Workplace Charging Scheme 2026: OZEV grants for business chargers, eligibility and how to apply

The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) pays up to £500 per socket, capped at 75% of the installed cost, for chargepoints installed at UK business, charity and public sector sites from 1 April 2026, for up to 40 sockets. It is in its final year: funding is confirmed only until 31 March 2027, and three other OZEV business grants already closed on 31 March 2026.

This guide covers what is still fundable, who qualifies, how the voucher works, what the grant never pays for, and how the 100% first-year allowance on chargepoints stacks on top. It ends with a worked example in pounds and with the question most grant guides skip: where your company cars actually charge. That last point is where Voltaback works, because most fleet kWh are drawn at drivers' homes, which no business grant funds.

Which chargepoint grants are still open to UK businesses in 2026/27?

The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) reshaped its grant family on 1 April 2026. Five schemes were extended for one last year, with higher rates; three were closed to new applications.

For a company that wants chargers on its own car park, the Workplace Charging Scheme is now the only national OZEV grant left. For the drivers' homes, the employer has no grant at all: the household grants are claimed by the resident, and only flat owners and renters qualify.

Source: GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026.

How much does the Workplace Charging Scheme pay?

The WCS covers up to 75% of the purchase and installation cost of eligible chargepoints, VAT included, capped at £500 per socket. In practice the £500 cap bites first on almost every commercial installation, because a socket rarely costs less than £667 installed.

The rate depends on the installation completion date, not the application date:

• installation completed on or after 1 April 2026: up to £500 per socket;
• installation completed before 1 April 2026: up to £350 per socket.

Each applicant can claim for up to 40 sockets across all its sites. You can apply for further vouchers later, as long as the cumulative total stays within 40. A dual-socket post counts as two sockets, so 40 sockets means 20 twin chargers. Linked companies under common control share the same 40.

State-funded education institutions have their own strand at up to £2,000 per socket, still within 40 sockets. Vouchers issued under that strand for applications made before 1 April 2026 keep their older, higher value.

Sources: Find a grant, Workplace Charging Scheme, GOV.UK, Workplace Charging Scheme: guidance for installers.

Is the Workplace Charging Scheme ending?

Yes, on current information. The government describes 2026/27 as a final year, with funding confirmed until 31 March 2027, and reserves the right to change or end the scheme earlier with, where possible, four weeks' notice. Because a voucher lasts 180 days, an application made after early October 2026 has a voucher that would run past the end date: book the installer before you apply, not after.

Who is eligible for the Workplace Charging Scheme?

Eligibility rests on three tests: the organisation, the parking and the subsidy limit.

The organisation

• Businesses registered at Companies House or holding a VAT number or business rates bill.
• Charities, including those without Companies House registration (Charity Commission registration or a letter from the principal regulator is accepted).
• Public sector bodies.
• Small accommodation businesses, such as B&Bs, which have their own guidance.

Sites must be in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are excluded.

The parking

• Off-street and dedicated: the spaces must be designated to you and used by staff or fleet vehicles, not reserved for customers. You must be able to evidence this.
• Owned or with consent: you own the property, or you hold the landlord's written consent for every site listed.
• Built: parking not yet constructed does not qualify.
• Not required by law: chargepoints you must install anyway to meet building regulations or a planning condition are excluded.
• Not previously funded: an address that already claimed under the WCS, or under the old home charge schemes, cannot claim again for the same parking.

Businesses may let local residents use the chargers outside office hours without losing eligibility. Public bodies, charities and small accommodation businesses have no restriction on who uses the parking.

A home-based business qualifies if the home address is the registered office at Companies House or appears on the business rates bill, and the property has off-road parking. In that case the chargepoint model must be approved for both residential and commercial use.

The subsidy limit

The WCS is "minimal financial assistance" under the UK subsidy control regime. An organisation can receive up to £315,000 of minimal financial assistance over three financial years, all schemes combined. You declare this when applying. Public authorities do not need to make the declaration.

Source: Find a grant, Workplace Charging Scheme.

How to apply for the Workplace Charging Scheme, step by step

The process is voucher-based: you apply, OZEV issues a code, and your installer claims the money.

