A New Tax Test for Britain’s EV Charging Network

Proposed business rates on EV chargers could cost £25m to £100m a year, raising prices and reshaping rollout as policy talks continue ahead of 2026

26 Jan 2026

Britain’s electric-vehicle charging boom has hit an awkward pause. As ministers debate Budget 2025, a technical change to business rates threatens to alter how quickly, and where, public chargers are built.

The proposal is simple enough. From April 2026 charging bays may be added to local rating lists, making them liable for property tax. The consequences are not. ChargeUK, the industry body, reckons the bill could reach £100m a year across roughly 64,000 public bays. The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) puts the figure closer to £25m. The gap reflects uncertainty over how chargers would be valued, and over whether the change might be backdated to April 2023.

For operators, this is not a minor adjustment. Public charging is already a capital-heavy business. Hardware, installation, maintenance and grid connections absorb cash long before profits appear. Adding a recurring tax per bay would tilt the economics further towards busy urban sites and motorway hubs. Marginal locations, such as rural towns, housing estates and places where demand is still thin, would look less attractive.

Vicky Read, ChargeUK’s chief executive, has called the proposal “the straw that breaks the camel’s back” for parts of the sector. Her group warns that higher costs could be passed on to drivers, raising annual charging bills by up to £300 for some. That would sit awkwardly with the government’s aim of making electric cars cheaper to run than petrol ones.

The VOA says it is merely doing its job. As public chargers spread, it has a legal duty to keep rating lists accurate. Yet the policy is not settled. No legislation has been passed, and ministers retain room to soften or delay the change.

Even so, the likely market effects are already visible. Large, well-funded networks are better placed to absorb new costs. Smaller firms may slow their rollout, seek partners or sell out. Investment may shift towards fewer, busier sites, with higher utilisation and better reliability, but at the cost of coverage.

Britain needs many more chargers if its electric transition is to stay on track. A tax that raises revenue but deters investment would be a curious choice. The coming months will show whether policymakers can strike a balance between tidy tax lists and a network that grows fast enough to be useful.