Every New Car Buyer From 2006 to 2015 Could Claim £25 From Tribunal Fund

• A tribunal has approved a £55.87 million fund for people who bought or leased a new car or van between 18 October 2006 and 6 September 2015.
• Payouts run at £25 for the first vehicle, £5 for each of the next five and £2.50 after that, with no paperwork needed for six vehicles or fewer.
• Registration is open now at cardeliverycharges.com/register, and the six-month claim window will pay on a first come, first served basis.

A Hidden Delivery Charge on Millions of New Cars Now Has a Refund Fund

Who qualifies for the car delivery charges payout

If you bought or leased a new car or van between 18 October 2006 and 6 September 2015, money is waiting for you. MoneySavingExpert, which updated its guide on 1 October 2026, says the scheme covers anyone based in the country at the time who took delivery of a new vehicle from one of the listed brands, whether or not they sold or returned it long ago.

The list is long. Ford, Vauxhall, Volkswagen, BMW, Nissan, Toyota, Peugeot, Renault, Citroën, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Mazda are all on it, plus Dacia, MG, Suzuki and Subaru. MoneySavingExpert counts 35 brands, while trade coverage by Motor Trade News puts the number of manufacturers at 37, so check the official register page for your own make rather than assuming it is missing.

Leased cars count. So do cars paid for through the Motability Scheme, which MoneySavingExpert confirms in its guide. Relatives are covered too: the executor of someone who owned a qualifying new car and died after 20 February 2022 can claim on the estate’s behalf.

The claim is a class action brought on behalf of everyone affected. The case went through the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the specialist court that hears competition claims, and the people included were those based in the country in spring 2022 who did not exclude themselves by the 12 August 2022 deadline, according to the claim website. Most buyers never knew the case existed, which is why registering now is worth the ten minutes.

What the payout is worth and who gets what

The pot is £55.87 million. The Competition Appeal Tribunal formally approved the compensation scheme in September 2026, with the money drawn from settlements totalling £92.75 million across all five shipping firms in the case. Motor Trade News reported the approval on 25 September.

The scale is simple. The first vehicle earns £25. Vehicles two to six earn £5 each. From the seventh vehicle onwards, each pays £2.50. A household that bought one new car in 2010 gets £25. A family that bought three new cars across the period gets £35. A small fleet owner with seven qualifying vehicles collects £52.50.

Those sums look modest against the pot, and the arithmetic explains why. City AM reported that the case affected around 17 million new cars and vans. Spread £55.87 million across all of them and the average works out at about £3.29 a vehicle, so the £25 for a first car is the biggest single payment on the scale. MoneySavingExpert says payments could rise if fewer people claim than the tribunal expected.

That detail is worth remembering. A low turnout would lift the payment for each person who does file, but the window closes after six months and the money runs out on a first come, first served basis, which is one more reason to register early rather than leave it.

For context, City AM said the original claim was valued at £150 million when it was filed six years ago, so the final settlement sits well below that opening figure. Two earlier settlements, in December 2023 and January 2025, form part of the £92.75 million total that the claim website reports across all the defendants.

How the shipping cartel inflated the price of a new car

The root of the case is a cartel. MoneySavingExpert says the European Commission found in 2018 that five vehicle shipping companies shared confidential information with one another and limited capacity to keep prices high. Those firms moved new cars on ships from factories overseas to the country’s ports.

The case argues that the cost of that shipping did not stay with the shipping lines. It reached buyers through the delivery charge added to the price of new vehicles, so ordinary drivers paid it without a line on the invoice that said so. Mark McLaren put it this way when the settlement was approved, according to City AM: the claim covers people “overcharged for new vehicles”.

Mark McLaren, a former Which? campaigns specialist, filed the group claim in 2020 with the law firm Scott + Scott. The Competition Appeal Tribunal handled the case as a group claim that lets one representative speak for millions of people without each person signing up first. Earlier settlements arrived in December 2023 and January 2025, according to the claim website, with the final approval for the whole scheme coming this September.

There is a fairness point here that older drivers will recognise. A buyer from the late 2000s paid that charge more than fifteen years ago, and plenty of them now run older cars on fixed budgets. The compensation is small per head. It is also money that came out of their pocket without their knowledge, and the scheme gives it back without a legal bill.

How to register and what you need to hand

Registration of interest is open now at cardeliverycharges.com/register. MoneySavingExpert says the process takes about 10 minutes.

If you bought or leased six vehicles or fewer, you need no supporting documents. You give the make of the vehicle and sign a legal Statement of Truth, which is a declaration that your answers are correct. If you bought seven or more, expect extra verification such as registration numbers and account extracts.

The deadline wording from MoneySavingExpert is blunt. The claim window will be open for six months, but payment runs on a first come, first served basis, and “once it’s gone, it’s gone”. The exact opening and closing dates have not been announced, which is why registering now to be told when the form goes live is the sensible move.

Mark McLaren told Motor Trade News: “Those already signed up will be contacted as soon as the distribution is open and will be directed to our online claim form to get back the money you’re owed.” That points to the registration list as the fast route in.

MoneySavingExpert says payments will arrive on a rolling basis within days or weeks of a valid claim. Motor Trade News reported that distribution is expected later in 2026.

What to do before the claim window opens

Start with what you already know. Write down every new car or van you bought or leased from October 2006 to September 2015, the make, and roughly when you took delivery. Include any vehicle you owned through Motability and any you ran for a business.

Next, look through old finance agreements, emails from dealers or insurance documents if you can find them. You do not need them for six vehicles or fewer, but the details speed up the form and help if a question comes up. If you are dealing with the estate of a relative, gather the date of death and your authority to act for the estate.

Register only through the page that MoneySavingExpert names, and treat any message that asks you for a fee to claim with caution. The scheme runs through a single claim form, so a stranger offering to chase the money for a cut is adding a middleman the process does not need.

Finally, tell relatives. Parents who bought new cars in this period, and adult children who bought their first new car in 2012, are the people most likely to miss a case they never heard about. A £25 refund on a single vehicle is not life changing. A family that registers three vehicles collects £35, and an owner with a long run of company or Motability cars collects more.

Sources:

• https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/car-shipping-compensation/
• https://www.motortradenews.com/industry-market-news/tribunal-approves-55-9m-compensation-for-car-delivery-overcharging/
• https://www.cityam.com/class-action-vehicle-lawsuit-settles-at-55m-less-than-original-value/
• https://www.cardeliverycharges.com