Emissions & Tax
If you car was registered on or after March 1st 2001 then it will fall under the new Vehicle Excise Duty (or Road Tax to you and me) rules.
If your car was registered before March 1st 2001 then you will still be paying the usual fees, which are £110 a year for a car with an engine capacity <1549cc, or £175 for larger capacity engines.
The new Road Tax system is broken down into seven "bands" based on your car's emissions of CO2. These bands are labelled A through to G, where A has the lowest emissions, and G the highest. Each band has a different road tax cost, which will also be broken down further based on what fuel you car is using - i.e. is it petrol, diesel or an alternative fuel car.
By offering this much granularity in the amount of road tax charged, the emphasis has changed from engine capacity to the environmental friendliness of a vehicle. Now cars which are much "greener" can get much lower rates - some are even totally exempt from road tax altogether under the new scheme so there are real financial benefits to be had by choosing a green car!
The Bands
As mentioned above, the bands group vehicles based on the official emissions figures for a particular model. These bandings are the same for all fuel types.
Before March 2006, Band F was the highest band. Your car will only fall into the highest Band G if it was registered on or after 23rd March 2006 and produces over 225g/KM of CO2.
| Band | CO2 Emissions (g/KM) |
| Band A | Up to 100 |
| Band B | 101 to 120 |
| Band C | 121 to 150 |
| Band D | 151 to 165 |
| Band E | 166 to 185 |
| Band F | 185 to 225 |
| Band G | Over 225 |
To find out what band you car is in, have a look at our What is my MPG? page which will give you information about emissions and tax as well as fuel consumption.
The Rates
As with road tax previously, you can pay for either 12 months or 6 months of road tax at a time for all vehicles, except those which are in bands A or B. For clarity, we have only shown the 12 month rates in this table.| Band | Petrol | Diesel | Alternative |
| A | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| B | £35 | £35 | £15 |
| C | £115 | £115 | £95 |
| D | £140 | £140 | £120 |
| E | £165 | £165 | £145 |
| F | £205 | £205 | £190 |
| G | £300 | £300 | £285 |
What about Company Car Tax?
The tax on company cars is now also linked to emissions. How this works and how it is calculated is fairly long-winded and complex, unlike the nice simple Road Tax system.One day we'll have a calculator for company car tax here on the site, but until we do and if you want to work out your company car tax now, we suggest you try using the HM Revenue & Customs sites which has its own Company Car Tax Calculator which you can use.