1. Get two or three quotes from OZEV-authorised installers. Ask each for the chargepoint model and check it is on the OZEV approved list at the date of installation. If the work is not done by an authorised installer, there is no grant.
2. Apply online through the WCS portal, listing each site and the number of sockets.
3. Receive the voucher by email. It is valid for 180 days and cannot be transferred to another organisation or another site.
4. Give the voucher code to the installer, who completes the installation within the validity period.
5. The installer claims the grant through the installer portal once the work is complete. Check the confirmation you receive and query any wrong detail straight away.
6. You pay the installer the balance, net of the grant. The installer is paid the grant by OZEV.

Practical points that cost organisations their grant:

• a voucher that expired because the installer's lead time was longer than 180 days;
• a chargepoint model approved for residential use only at a home-based workplace;
• a site address that differs between the application and the claim;
• a lease without written landlord consent.

Keep the voucher, invoices and consent letters for several years, and read the grant terms on chargepoint maintenance and usage data before you sign: plan the site layout so the chargers can stay where they are.

Before requesting quotes, it helps to size the project: how many vehicles really charge on site, at what power, and for how long. The chargepoint installation recommendation simulator gives a first answer in a few minutes.

What the Workplace Charging Scheme does not pay for

The grant funds hardware and installation, once. Everything else stays with the organisation.

The last line matters most for fleets. A company car that sleeps on the driver's drive is not on your car park at night, so a workplace charger only covers part of its charging. The next sections deal with that gap.

Typical installed prices, and how they vary with power, cable runs and groundworks, are detailed in our guide to installing chargers for a business.

Grants that closed on 31 March 2026, and what replaced them

Three OZEV grants closed to new customer applications on 31 March 2026:

• EV infrastructure grant for staff and fleets: up to £350 per socket plus up to £500 per enabled parking space, 75% of costs capped at £15,000 per installation, for SMEs with fewer than 250 employees and at least five spaces;
• Commercial landlord chargepoint grant: up to £350 per socket, up to 100 sockets a year;
• Residential landlord infrastructure grant: up to £350 per socket plus up to £500 per enabled space, capped at £30,000 per installation.

Installers had until 26 May 2026 to submit claims for vouchers already issued, and until 13 July 2026 to answer requests for further information. Any quote that still mentions these grants is out of date.

The practical consequence: ducting and enabling works for future spaces are no longer grant-funded. An SME that wanted to pre-wire 20 bays and equip 4 now pays for the passive infrastructure itself, and can only claim WCS on the sockets actually installed.

Source: GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026.

Tax relief on chargepoints: the 100% first-year allowance

On top of the grant, a company that buys chargepoint equipment can deduct 100% of the cost from taxable profits in the year of purchase, through the first-year allowance (FYA) for electric vehicle chargepoints.

• Dates: expenditure incurred up to 31 March 2027 for Corporation Tax and 5 April 2027 for Income Tax (sole traders and partnerships). The extension was announced in a policy paper of 26 November 2025.
• Scope: new and unused chargepoint equipment, including installation costs that are capital in nature. It applies to chargers on your own site and to chargers the company owns at a driver's home.
• Legal basis: section 45EA of the Capital Allowances Act 2001.

Two interactions to get right:

1. The grant reduces the allowance. Expenditure met by a public body is excluded from qualifying expenditure (section 532 of the Capital Allowances Act 2001). You claim the FYA on your net cost after the WCS, not on the gross invoice.
2. VAT follows normal rules. A VAT-registered business recovers the input VAT on the installation in the usual way, so the capital allowance applies to the net-of-VAT cost.

Sources: GOV.UK policy paper, First-year allowances for zero-emission cars and electric vehicle chargepoints, HMRC Capital Allowances Manual CA23153, legislation.gov.uk, CAA 2001 s.532, GOV.UK, Corporation Tax rates.

The same FYA logic applies to new zero-emission cars, with the same end dates. Our article on capital allowances for electric company cars works through the car side.

Worked example: 10 workplace sockets in 2026/27

A VAT-registered company with a 25% Corporation Tax rate equips its staff car park with five twin 7 kW chargepoints (10 sockets), completed in January 2027.

