Drivers of Britain’s Dirtiest New Cars Now Pay £5,690 in HMRC’s Year-One Tax

Drivers of Britain’s Dirtiest New Cars Now Pay £5,690 in HMRC’s Year-One Tax

• The first-year “showroom tax” on the most polluting new cars has risen to £5,690 from April, up £200 on last year and more than double the £2,745 top rate charged before April 2025.
• An electric car buyer pays just £10 in year one, a gap of £5,680 against the highest-emission petrol and diesel models sold alongside them on the same forecourt.
• At least 59 models on sale now fall into the top band, including cars from Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and McLaren.

Buy a new car emitting more than 255 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre this year and the first bill from HMRC, before a single mile is driven, comes to £5,690. That is the standard first-year Vehicle Excise Duty rate for the highest-emission band, up £200 on the £5,490 charged in the 2025/26 tax year, and more than double the £2,745 top rate that applied before the rules changed in April last year. An electric car parked next to it on the same forecourt attracts a first-year charge of just £10.

The first-year rate, often called the showroom tax, is calculated on a sliding scale tied to a car’s CO2 emissions and is charged once, on the first registration, on top of the price of the car itself. It sits apart from the standard annual rate that every petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric car owner pays from the second year onwards, which has also gone up, from £195 to £200. The showroom tax exists specifically to make the most polluting new cars, rather than the family runabouts most drivers buy, carry the sharpest one-off cost at the point of sale.

How a £2,745 tax became a £5,690 tax in twelve months

The jump did not happen in one step. Before April 2025, the top first-year rate for cars above the highest emissions threshold stood at £2,745. The government doubled it that April to £5,490, then added a further £200 in this year’s rates, taking the figure to £5,690 for cars registered from 1 April 2026 onwards. Across two consecutive tax years, the bill for the dirtiest new cars has more than doubled, while the equivalent first-year charge for a new electric car has stayed pinned at £10 throughout.

At least 59 individual car models on sale in the UK now fall into this top band, according to industry analysis of current CO2 figures against the new rate tables. The list runs from workhorse off-roaders to outright performance and luxury cars: the Toyota Land Cruiser and Ford Mustang sit alongside the Audi RS6, Audi S8, Range Rover Sport, McLaren GT and models from Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Porsche and Lotus. Around 45 of these are considered mainstream models rather than low-volume specialist cars, meaning the £5,690 charge lands on a meaningful number of ordinary new car buyers each month, and not just a handful of supercar owners.

The gap between the cleanest and dirtiest new cars has widened sharply. A buyer choosing a new electric car pays £10 in year one and £200 a year from year two. A buyer choosing one of the 59 models in the top emissions band pays £5,690 before the car has left the forecourt, then the same £200 standard rate every year after that, and potentially an Expensive Car Supplement on top if the list price clears £40,000. Two drivers financing similar-sized cars, one electric and one in the highest emissions band, can face a first-year tax difference of £5,680 for cars that might otherwise be priced only a few thousand pounds apart.

Body style plays a large part in which cars end up in the top band. Large SUVs and off-roaders with big, high-output petrol and diesel engines make up a sizeable share of the 59 affected models, alongside sports cars and performance saloons from premium manufacturers. A large 4×4 built for towing or off-road use can share the same £5,690 first-year bill as a two-seat supercar, as the charge is based purely on the CO2 figure rather than the type of car, its practicality or how it is used. Manufacturers of some larger models have responded by adding mild-hybrid or plug-in hybrid variants to their ranges specifically to pull CO2 figures down below the top threshold, giving buyers who want a similar-sized car a route to a lower band without switching to a fully electric model.

The Expensive Car Supplement adds a further layer on top of the first-year charge for buyers of pricier cars. Any petrol, diesel or hybrid car with a list price above £40,000 attracts this supplement, currently around £425 a year, for five years starting in the car’s second year of registration, on top of the standard £200 annual rate. A buyer of one of the 59 top-band models, many of which are priced well above £40,000, can then face the £5,690 first-year charge, followed by close to £625 a year in combined standard rate and supplement for five years after that, before routine running costs such as fuel, insurance and servicing are even counted. Electric cars only start paying the supplement above a higher £50,000 threshold, widening the tax gap between the two groups of buyers still further over the life of the car.

Can you avoid the £5,690 charge?

The most direct way to avoid the top-band rate is to check a specific car’s official CO2 figure before ordering rather than after. Every new car has a CO2 emissions figure published as part of its type approval, and this figure, not the badge or the price tag, determines which VED band and first-year rate applies. Two versions of what looks like the same model can sit in different bands depending on engine size, transmission and options, so it is worth asking a dealer for the exact CO2 figure of the specific trim and configuration being ordered, in writing, rather than assuming a lower-powered version of the same nameplate escapes the top band automatically.

Timing the order counts too. The first-year rate is charged at the point of first registration, so a car ordered before 1 April but not registered until afterwards is taxed under whichever rate applies on the registration date, not the order date, so drivers close to a tax-year boundary should confirm with the dealer exactly when registration, not just delivery, is expected to happen. Buyers who are set on a high-performance or larger petrol or diesel model but want to reduce the one-off hit can also look at hybrid variants of the same range, where available, as plug-in hybrids and lower-emission petrol variants generally sit in far cheaper VED bands than their highest-output equivalents, even within the same model line.

For buyers torn between a conventional car and an electric one, the first-year tax gap adds a concrete figure to weigh alongside purchase price, fuel and insurance costs. A £5,680 difference in year-one tax alone, before any Expensive Car Supplement or higher running costs are factored in, is a cost most new car buyers would want to know about before signing, rather than discovering on the invoice at collection. Checking the exact CO2 figure and first-year rate for a specific car on GOV.UK before ordering costs nothing and takes only a few minutes.

The direction of travel is clear from two consecutive years of rate rises. Having already more than doubled the top rate once, and added a further £200 on top of that, the government has left itself room to keep widening the gap between the cleanest and dirtiest new cars in future Budgets, making the CO2 figure on a new car’s windscreen sticker one of the most expensive numbers a buyer will encounter before they have even driven it home.

Sources: HM Treasury and HMRC, Vehicle Excise Duty first-year and standard rate tables for cars registered on or after 1 April 2017, including the rates confirmed for the 2026/27 tax year (effective 1 April 2026) and the 2025/26 tax year; GOV.UK guidance on vehicle tax rates and bands; industry analysis of current UK model CO2 ratings against the top VED band, as compiled and reported by Regit and Buckinghamshire Live (current 2026 model lists).