Motability Drivers Needing Extra Miles for Healthcare or Work Get New Support

Motability drivers who need to travel well beyond their standard mileage allowance for hospital appointments, college or work now have a route to cut the cost of those extra miles. The scheme has introduced additional mileage support for customers who can show they need more than 3,000 miles a year on top of their allowance for healthcare, education or employment, cutting the standard 25p-a-mile excess charge to as little as zero.

Motability leases run to more than 800,000 vehicles across the UK, giving disabled people and their families access to a car, scooter or powered wheelchair in return for their mobility allowance. Run by the charity Motability and delivered day to day by Motability Operations, the scheme covers insurance, servicing, breakdown cover and tyres inside a single monthly payment, which is why any change to the mileage allowance or the mileage charges lands directly on household budgets that are often already stretched.

What Changed on Motability Leases From 1 July

Every new Motability order placed on or after 1 July 2026 comes with a lower standard mileage allowance than before: 30,000 miles across a three-year lease, working out at an average of 10,000 miles a year. Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles on a five-year lease get 50,000 miles in total. Customers who already have a lease keep their existing allowance; the change only applies to new orders from that date. For drivers whose allowance comes through Social Security Scotland, the same change lands later, on 1 September 2026.

Motability says the cut is part of a wider set of changes to manage rising costs, including tax changes announced in the Autumn Budget that have already added VAT and Insurance Premium Tax to some Motability leases from 1 July. Clare Ickringill, the scheme’s Chief Asset Risk Officer, said the operator “looked for a way to evolve the Scheme that impacts as few people as possible.” Motability points out that the average customer drives around 7,500 miles a year, well under the new 10,000-mile figure, so most people on the scheme should not notice a difference in day-to-day terms.

Drive more than your allowance and you pay for it at the end of the lease. For orders placed from 1 July 2026, the excess mileage rate is 25p a mile including standard rate VAT, or 21p a mile for leases that benefit from VAT relief. That charge covers both the extra distance and the insurance on those extra miles, and it is only settled in the final three months of the lease, based on the mileage actually driven rather than an estimate.

The New Support for High-Mileage Journeys

The part of this change that will matter to a smaller group of drivers is the new additional mileage support, built specifically for customers whose travel needs go well past the standard allowance. Motability will only look at a request once a customer expects to need more than 3,000 miles a year, above their standard allowance, for healthcare, education or employment journeys made by the person who receives the mobility allowance.

Qualifying journeys cover hospital and GP appointments, specialist treatment and other essential healthcare or support services; travel to the recipient’s own education or training, or taking their children to and from school; and travel to and from work. Holidays and leisure trips are excluded from any assessment, however far a customer travels for them.

Once a request clears that 3,000-mile threshold, Motability reduces the excess mileage charge on every approved mile above it. For up to 5,000 additional miles, the charge drops to 10p a mile including standard rate VAT, less than half the standard 25p rate. Need more than 5,000 additional miles, and the charge for every mile past that point falls to zero. Motability gives a worked example: a customer who needs 4,000 miles a year for healthcare, education or employment travel, 1,000 miles over the 3,000 threshold, receives support on that 1,000-mile difference.

How to Apply and What Evidence Is Needed

Customers can contact Motability when they are ready to order a vehicle, or at any point in an existing lease if their circumstances change. Anyone who already knows their travel needs will exceed the allowance is advised to get in touch before ordering, so Motability can explain what support is available and help them work out whether the scheme still suits their situation.

Motability assesses each request by looking at how often the journeys happen, how far they run, why they are necessary, whether reasonable alternatives exist, and whether the request is backed by clear and relevant information. Depending on the circumstances, that could mean details of travel to medical appointments or treatment, confirmation of employment or education, or evidence of a change in circumstances. Motability has been explicit that it will only ask for information relevant to the request; a customer confirming they need to travel for medical appointments will not be asked to disclose details of the underlying condition.

Support is not automatically carried over. Anyone who needs the same help again at their next lease has to ask Motability to reassess their circumstances: support is agreed on a lease-by-lease basis to reflect what a customer needs at that time. Customers who disagree with a decision can ask Motability to review it.

What This Means for Your Costs

For the roughly three in four customers Motability says already drive below the new 10,000-mile allowance, this month’s changes bring little practical difference beyond the VAT and Insurance Premium Tax now added to some leases. The drivers who need to pay attention are those whose journeys for healthcare, education or work push them well past the standard limit: a parent driving a disabled child to a specialist school across a county, or a Motability customer commuting to a job that is not served by accessible public transport, for example.

Under the old rules, all of that extra mileage was charged at the standard excess rate. Under the new support scheme, the same driver could see the rate on their qualifying extra miles cut by more than half, or removed entirely once they pass 5,000 miles above the 3,000-mile threshold. That is a meaningful saving over a three-year lease for anyone covering serious distances for medical or work reasons, and it is worth raising with Motability at the point of ordering rather than waiting until a bill lands at the end of the lease.

Anyone unsure whether they qualify should contact Motability directly through its support team rather than guessing at eligibility from the general guidance. The assessment depends on individual circumstances, evidence and the specific journeys involved, so a direct conversation with Motability’s advisers is the only reliable way to find out what support, if any, applies to a particular lease.

Why Motability Cut the Standard Allowance

Mileage is one of the largest single factors in what it costs to run the Motability Scheme. Knowing roughly how far each vehicle will travel over its lease lets Motability Operations price leases more accurately and buy vehicles in the right numbers for how they will actually be used. The operator says the goal behind the lower standard allowance is to keep the scheme affordable and fair across its customer base, while protecting it for future years, rather than to cut costs at the expense of individual drivers.

The timing is no coincidence. The mileage change lands in the same month as new VAT and Insurance Premium Tax charges on some Motability leases, both driven by tax changes set out in the Autumn Budget. Motability has said those tax changes, on top of the general rise in vehicle, repair and insurance costs across the market, have made the scheme more expensive to deliver. Rather than pass the full cost on to every customer through higher monthly payments, the operator has spread the impact across a lower default mileage allowance, new charges on some leases, and a targeted support scheme aimed at the smaller group of customers who need to drive the most.

For most customers, that trade-off should be barely noticeable day to day. For the minority who rely on their car for regular hospital visits, a long commute to work, or driving a child to specialist education, it is the additional mileage support, not the headline allowance, that will decide whether the scheme still adds up financially.

Sources:

• Motability Scheme: Changes to mileage
• Motability Scheme: Getting support for higher mileage
• North Wales Live: Major Motability change announced