How Much Is Road Tax on a First Car?

Road tax (Vehicle Excise Duty, VED) is one of the few running costs that’s genuinely simple to check before you buy, once you know which system applies to the car’s registration date.

The detail

For first cars in the lower insurance groups, the 10th percentile road tax figure is £20 a year and the median is £200, which matches the current flat standard rate applied to most petrol and diesel cars first registered from April 2017 onwards.

Two systems exist side by side in the used market:

• Cars registered from 1 April 2017 onwards: pay a flat standard rate in year two onwards, the same regardless of engine size or fuel economy (electric cars are treated differently and separately). The first year’s rate does vary by CO2 emissions, but that’s usually already paid by the first owner before a used first car changes hands.
• Cars registered before 1 April 2017: pay VED banded by CO2 emissions, from £0 for the very lowest-emission bands up to several hundred pounds a year for the highest. A small, efficient older car can genuinely cost less to tax than a newer one, though it will usually cost more to insure and may cost more to run in fuel.

Cars registered before March 2001 use an even older system, banded by engine size rather than CO2, relevant mainly for classic or very old first cars.

What this means for your first car

Road tax is one of the smaller lines in a first car’s monthly total (see how much does a first car cost per month?), typically £15 to £20 a month, but it’s worth checking before you buy rather than assuming: an older car in a low CO2 band can tax for less than a newer one, and the registration date is printed on the V5C logbook, easy to check before you commit.

First Car Scout includes road tax in the full monthly running cost for every car in your shortlist, so it’s never a surprise added after you’ve already decided.