Cheapest Cars to Tax in the UK (2026 Guide)

Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) — what most drivers still call road tax — is one of the quietest line items in car ownership. It's auto-renewed, often paid by direct debit, and rarely scrutinised. But the gap between the cheapest and most expensive cars to tax can run to more than £2,000 in the first year and several hundred pounds a year thereafter. Over a five-year ownership, that's the price of a decent set of tyres, a full service history, or a holiday.

This guide sets out exactly what each kind of car pays in 2026/27, which models sit in the cheapest bands, which to avoid if a low tax bill matters to you, and how the April 2025 changes for electric vehicles reshape the picture. It's one of several hidden costs of buying a used car worth pricing in before you commit.

The 2026/27 headline figures

For 2026/27 the standard rate of VED for petrol, diesel and (now) electric cars is £190 a year. The expensive car supplement adds around £410 a year for five years if the original list price was over £40,000. First-year rates range from £0 for zero-emission cars up to about £2,745 for the most polluting models, set by CO2 band in HMRC's annual rate table.

Those three numbers — £190, £410 and the first-year band — drive nearly every decision about how cheap a car is to tax.

The big 2026 change: electric vehicles now pay VED

This is the most important update for anyone buying a car this year. From 1 April 2025, two things happened at once:

1. New EVs registered on or after that date pay a £10 first-year rate and then the £190 standard rate from year two onwards. They are also caught by the expensive car supplement if their list price exceeded £40,000 — and many do.
2. Existing EVs registered between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2025 lost their exemption entirely and moved straight onto the standard rate. A Tesla Model 3 owner who paid nothing in 2024/25 now pays £190 a year, and around £600 a year if the list price was over £40,000.

EVs registered before 1 April 2017 sit on the old graduated CO2 system and pay a token rate — typically £20 a year — because zero emissions still places them in the lowest band of the legacy table.

For deeper detail on what this means for EV owners, see our electric car road tax 2026 guide.

How VED is calculated — the two systems

What you pay depends almost entirely on when the car was first registered.

Cars registered on or after 1 April 2017

This is the system that covers most cars currently being bought and sold. It has three components:

• First-year rate (the "showroom tax") — set by CO2 emissions at registration, paid once. Ranges from £0 for zero-emission to around £2,745 for cars over 255 g/km. Refer to the latest HMRC band table for the exact figure on any specific car.
• Standard rate — flat £190 a year for 2026/27, paid from year two onwards regardless of CO2.
• Expensive car supplement — additional £410 a year for years two through six if the list price was over £40,000 when new.

That means a typical petrol Ford Focus pays £190 a year from year two. A £45,000 BMW 3 Series pays roughly £600 a year for five years, then drops to £190. A pre-April-2025 Tesla Model 3 with a list price under £40,000 pays £190; an over-£40k Model 3 Long Range pays roughly £600.

Cars registered between 1 March 2001 and 31 March 2017

These use a 13-band system (A to M) based purely on CO2 emissions. Band A (up to 100 g/km) pays £0. Band M (over 255 g/km) pays around £735 a year for 2026/27. Most of the genuinely free-to-tax cars on the used market sit in this period.

Cars registered before 1 March 2001

These are taxed by engine size only. Cars with engines up to 1,549cc pay around £200 a year; over 1,549cc pay around £325 a year. Numbers worth knowing if you're keeping an older car on the road.

Historic vehicles (built before 1 January 1986)

Exempt entirely under the 40-year rolling rule. More on this below.

Cars that pay £0 VED in 2026/27

The clearest path to a zero road-tax bill is a pre-April-2017 car with CO2 emissions of 100 g/km or less. These all sit in Band A and pay nothing. The most popular models in this group are reliable, cheap to insure, and still widely available on the used market for under £6,000.

These are the genuine bargains. Insurance is typically group 1 to 5, fuel economy sits between 55 and 65 mpg in real-world driving, and the road tax bill is permanently nil — no first-year rate, no standard rate, no supplement.

Older but still relevant zero-tax classics from the pre-2017 era include:

• Original Toyota Prius (NHW20, 2003–2009) — 104 g/km, Band B (£20 a year, not strictly zero but close).
• Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion (1.4 TDI, 2010–2014) — 87 g/km, Band A, £0.
• Skoda Fabia Greenline II (1.2 TDI, 2010–2014) — 89 g/km, Band A, £0.
• Ford Fiesta ECOnetic (1.6 TDCi, 2008–2012) — 98 g/km, Band A, £0.
• Renault Clio dCi 90 ECO (2012–2016) — 83 g/km, Band A, £0.
• Smart ForTwo CDI (2008–2014) — 86 g/km, Band A, £0 — the only diesel Smart, and effectively a road-tax-free curio.

