Vehicle Excise Duty (VED)

What is vehicle excise duty?

Vehicle excise duty (VED) is an annual tax paid by owners of vehicles driven or kept on public roads. The tax applies to vehicles in the whole of the UK.

How much a vehicle owner pays in VED depends on a number of factors, including the type of vehicle owned, when it was first registered, or its environmental performance.

Certain vehicles are exempt from paying VED, such as vehicles used for agricultural purposes.

A duty on motor vehicles has existed in the UK since the early 20^th century. The primary legislation for VED is consolidated in the Vehicle Excise and Registration (VERA) Act 1994. VED rates are usually changed via the annual Finance Bill (most recently, the Finance Act 2025).

VED raised £7.4 billion in 2023/24. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that this figure will increase to £11.1 billion by 2029/30.

The following table shows an overview of the VED rules according to different types of vehicles.

VED policy debate

A tax on vehicles was first introduced in Great Britain in 1889 via the Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1888. From 1909, the tax became linked to the construction and upkeep of the road network through the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act 1909. This is no longer the case, and VED revenue is not hypothecated for road maintenance. More recently, VED became more closely linked to vehicles’ environmental performance (to reflect wider negative externalities of car usage).

VED has been criticised for not effectively targeting the external costs of motoring (for instance, road damage and pollution), since it is paid at the same rate regardless of how much the vehicle is getting used. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank have suggested that VED should be abolished (PDF), and for the revenue lost to be recouped through higher rates of fuel duty. Alternatively, the IFS also suggested that VED should be graduated according to CO₂ emissions for the duration of the vehicle’s life.

The expensive car supplement has also been subject to criticism as an arbitrary way to tax the well-off (PDF). Since the £40,000 figure has not changed since its introduction, questions of fairness have been asked, as car prices have increased significantly since 2017. The IFS argued in 2019 that the supplement should be disbanded (PDF). More recently, as the expensive car supplement is due to apply to new zero-emission vehicles from April 2025, there have been calls from industry stakeholders and parliamentarians to review the £40,000 threshold for those vehicles. At Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced it would consider reviewing the level of the expensive car supplement for zero-emission cars at a future fiscal event.  

On the other hand, the ‘first year rate’ has been seen as the more “defensible” element of VED (PDF), as it impacts consumers’ purchasing decisions directly.

Changes in the vehicle fleet (particularly the increased uptake of electric vehicles) have led commentators to suggest alternative forms of motoring taxation, mainly the creation of road charging schemes, where charges would vary according to mileage driven. The Transport Committee, which has analysed the potential of a road pricing mechanism in 2022, has argued that VED and fuel duty should be replaced by this system. The Resolution Foundation, on the other hand, has said in 2023 that a reformed VED should remain part of the motoring taxation system (PDF).