Assumption: about £1,200 per socket excluding VAT installed, i.e. £12,000 ex VAT and £14,400 including VAT. Real quotes vary widely with groundworks and supply capacity: use your own.

Without the grant and the FYA, the same 10 sockets would have cost £12,000 with the tax relief spread over years in the capital allowance pools. With both, the project costs 56% less.

What the example does not include: electricity, back-office software and maintenance, which recur every year. If the chargers are free to use for staff, budget the electricity at your business tariff. If you charge staff for it, the payment platform has a cost too. Over the life of the chargers, these running costs can match or exceed the net installation cost, so put both in the same business case and compare them year by year.

The same 10 sockets will serve perhaps 10 to 20 cars a day on site. They will not serve the company cars that leave at 5.30 pm and charge overnight at the driver's home, which brings us to the real budget line.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The WCS is UK-wide: Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish organisations apply through the same OZEV portal, at the same £500 rate.

• Scotland: the Scottish Government has announced a package of about £17.8 million of EV incentives for 2026/27, run by the Energy Saving Trust, including a strand for microbusinesses, sole traders and third sector organisations in rural and island areas. Energy Saving Trust schemes can close without notice within the financial year, so check status before relying on them. Source: Energy Saving Trust, business charge point funding.
• Wales: no separate national business chargepoint grant was identified for 2026/27; Business Wales points Welsh organisations to the WCS. Source: Business Wales, Workplace Charging Scheme.
• Northern Ireland: the WCS applies in full.

Local authorities sometimes run their own small business schemes, often funded through the Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) programme for public charging. Ask your council's transport team before committing.

Is workplace charging a taxable benefit for employees?

No. Free charging at work is exempt for employees, whether they drive a company car or their own car, provided the conditions are met.

Employees' own cars: section 237A of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 exempts charging facilities provided at or near the workplace, as long as they are available to all employees generally, or to all employees at that workplace. The exemption covers electricity, the charging equipment and connected services. It does not cover charging at the employee's home, nor reimbursement of an employee's personal charging costs elsewhere. It also falls away if the charging is offered through a salary sacrifice arrangement. Source: HMRC EIM01035.

Company cars: electricity is not "fuel" for the car fuel benefit charge, and section 239(4) ITEPA exempts any further benefit connected with the taxable car. Charging a company car at work therefore creates no tax for the driver. Source: HMRC EIM23900.

For your staff, a free workplace charger is a tax-free perk. For your company car drivers, it is one charging location among three: work, public and home.

The gap no grant covers: company cars that charge at home

For most fleets, the largest share of charging happens at the driver's home, overnight, on the household's electricity contract. No business grant funds that electricity, and the household grants only help flat owners and renters with the hardware.

What the employer can do instead is set up a clean reimbursement:

• Tax: an employer can reimburse the cost of electricity used to charge a company car at home, business and private miles included, with no tax and no Class 1A NIC, under section 239(2) ITEPA 2003. HMRC asks that the reimbursement is solely for the company car, not the household's other consumption.
• Charger: a home chargepoint paid for by the employer for a company car is not a taxable benefit either, and it qualifies for the 100% FYA if the company owns it.
• Rate: you can reimburse the real cost of each kWh, or use HMRC's Advisory Electricity Rate, currently 7p per mile for home charging and 15p per mile for public charging (from 1 September 2026, reviewed quarterly).

Sources: HMRC EIM23900, GOV.UK, Advisory fuel rates.

Example: 50 company cars charging at home

Each car drives 10,000 miles a year. At HMRC's own efficiency assumption of 3.59 miles per kWh, that is about 2,790 kWh per car per year.

The flat AER is simple, but on a fleet where many drivers sit on an EV tariff it overpays. Reimbursing the real kWh cost of each driver's own tariff removes that gap, without asking anyone to buy a specific charger.

This is how Voltaback works. The software reads charging sessions from the car itself (more than 48 brands connected), values each kWh at the driver's real tariff and produces a monthly export ready to import into your payroll software. Voltaback relies on the home's MID-certified meter, not on a standalone cable meter. Measurement has been audited by an independent third party at a relative error of 1.22%.

