eVED: What 3p a Mile Will Cost You From April 2028

For years a pay-per-mile charge on electric cars was something think tanks modelled and ministers declined to confirm. Since the November 2025 Budget it has a name and a start date. From April 2028, every mile driven in an electric car in the UK carries a charge, and on 13 July 2026 the Government confirmed the terms in its response to a consultation that drew more than 5,000 replies. The legislation amending the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act has yet to pass, so details can still move — but the rate, the start date and the shape of the scheme are now on the record.

What was confirmed

The charge is called eVED — electric Vehicle Excise Duty — and it works as an addition to the road tax an electric car already pays:

• 3p per mile for pure electric and hydrogen cars
• 1.5p per mile for plug-in hybrids and range extenders, which already pay fuel duty on the petrol or diesel half of their driving
• From April 2028, alongside the standard VED that electric cars have paid since April 2025

The July 2026 response settled the scope. The charge applies to cars only — vans, buses and HGVs stay outside it for now. From 2029-30 the rate is set to rise each year with inflation. Two things were softened after the consultation: the additional odometer checks originally proposed for vehicles under three years old were dropped, and the reporting duties for fleets and leasing companies were simplified.

The reasoning is worth reading plainly, because it explains why this is unlikely to be reversed. Every petrol and diesel car that leaves the road takes its fuel duty with it. That revenue pays for roads and for a great deal else, and no government has found a way to lose it quietly. A tax per mile replaces a tax per litre.

What it costs at your mileage

The charge scales directly with distance, which is the thing that makes it different from every motoring tax that came before it. VED asks the same amount of a car that covers 5,000 miles and one that covers 30,000. eVED does not.

Annual mileage	Electric car, 3p/mile	Plug-in hybrid, 1.5p/mile
5,000 miles	£150	£75
8,500 miles	£255	£127.50
12,000 miles	£360	£180
20,000 miles	£600	£300
30,000 miles	£900	£450

At 8,500 miles a year — close to the average for a British car — an electric driver pays £255, about £21 a month. It is deliberately modest next to what a comparable petrol car pays in fuel duty: the intent is to shrink the running-cost advantage of an electric car, not to remove it.

Where it bites is at the top of the table. A high-mileage commuter or a self-employed driver covering 20,000 to 30,000 miles a year is looking at £600 to £900 annually, and that is before the inflation uprating starts in 2029-30. For anyone in that bracket the charge is a real line in the household or business budget rather than a rounding error.

The part most coverage skips: your mileage becomes a number you declare

A charge per mile needs a mileage figure, and the interesting question is where that figure comes from.

The consultation floated extra odometer checks for cars under three years old. That group is specifically the one with no MOT — in the UK a car does not need its first MOT until its third anniversary, and the MOT is where an odometer reading is formally recorded. Proposing extra checks for exactly that gap tells you what the rest of the scheme leans on. Those extra checks were dropped, and reporting for fleets and leasing companies was made simpler.

What that adds up to is a system in which the number you state about your own driving carries weight. That is a change in kind, not just in cost. Until now your annual mileage has been a private fact, relevant to your insurer and your service schedule. From 2028 it is a figure with money attached.

If you drive for work, you are in the better position here, because you may already be keeping the records that answer the question. If you do not, an annual mileage you reconstruct from memory in 2029 is a weaker answer than one you can show.

What has not changed

It is worth being clear about what eVED does not touch, because the two get mixed up constantly.

• AMAP rates are unaffected. You still claim 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in your own car and 25p after that, whatever the car runs on. The HMRC mileage rates guide has the detail, and Mileage Allowance Relief covers the gap when your employer pays less than the approved amount.
• Company car tax is unaffected. The benefit-in-kind treatment of electric company cars runs on its own timetable, covered in the HMRC electric vehicle mileage rules.
• Record-keeping duties are unaffected. What HMRC wants in a mileage log — date, destination, purpose, miles — is the same before and after 2028. See the log requirements.

eVED is a charge on driving. AMAP is relief on business driving. One does not offset the other, and you will be doing both from 2028.

Germany is watching this one

Britain is the first large European country to put a date on a per-mile charge, which makes it the test case everyone else cites. Germany is running the same argument with none of the legislation: the fuel-duty revenue that funds its roads is falling as combustion cars leave the fleet, and a distance-based charge is the obvious replacement — but there is no bill, no draft, and an electric car registered before the end of 2030 still pays no vehicle tax at all for up to a decade. Several US states have gone a third way, with flat annual EV fees rather than per-mile charging.

If you read German, the Kilometersteuer guide covers that debate and what electric drivers in Germany actually pay in 2026.

Start counting before it counts

Whatever the final shape of the legislation, the direction is set: the miles you drive are becoming a billable quantity as well as a deductible one. The sensible response is not to worry about 2028, it is to stop treating your annual mileage as an estimate.

MileTrack — a mileage tracker built for HMRC claims — records journeys automatically, marks each journey business or private with a tap, and exports PDF, CSV and XLSX with dates, destinations, purposes and miles. It is free, there is no account to create, and journeys stay on the device by default. That gives you the claim side today and a defensible annual figure when the charge arrives.

Related guides

• HMRC mileage rates 2026: 55p and 25p explained
• HMRC electric vehicle mileage rules 2026
• Mileage Allowance Relief: claiming the gap
• Best mileage tracker app UK 2026

Tax note: editorial content, not tax advice. eVED is announced and confirmed in principle but does not take effect until April 2028, and the amending legislation has not yet passed; check the position before relying on it.