How do you reimburse staff for home EV charging?

Start with who owns the car, then choose electricity-cost reimbursement or business-mileage payments. HMRC's home advisory electric rate for company cars is 7p per mile from September 2026 [S1]. Keep vehicle, journey and charging evidence, and prevent duplicate claims. Your accountant should confirm payroll and VAT treatment before you launch. Checked October 2026.

Last checked 16 October 2026

How do you reimburse home charging for a company car?

Choose a written payment method before your first claim. The workplace exemption excludes home facilities [S5]. HMRC accepts reimbursement of electricity used solely for a company car at home or at public chargers without a separate benefits-code tax charge. That can include business and private driving. It does not mean paying the employee’s whole household bill. Check the arrangement with your accountant [S2].

Alternatively, reimburse qualifying business journeys using HMRC’s advisory electric rate. This is a mileage method, rather than a refund of every charging session [S1]. Decide which route your expense system supports. Explain it in the offer to staff, so someone does not accept a vehicle expecting every domestic bill to be paid.

Treat the table as a process checklist. The tax distinctions come from HMRC; the approval controls are suggested ways to operate them [S1], [S2], [S3]. Your home charging guide can help you scope the installation separately from the expense arrangement.

What rate applies when staff charge at home and in public?

From September 2026, HMRC lists 7p per mile for home charging and 15p for public charging of fully electric company cars [S1]. Record the charging mix behind a mixed claim rather than automatically paying the public rate on every mile. Keep a dated copy of the rate your approver used.

For an illustration, assume an approved claim has 400 business miles attributable to home charging and 100 to public charging. The calculation is 400 × £0.07 + 100 × £0.15 = £43. These mileages are assumptions, not evidence that a particular split is correct. Attach the records supporting your allocation [S1].

Make your form show the journey, distance, charging category, rate and resulting payment in separate fields. Give staff an exception route when the records do not support a clean split. A reviewer should resolve that before payment, rather than make the software silently choose the more expensive rate.

What evidence should your home charging claim include?

For electricity reimbursement, build a claim pack around the requirement to identify company-car electricity [S2]. Request a charger export or equivalent vehicle-specific record, the applicable electricity tariff and the claim period. Ask the employee to identify sessions for any other household vehicle. These are suggested evidence controls, rather than a claim that HMRC requires a particular charger brand or subscription.

Define kilowatts (kW) as charging power and kilowatt hours (kWh) as energy. You pay for energy, so a charger’s power rating alone cannot establish the electricity bill. Your kW and kWh guide explains the distinction.

An illustration, not a quote: assume the company car used 120 kWh at an evidenced 20p/kWh and 80 kWh at an evidenced 10p/kWh. Electricity reimbursement would be 120 × £0.20 + 80 × £0.10 = £32. Those prices and volumes are assumptions, not market rates. Do not replace a time-varying bill with a cheap overnight rate unless the charging records support it.

Specify whether records measure energy at the charger or estimate energy entering the battery. Ask your installer to explain the report’s measurement boundary. Require an explanation for adjustments, rather than applying an unexplained charging-loss percentage to every claim.

How does reimbursement differ for an employee’s own electric car?

Use HMRC’s own-vehicle business-mileage rules, rather than the company-car advisory electric rate. The published table shows 55p for the first 10,000 car or van business miles from April 2026, and 25p above that threshold [S3]. The page still contains an example using the earlier rate, so use its dated table and ask your accountant to confirm the applicable tax-year treatment before configuring payroll.

Keep a running mileage total so a claim crossing the threshold is split correctly. Do not add a second electricity refund to a mileage payment without having payroll check the result. Your claim form should make vehicle ownership explicit even when the same employee uses different vehicles.

Can you reclaim VAT on home charging reimbursements?

HMRC’s motoring notice says an employer cannot recover VAT on electricity supplied to an employee at home, because the supply is to that employee. Public and workplace charging have separate rules [S4]. An income-tax exemption therefore does not establish VAT recovery. Check with your accountant.

Keep the gross payment to the employee separate from any VAT coding in your ledger. Ask your reviewer to mark the charging location and supporting invoice before the claim reaches accounts. That gives accounts a useful record without asking each driver to interpret VAT law.

How do you prevent duplicate payments and handle changes?

Use a claim reference linking the driver, car, charging period and journey log. Require a declaration that the same electricity has not been paid through a charge card, direct reimbursement or another expense claim. Keep rejected duplicates visible to the approver so recurring problems can be corrected.

Agree how staff report a tariff change, replacement car, broken charger or missing export. Include a route for staff who cannot charge at home. Review a sample claim before rolling the arrangement out across your fleet. These are operating recommendations; your workplace policy should state who approves exceptions.

What should you do next?

Take your proposed payment method and a sample evidence pack to your accountant. For charger installation, prepare the home or workplace requirements and get matched with an installer that covers your area.

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