Claim 100% Capital Allowances for UK EV Chargers: Invoices and 2027
UK businesses can claim a 100% first-year allowance on new, unused plant and machinery installed solely to charge electric vehicles, and the relief has real deadlines. Corporation tax claims must relate to expenditure incurred by 31 March 2027; income tax claims by 5 April 2027. To qualify, the equipment must pass HMRC’s “installed solely” test, and you will need solid paperwork to back the claim.
TL;DR:
Businesses must ensure the chargepoint installation is solely for electric vehicle charging, not mixed-use electrical works or site improvements not directly related.
Claims are subject to strict deadlines: corporation tax by March 31, 2027, and income tax by April 5, 2027, with proper documentation required for eligibility.
Proper invoicing should separate hardware, electrical supplies, and land alterations to prevent HMRC rejection due to mixed costs.
The eligible expenditure must involve new, unused equipment, with ownership and unuse status verified before claiming.
The FYA relief complements other allowances like the AIA, but grants and land-based reliefs should be considered to avoid double counting or overclaiming.
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What qualifies for the EV charging capital allowance?
The statutory test sits in section 45EA of the Capital Allowances Act 2001, which sets out first-year qualifying expenditure for electric vehicle charging plant. Subsection (2) is the part that catches businesses out: the plant or machinery must be installed solely for charging electric vehicles. Not mostly. Not primarily. Solely.
HMRC’s own guidance in manual CA23156 lists the items that typically qualify:
The chargepoint hardware itself
Alterations to land made only to install the qualifying charging plant (trenching, bollards, dedicated parking bays)
Plant or machinery installed solely to provide the electricity supply the charger needs, such as a dedicated sub-board or cabling run
A worked example makes the boundary clearer and highlights distinctions described in the best electric vehicle charging franchises for sale in the UK. A business installs six workplace chargers, digs a trench for dedicated cabling, and upgrades a car park surface at the same time. The chargers and the dedicated cabling qualify. The car park resurfacing, unless it exists purely to enable the charger installation, almost certainly does not.
Pro Tip: Ask your installer for a cost breakdown that separates chargepoint hardware, dedicated electrical works, and any general site works into distinct lines before you agree the final invoice. It saves a painful reconstruction exercise later.
Who can claim, and what counts as the qualifying date?
Both companies and unincorporated businesses can claim, but they have distinct qualifying periods and use different paperwork. That distinction trips up more claimants than the eligibility test itself.
Companies claim through their corporation tax computation, with a corporation tax qualifying period ending in late March.
Sole traders and partnerships claim via the capital allowances pages of their Self Assessment return, with an income tax qualifying period ending in early April, as confirmed in HS252.
Expenditure is generally treated as “incurred” when there is an unconditional obligation to pay, which is not always the invoice date.
If a project straddles an accounting period end or a Finance Act change, the exact date the obligation to pay arises can shift which qualifying period the spend falls into. Check contract terms and payment milestones with your accountant before signing off a large installation, particularly one that runs close to either deadline.
How do you actually submit a chargepoint capital allowances claim?
Preparing the claim is mostly an evidence exercise. HMRC guidance and practical experience from live projects point to the same core file:
Separate invoices for chargepoint hardware, dedicated electrical supply plant, and any land alteration works.
An asset register entry for each charger, showing description, cost, and installation date.
A commissioning certificate confirming the charger was installed and made operational.
Single-line electrical diagrams and site plans showing what was installed where.
Payment records that tie back to the invoice dates and the accounting period claimed.
Once the file is assembled, the FYA is entered on the corporation tax computation for companies, or on the capital allowances section of the Self Assessment return for the self-employed, following the mechanics HMRC sets out in HS252.
Pro Tip: Request separate cost schedules from your installer at the quotation stage, not after the invoice lands. Retrofitting a split invoice from a single lump-sum bill is far harder than asking for one upfront. Guides covering commercial EV charger installation costs show how varied the individual cost lines on a multi-charger project can be, which is exactly why a single bundled figure rarely survives scrutiny.
Where do claims usually go wrong?