If your priority is the lowest possible standing cost, any of these is hard to beat. The trade-off is age and mileage: most are now 10 to 15 years old and need careful inspection, particularly for mileage history and timing belt replacement.

The cheapest first-year band: 1–50 g/km CO2

For post-2017 cars, the difference between the cheapest and most expensive first-year rate is the largest single number in the VED table. The lowest non-zero band (1–50 g/km CO2) pays around £10 in the first year — essentially a token charge designed to keep plug-in hybrids competitive with pure EVs.

Models that typically land in this band:

Note that several of these — particularly the Range Rover Sport, BMW 330e and Mercedes C300e — list well over £40,000 and so attract the expensive car supplement from year two. A £10 first-year rate followed by £600 a year for five years is not the bargain the headline number suggests.

For sub-50 g/km cars under £40,000 the maths is more attractive. Notable picks:

• Toyota Yaris Hybrid — full hybrid, 88–96 g/km (so technically lands in the 76–90 band rather than 1–50), but with a first-year rate around £165 and a £190 standard rate, it remains one of the cheapest cars to tax overall.
• Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid (last-gen, 2020–2022) — 79–84 g/km, low first-year rate, £190 standard.
• Renault Clio E-Tech Hybrid — 96 g/km, similar profile.
• Suzuki Swift Mild Hybrid — 99–104 g/km, modest first-year rate.
• Honda Jazz e:HEV — 102 g/km, full hybrid, low ongoing cost.

These are not technically the lowest first-year rate cars on the market, but they're the cheapest total package for a typical UK buyer who isn't ready to commit to plug-in or pure electric.

Cars to avoid if cheap tax is your priority

The other end of the band table is brutal. Cars emitting over 255 g/km CO2 attract a first-year rate of around £2,745, and most also list over £40,000 so they pick up the supplement too. Recent examples that fall into this bracket:

The Range Rover V8 is particularly worth flagging: roughly £2,745 in year one, then £600 a year for five years, totals over £5,700 of VED across the first six years of ownership. That's a meaningful proportion of the depreciation you'd absorb anyway.

Less obvious offenders — cars that don't feel gas-guzzling but quietly land in expensive bands:

• Ford Mustang 5.0 V8 — over 270 g/km, full first-year hit.
• Toyota Land Cruiser — 230–260 g/km depending on spec.
• Jeep Wrangler — 240–270 g/km.
• Older Audi RS, BMW M and Mercedes-AMG saloons — often over 240 g/km.

For genuinely high-mileage or large-vehicle needs, the running cost picture matters more than the VED line — but the VED bill alone is enough to rule several of these out for buyers who care about ongoing cost.

The £40,000 expensive car supplement, explained

The supplement catches a lot of buyers by surprise. The mechanics:

• It applies to any car with a list price over £40,000 when new — including options ticked at the dealer.
• It's payable for five years, from year two through year six of registration.
• For 2026/27 it adds around £410 a year on top of the standard rate, taking the total annual VED to roughly £600.
• It applies regardless of what you paid for the car second-hand. If the original list was £42,000, you pay the supplement even if you bought it three years old for £18,000.
• For EVs registered from 1 April 2025, the supplement applies at the same £40,000 threshold. There is ongoing industry pressure to raise this to £50,000 for EVs, but as of May 2026 no such change has been confirmed.

When checking a used car you're considering, the original list price is the number to dig out. Manufacturers' archived brochures, the registration document or our car valuation tool can all help reconstruct it.

A common gotcha: a base-spec BMW 3 Series might list at £39,500, but a fully-optioned 320d M Sport with metallic paint, technology pack and adaptive headlights crosses the £40k threshold and locks in five years of supplement. Two near-identical cars on the forecourt can therefore have wildly different VED bills.

What about classic cars?

The UK operates a 40-year rolling exemption for historic vehicles. For the 2026/27 tax year, that means any car built before 1 January 1986 is exempt from VED. From 1 April 2027 the eligibility window will move forward by one year — so cars built in 1986 will start to qualify.

