How much is my road tax?

First, work out which system your car is in

Everything follows from the date of first registration. Find it on the V5C, or look it up free against the registration — DVLA publishes the month of first registration and the year of manufacture in the vehicle record.

Note the distinction between year of manufacture and date of first registration. A car built in late 2016 but first registered in May 2017 sits in the post-2017 system. It is the registration date that governs.

Cars registered from April 2017: the flat rate plus two traps

For cars first registered on or after 1 April 2017, the first year is charged on CO2 emissions and everything afterwards is a flat standard rate. GOV.UK currently gives that standard rate as £200 for a single 12-month payment, or £210 if you pay monthly by Direct Debit — the split reflecting the surcharge for paying in instalments.

The first trap is the first-year rate, which is much larger than most people expect and is usually rolled into the on-the-road price by the dealer, so buyers never see it. It runs from £10 for a zero-emission vehicle up to £5,690 for a car emitting more than 255g/km, with diesels that do not meet the RDE2 standard for nitrogen oxides charged at a higher bracket in most cases.

The second trap is the additional rate, usually called the expensive car supplement. GOV.UK states you pay an extra £440 a year if the car or motorhome had a list price of more than £40,000, or more than £50,000 for an electric vehicle, and that you pay it for five years starting from the second time the vehicle is taxed. Zero-emission vehicles registered before 1 April 2025 are exempt; those registered between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026 are not.

The supplement is the single most common surprise for second-hand buyers, because it follows the car, not the owner. Buy a three-year-old car that cost £42,000 new and you inherit the remaining years of the supplement even though you paid nothing like £40,000 for it.

Cars registered between 2001 and 2017

These are taxed on CO2 emissions bands for their whole life, not just the first year. That is why a low-emission car from this era can be extremely cheap to tax indefinitely, and why some early hybrids and small diesels remain notably cheap to run despite their age.

It also means the CO2 figure recorded against the car matters permanently. DVLA publishes it free in the vehicle record, so you can confirm the number your band is based on rather than relying on a brochure figure.

Cars registered before 1 March 2001 sit in the oldest system and are taxed purely on engine size, with a single threshold at 1549cc. And vehicles built more than 40 years ago can qualify for the historic vehicle tax class, which is a nil rate — although you still have to tax the vehicle each year, at £0.

Why your tax changed when nothing else did

Three things move the number without you doing anything, and all three generate the same confused search.

The most common is simply the annual rate change at a fiscal event: bands and rates are adjusted, so the same car costs a different amount this year. The second is the expensive car supplement ending, which drops the bill sharply in the seventh year of the car's life. The third is a change of tax class — for example a vehicle crossing into the historic class, or a van being reclassified.

A fourth, less obvious one: paying monthly by Direct Debit costs more in total than a single annual payment, so switching payment method changes your annual outlay even though the underlying rate is identical.

Checking your car specifically

The record itself is free. Our car tax check returns the DVLA vehicle record for any UK registration — current tax status, the tax due date, CO2 emissions, Euro status, engine capacity, fuel type and the date of first registration — which is everything you need to place the car in the right system.

If you want the number rather than the status, our car tax calculator works it out from the same registration.

Two honest caveats. Rates are set by government and change; GOV.UK is the authoritative source and worth confirming against before you commit to a figure. And GOV.UK notes it can take up to two working days for the record to update after a tax or SORN application is approved, so a very recent change may not show yet.