The most common failure is bundling unrelated costs into one invoice, which forces HMRC (or your own adviser) to guess at what was “installed solely” for charging. HMRC’s manual is explicit that mixed-purpose works should be costed by asset and function, not lumped together.
Three areas cause most of the trouble:
Mixed-use electrical works. A site-wide grid connection upgrade that also feeds lighting or general power will usually fail the “solely for charging” test and may instead qualify for ordinary plant and machinery allowances or special-rate treatment as an integral feature.
Second-hand or hosted equipment. The FYA requires the plant to be new and unused. Equipment inherited from a previous site owner, or supplied under some hosting arrangements, needs its ownership and unused status checked before you assume eligibility.
Financed equipment. Who owns the asset for tax purposes under the finance arrangement matters as much as who paid for it.
None of these failures are exotic. They are the direct, predictable result of asking for one invoice instead of three.
How does the FYA sit alongside other reliefs and grants?
The 100% FYA is not the only allowance in play, and it is not always the best one for every business. The Annual Investment Allowance and full expensing can also give 100% relief on qualifying plant, so the real decision is often about timing and your overall tax position rather than the headline rate.
If your business already has enough AIA headroom, the specific EV chargepoint FYA may be redundant for that spend.
Businesses in a loss position sometimes prefer to defer relief rather than accelerate it into a year with no tax to shelter, so check group relief and future rate expectations before automatically claiming the FYA.
Where a grant has covered part of the installation cost, the taxable capital cost for allowances purposes is the net amount after the grant, not the gross invoice value. Do not claim the FYA on cost the grant already covered.
Business rates relief for EV charging points, covered in GOV.UK’s local authority guidance, sits entirely outside the capital allowances system and should be modelled separately in your project costings.
How Swift Charging supports tax-aware installations
We build the paperwork trail into every project from the start, not as an afterthought. That means separated cost schedules for chargepoint hardware, dedicated electrical works, and any groundworks, plus commissioning certificates issued at handover.
We advise clients to ask their installer for split invoices, an asset list per charger, and commissioning records before the final payment goes out. We also help coordinate grant applications and work alongside your accountant so the claim file lines up with what actually appears on your tax return.
— Swift Charging
Get a tax-aware EV charging installation quote
A generic installer will hand you one invoice and leave you to work out what qualifies for relief after the fact. Installers experienced in EV charging installations typically structure the paperwork correctly from the outset, with separated cost schedules and commissioning certificates ready for your accountant rather than reconstructed months later under enquiry pressure.
Whether you need a handful of workplace chargers or a full fleet charging rollout, we design, supply, install and manage the infrastructure end to end, and support eligible businesses through applications for available government EV charging grants. If you host land or a site suited to public charging, our hosting model is worth a look too. Get in touch for a site survey and a tax-aware quote that gives your accountant everything they need before the 2027 deadlines arrive.
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FAQ
Do electric cars get 100% capital allowances?
New and unused zero-emission cars can qualify for a 100% first-year allowance, separately from the chargepoint allowance covered in this article. The car allowance runs on the same extended qualifying periods as the chargepoint FYA: 31 March 2027 for corporation tax and 5 April 2027 for income tax.
What are the new regulations for EV chargers in the UK?
There is no single new regulation; the key point for tax purposes is the confirmed extension of the 100% first-year allowance for chargepoints to 31 March 2027 (corporation tax) and 5 April 2027 (income tax), as set out in Capital Allowances Act 2001 s.45EA. Businesses installing chargers now should plan procurement and paperwork around whichever deadline applies to them.
Is EV charging at work considered a taxable benefit?
Charging a company-owned or personal electric vehicle at a workplace charging facility that is available to employees generally is not treated as a taxable benefit, provided the charging is at or near the workplace itself. This sits outside the capital allowances question covered above, which concerns the business’s ability to claim relief on the cost of installing the equipment.
Is an electric charger a business expense?
Yes. The cost of installing a chargepoint solely for charging electric vehicles is capital expenditure that can qualify for the 100% first-year allowance under HMRC’s CA23156 guidance, meaning the full qualifying cost can typically be deducted against profits in the year the expenditure is incurred. Non-qualifying elements, such as unrelated general site works, are treated separately and may fall under ordinary plant and machinery allowances instead.
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