Tell HMRC about an employee's company car

You need to tell HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) if you make any cars available for private use by company directors or employees.

‘Private use’ includes employees’ journeys between home and work, unless they’re travelling to a temporary place of work.

There’s a different way for employees to check or update their company car tax.

What to report

You need to send a P46 (Car) form to HMRC if you:

  • provide company cars to your employees
  • stop providing a company car
  • provide someone with an additional car

To send the form you can:

You also need to report on your end-of-year forms and pay Class 1A National Insurance on the value of the car benefit.

Replacing a company car

You need to tell HMRC if you’ve replaced a company car. You can do this by using:

Deadlines

There are different deadlines depending on when you provide, change or stop providing the company car.

When the change takes place When you need to tell HMRC by
6 January to 5 April 5 April (electronic form)
6 January to 5 April 3 May (printed form)
6 April to 5 July 2 August
6 July to 5 October 2 November
6 October to 5 January 2 February

Exceptions

You do not need to tell HMRC if you provide:

  • ‘pool’ cars, which are used by more than one employee for business purposes, and normally kept on your premises
  • cars adapted for use by employees with a disability, if the only private use is for journeys between home and work
  • emergency vehicles used only by on-call employees of the police, fire and rescue, ambulance or paramedic services

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