UK VED Road Tax Changes for 2026 Explained

The £5,690 VED Shock, Modern Classics Trap & Why No Car Is Safe Anymore

From April 2026, the cost of owning a car in the UK shifts again. Not with a single dramatic ban or headline-grabbing announcement, but with a carefully calibrated set of Vehicle Excise Duty changes that, taken together, tell a very clear story. A story about who is being nudged. Who is being punished. And who, increasingly, is being priced out. In this piece, I’m going to walk you through every major UK road tax (VED) change coming in April 2026, using the actual Treasury tables, not speculation, not press-release gloss, and not the usual “this only affects rich people” dismissal. Because it doesn’t.

Let’s start with the figure that grabbed the headlines. From 1 April 2026, any new car registered after April 2017 that emits more than 255g/km of CO₂ will attract a first-year VED charge of £5,690. That’s not a typo. That’s nearly six thousand pounds, before insurance, before fuel, before you’ve even driven the thing home.

This represents another increase on top of what was already a brutal rise last year, and compared with just a couple of years ago, the top rate has effectively doubled.

According to HM Treasury’s own figures, around 60 cars now fall into this top band. Yes, that includes the usual suspects – supercars, luxury saloons, high-performance SUVs – but it also includes vehicles that many people still see as practical or workmanlike. Pick-ups. Large family SUVs. Even vehicles like the Ford Mustang and Toyota Hilux.

This matters because the logic behind first-year VED is no longer subtle. It’s no longer about gently steering consumer behaviour. It’s about front-loading the cost of ownership, making the act of buying new feel punitive. And that’s not an accident.

The Forgiveness Phase: Why New Cars Suddenly Get a Pass

Here’s where the system becomes contradictory. Once that brutal first year is out of the way, the rules suddenly soften. For all cars registered after April 2017, regardless of emissions, the standard annual VED rate from year two onwards is £200.

That means a brand-new high-performance SUV emitting nearly 300g/km of CO₂ can, from year two onwards, be cheaper to tax annually than a much older, slower, lightly-used enthusiast car. In theory.

And then there’s the so-called Luxury Car Tax, officially known as the Expensive Car Supplement (ECS). From April 2026:

• The ECS rises from £425 to £440 per year
• It applies from year two to year six
• It is payable on top of the £200 standard rate

So if your car qualifies, you’re paying £640 per year for five years.

There is one important change worth noting. For electric cars registered after 1 April 2025, the ECS threshold rises from £40,000 to £50,000. Petrol and diesel cars, however, remain firmly stuck at £40,000.

This creates a strange dynamic. New cars are punished once, then forgiven. Older cars are not.

Modern Classics: The Worst Place to Be

Now we get to the most quietly brutal part of the system. Cars registered between March 2001 and April 2017 – what many of us now call modern classics – sit under a completely different VED regime. One based purely on CO₂ emissions, from a time when nobody imagined those figures would still matter two decades later.

From April 2026:

• Band L (226–255g/km): £760 per year
• Band M (over 255g/km): £790 per year

Every year. And rising.

These are not daily commuters. These are weekend cars, hobby cars, enthusiast cars. Vehicles that might cover 2,000 miles a year, spend most of their lives garaged, polished, photographed and cherished.

• BMW E46 M3s.
• E39 M5s.
• Jaguar XKRs.
• Early AMGs and Audi RS models.

And yet these cars are treated more harshly than many brand-new vehicles. There is:

• no recognition of low mileage
• no reward for maintenance
• no acknowledgement that keeping an existing car alive is often greener than scrapping it

They simply sit in the worst possible tax window. Too new to benefit from historic status. Too old to enjoy the flat post-2017 rate.

“Fine, I’ll Just Buy Older”… Except That’s Closing Too

At this point, many motorists look further back.

Cars registered before 1 March 2001 are taxed purely on engine size. From April 2026:

• Up to 1549cc: £230
• Over 1549cc: £375

On their own, these numbers aren’t outrageous. But the direction of travel matters. Even the oldest, simplest system is creeping upwards.

The one genuine escape route remains the 40-year historic exemption, which removes both VED and MOT requirements on a rolling basis.

Why Used Buyers Still “Win”… For Now

Used buyers still avoid the worst of the system. Someone else already paid the £5,690 hit. That’s why used performance and luxury cars still make sense on paper. But there’s a longer-term consequence that’s rarely discussed.

If fewer people register cars new, fewer cars enter the used market later. And that matters because the UK is already short of used cars. It’s estimated that around 1.8 million vehicles are missing from the market due to factory shutdowns and semiconductor shortages during and after the pandemic. The result is predictable:

• higher prices
• reduced choice
• restricted access

All without a single ban ever being announced.

What All of This Really Tells Us

So let’s recap. New cars are punished hard, once. Older cars are punished gently, repeatedly. No band ever goes down. No bill ever shrinks. This is fiscal creep, applied with patience and political cover.

And it doesn’t hit everyone equally. It hits:

• enthusiasts
• collectors
• people keeping cars longer
• drivers opting out of constant new-car churn

Ironically, often the people doing the least environmental damage.

April 2026 isn’t just about a £5,690 headline. It’s about a system that quietly punishes buying new, punishes keeping old, and rewards compliance without ever having to shout. And that’s the real story.

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