Three things to know:

1. Exemption is not automatic. You have to apply at a Post Office to change the vehicle's tax class to "historic vehicle". You'll still need a V5C, valid insurance, and (if applicable) a current MOT, though most pre-1960 cars are also MOT-exempt.
2. The cut-off is the build date, not the registration date. A car built in late 1985 but first registered in 1986 still qualifies.
3. Commercial use disqualifies. If the vehicle is used for hire or reward, the exemption doesn't apply.

For owners of cars from the late 1980s and early 1990s — Mk2 Golf GTI, E30 BMW 3 Series, Mk1 Mazda MX-5, Peugeot 205 GTI — the exemption window is now visible on the calendar. Each April it moves forward a year.

How to check what a specific car pays

The fastest way to find out exactly what any UK car pays in road tax is to enter its registration on our free tax checker. The tool returns:

• Current tax status — taxed, untaxed, or SORN.
• Tax due date — when the next payment is required.
• Fuel type and CO2 emissions — the inputs that determine the band.
• Date of first registration — which tells you which system applies.

From there you can work out whether the car sits on the pre-2017 graduated system or the post-2017 standard rate, and whether the expensive car supplement is likely to apply. Combined with our ULEZ checker — which tells you whether the same car would face daily charges in London or other clean-air zones — it gives you the full picture of the standing costs before you commit.

For a fuller view including MOT history, mileage trends and insurance group, the full car check covers everything our tax checker does plus the rest.

Payment options — annual, six-monthly or monthly

DVLA offers three ways to pay:

• Annual — one payment, cheapest overall.
• Six-monthly — two payments, roughly 10 per cent more than annual over a full year.
• Monthly direct debit — twelve payments, roughly 5 per cent more than annual.

If you're on a tight budget the monthly option can make a high-band car bearable, but you're paying for the convenience. For a £600-a-year supplement-eligible car, monthly direct debit adds roughly £30 a year — small money in isolation, but worth knowing if you're trying to squeeze the budget.

SORN — when the car isn't on the road

If you're keeping a car off the public road temporarily — restoration project, second car you only use in summer, dispute with insurers — you can declare it SORN (Statutory Off-Road Notification) and stop paying VED entirely. The car must be kept on private land (a driveway or garage, not a public road) and cannot be driven, parked or even moved on a public road until you re-tax it.

SORN status is reversible: tax the car again and you can drive it the same day. This is genuinely the cheapest "tax" option, because there isn't one.

Five tips for keeping car tax costs down

1. Check the band before you commit. Use our free car check to see emissions and registration date. For post-2017 cars over £40,000 list, confirm the supplement applies for the full five-year window before agreeing the price.
2. Pre-2017 Band A is permanent £0. No first-year rate, no standard rate, no supplement. If you only need a runaround, an Aygo, C1, 108, Up or Citigo is genuinely free to tax for the rest of its life.
3. Watch the list price, not the asking price. A second-hand £25,000 car that listed at £42,000 new is still subject to the £40k supplement for the remainder of its first six years.
4. Don't over-pay for the first-year rate on a used car. The first-year rate is paid once, at registration. If you buy a one-year-old car, that bill has already been settled by the first owner.
5. Factor mileage history in too. A car with unusually low recorded mileage may have been SORN'd for long periods — sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes not. A mileage check is the quickest way to spot anomalies before you commit.

If you also want to budget for the ongoing servicing side of ownership, you can compare MOT and service prices via /booking — useful when you're working out the total annual cost of running a particular car, not just the tax line.

The bottom line

For the cheapest car tax in 2026/27, the rules of thumb are simple:

• Pre-2017 Band A (CO2 100 g/km or less) — pays £0 a year, forever. Genuine bargains on the used market.
• Pre-1986 historic vehicles — exempt under the 40-year rolling rule.
• Post-2017 cars under £40,000 list price — £190 a year standard rate from year two, plus a one-off first-year rate that ranges from £0 to about £2,745.
• Post-2017 cars over £40,000 list price — roughly £600 a year for five years, then £190.
• EVs — no longer exempt. £10 first year and £190 standard for new EVs registered from April 2025; £190 standard for existing EVs that previously paid nothing.

The most expensive cars to tax in their first year cost more than fourteen times the cheapest. The single most useful step before buying any used car is to confirm exactly which band it sits in.

Quickly check the road tax on any UK car — enter the reg on our free Tax Checker.