UK standard-rates electricity from public and workplace EV charge points from 1 November 2026 (Finance Bill 2026-27)

What changed in detail

The government will introduce the legislation in Finance Bill 2026-27, which has not yet received Royal Assent; HMRC’s Revenue and Customs Brief 13 (2026) states that the legislation takes effect on 1 November 2026. The Budget 2026 Overview of Tax Legislation and Rates (28 October 2026) states that the government will legislate to clarify that electricity supplied through publicly accessible electric vehicle charging points is standard rated for VAT.

HMRC’s Revenue and Customs Brief 13 (2026), published the same day, sets out that the following supplies of electricity are not for domestic use for VAT purposes:

• electricity supplied through publicly accessible EV charging points; and
• electricity supplied through charging points accessible to employees and contractors at their workplace.

HMRC’s brief says these supplies are standard rated unless supplied to a charity and used for non-business purposes. The same supplies are also treated as not for domestic use for Climate Change Levy. The brief says the legislation gives statutory effect to HMRC’s longstanding policy, follows the First-tier Tribunal decision in Charge My Street Ltd, and applies from 1 November 2026.

Electricity used to charge a vehicle as part of a general supply to a home, or through a stand-alone charger for private residential use at a dwelling, may still qualify for the domestic relief.

What it means

This closes the argument opened by Charge My Street: public charge-point operators cannot treat their supplies as domestic-rate electricity. The change that catches people is workplace charging, which is now expressly outside the relief too. Charge-point operators and employers running workplace chargers should be charging 20% VAT, and accounting for Climate Change Levy, on supplies from 1 November 2026. Home chargers are unaffected.