Company van tax calculator 2026/27 (and double cab pickups)

How company van tax works in 2026/27

If your employer lets you use a van for private journeys, HMRC treats that as a benefit in kind. Unlike a company car, the value does not depend on the van’s list price. It is a flat amount set each year: £4,170 for 2026/27, up from £4,020. If your employer also pays for fuel you use privately, a flat £798 fuel benefit is added (GOV.UK).

You pay income tax on that amount at your own rate. Your employer pays Class 1A National Insurance at 15% on it, which is £625.50 on the van benefit and £119.70 on the fuel benefit (GOV.UK rates for employers). You do not pay National Insurance on it yourself.

Income tax rates are from GOV.UK for England and Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. If the benefit pushes your income over a band threshold, part of it is taxed at the higher rate.

When there is no charge

There is nothing to pay if your employer’s terms ban private use and you use the van only for business journeys (ITEPA 2003 section 118). Both must be true. If your employer allows private use, the charge applies even if you never use the van privately. There is also nothing to pay if you use it for business and commuting with no more than insignificant other private use (GOV.UK), but only if all of these apply (section 155):

• your employer’s terms ban private use other than commuting,
• no one in your family or household uses the van privately, other than for commuting, and
• the van is available to you mainly for work journeys.

HMRC says private use is insignificant when it is a few days at most, irregular and very much the exception (EIM22745). Its own examples:

• Insignificant: taking rubbish to the tip once or twice a year, a slight regular detour to drop a child at school or stop at a newsagent, or calling at the dentist on the way home.
• Not insignificant: the weekly supermarket shop, a week’s holiday in the van, or using it for social activities outside work.

Those examples are from HMRC EIM22880. When the van is exempt, there is no fuel benefit either.

A zero-emission van, one that cannot emit any CO2 when driven, is charged at £0. There is no van fuel benefit for it either (EIM22900). Your employer still reports it, at £0.

Part-year, shared vans and paying for private use

Both charges are reduced for days you could not use the van, but only for spells of 30 days or more in a row. If several employees use the same van privately, GOV.UK says to divide the charge between them (GOV.UK). There is no fuel benefit if your employer requires you to pay back all your private fuel and you pay it by 6 July after the tax year, which is 6 July 2027 for 2026/27 (ITEPA 2003 section 162). If you have to pay your employer for private use as a condition of having it, and you pay by 6 July after the end of the tax year, the van benefit goes down pound for pound (ITEPA 2003 section 158, HMRC guide 480, chapter 14).

Salary sacrifice

If you gave up salary for the van, or took it instead of extra pay, you are taxed on the higher of the van benefit and the pay you gave up (HMRC EIM44090, ITEPA 2003 section 154A). That includes zero-emission vans. This tool does not work out those cases.

Pickups and crew vans: car or van?

For benefit in kind, a van is a goods vehicle with a design weight of no more than 3,500kg (ITEPA 2003 section 115). A goods vehicle is one built mainly to carry goods. When a vehicle can carry passengers as well, HMRC looks at what the whole vehicle is mainly suited to (HMRC EIM23115). If it has no main suitability, it is normally a car.

Double cab pickups

Until April 2025, HMRC followed the VAT rule: a double cab with a payload of one tonne or more was a van. From 6 April 2025 that no longer decides it for benefit in kind. Because most double cabs suit passengers and goods equally, HMRC’s default is that they are cars. That includes extended, king and super cab models (HMRC EIM23151). A car is taxed on its list price and CO2 emissions, so use HMRC’s company car tax calculator instead of this one.

There is a transitional rule. If the employer bought, leased or ordered the double cab before 6 April 2025, it can stay a van for tax until the earliest of:

• the employer disposing of it,
• the lease ending, or
• 5 April 2029.

During that time the old rule still decides it: a double cab is a van only if its payload is 1,000kg or more. Payload is the gross vehicle weight minus the kerb weight, and a hard top counts as 45kg (HMRC EIM23150). Passing the pickup to another employee during that time does not end van treatment. A new lease taken out after 6 April 2025 follows the new rules. VAT and vehicle tax are not affected. A single cab pickup is usually built mainly to carry goods, so it is normally a van.

Crew vans and kombis

A van with a second row of seats can be a car for tax. In Payne (Coca-Cola), the Court of Appeal held that vehicles whose middle sections were equally suited to passengers and goods had no main suitability, so they were cars (HMRC EIM23121). This tool shows van figures for a crew van, so check how your employer classes it. If it is a car, car benefit rules apply and commuting counts as private use.

Tax classification does not decide how an insurer classes the vehicle. When you get a quote, describe the pickup and how it is used.

Van vehicle tax (VED) for 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027

Vehicle tax is separate from benefit-in-kind tax and is paid by whoever keeps the van. Rates from the GOV.UK vehicle tax rate tables:

Electric vans have paid vehicle tax since 1 April 2025. GOV.UK says “most electric vans have moved to the standard annual rate for light goods vehicles” (GOV.UK). Vans registered before 1 March 2001 are taxed on engine size (GOV.UK).

Rules last checked against the official sources on 5 November 2026. This tool gives general information, not advice. If your situation is unusual, check with HMRC before you rely on it.