Our guide to home charger prices in the UK covers the hardware side for drivers who do need a home charger, and how home charging reimbursement works covers the payment side.

Source: Ofgem, Energy price cap.

Do you have to install workplace chargers at all?

For existing offices, there is no general legal duty in England to install chargers on a company car park. The duty applies to new buildings and major renovations: Part S of the Building Regulations requires new non-residential buildings, and those undergoing major renovation, with more than 10 parking spaces to provide at least one chargepoint and cable routes for one in five spaces. Chargepoints installed to meet that duty are not eligible for the WCS.

The detail of who must install what, and when, is in our article on the legal requirements for workplace chargepoints. The architecture choices (power, load management, back office) are explained in our guide to how a charging installation is built.

Source: GOV.UK, Approved Document S.

How many workplace sockets do you really need?

The grant pays per socket, which pushes many projects to claim the full 40. The better question is how many kilowatt-hours your vehicles need to draw on site each day.

Start from the energy, not the car count

A 7 kW socket delivers about 7 kWh per hour. At HMRC's assumption of 3.59 miles per kWh, that is roughly 25 miles of range per hour plugged in. A car parked for an eight-hour working day can take on around 200 miles, far more than most commutes.

So a single 7 kW socket can often serve two cars a day if staff move their car at lunchtime, or one car if they do not. Most office car parks are better served by more 7 kW sockets than by fewer fast ones.

When 22 kW makes sense

• Pool cars and vans that come back mid-day and leave again within two or three hours.
• Visitor and customer bays, which the WCS does not fund anyway.
• Sites with a three-phase supply to spare. Many cars accept only 7 or 11 kW on AC, so check your fleet before paying for 22 kW.

Load management

Ten 7 kW sockets drawing at once need 70 kW. A load-managed installation shares the available capacity between sockets, which often avoids a supply upgrade. Ask each installer whether load management is included, and what happens when the building's own demand peaks.

Should staff pay for workplace charging?

Free charging is the simplest option and is tax-free for employees under section 237A. But electricity at a business tariff is not free for the employer, and a free charger attracts private cars that never leave.

Three common set-ups:

Whatever you choose, write it down in the car policy, and make sure company car drivers are not reimbursed twice for the same kWh: once at work for free, and again at home on a flat rate.

Decision checklist before 31 March 2027

Use this list to decide whether, and how fast, to apply.

1. Count where your vehicles sleep. Pool cars and vans that stay on site overnight justify workplace sockets. Company cars that go home every evening mostly do not.
2. Size the sockets. Number of cars on site at the same time, average dwell time, 7 kW versus 22 kW. Over-equipping costs electricity capacity and back-office fees.
3. Check the supply. A capacity upgrade from the distribution network operator can take months and can cost more than the chargers.
4. Secure landlord consent in writing for every leased site.
5. Book the installer before applying, so the 180-day voucher does not expire, and so the installation completes before 31 March 2027.
6. Confirm the model is on the OZEV approved list on the installation date.
7. Plan the FYA: completion and expenditure before 31 March 2027 (Corporation Tax) or 5 April 2027 (Income Tax).
8. Decide who pays the electricity at work: free to staff (tax-free under s.237A) or charged at a tariff.
9. Set the home charging policy for company car drivers: real cost or AER, evidence, and frequency of payment.
10. Keep all records (voucher, invoices, consent, usage data) as the grant terms require.

Fund the chargers you need, reimburse the kWh you cannot see

The Workplace Charging Scheme is worth claiming for pool vehicles and staff who charge on site, and the 100% FYA makes the net cost per socket modest until March 2027. But for company cars that charge at home, the useful budget line is not a charger subsidy: it is an accurate, tax-free reimbursement of the electricity.

More than 200 companies use Voltaback to measure and reimburse home charging from car data, with no hardware to install, ISO 27001 certification since 2 December 2025 and UK GDPR compliance. The employer never receives the drivers' geolocation. Voltaback does not install chargers, but helps you get installer quotes where a home charger is genuinely needed.

Talk to us about your fleet's charging