emissions-vehicles