Vehicles statistics
Data and statistics about the number of licensed vehicles and new vehicle registrations, including zero emission vehicles, and vehicle excise duty evasion.
Cars and light goods vehicles registered for the first time by body type and fuel type
Data are updated on a monthly basis.
Data are sourced by a combination of vehicle registration data supplied by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), and the monthly published data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) to produce an early, provisional, estimate of the number of newly registered vehicles that DfT currently publishes as official statistics.
Further information and accompanying methodology notes are published on the department’s Developing faster indicators of transport activity page.
Latest vehicle licensing statistics
Vehicle licensing data tables
Data are updated on an annual basis in May, with a subset of key tables published quarterly in July, September and December.
The data is also available in standard geographical formats from the department’s Transport Statistics Geography Portal. Users of the portal should note that whilst updated regularly, the dataset available may not represent the latest published vehicle licensing data.
The tables index document provides an overview of the structure of the statistical tables published in this collection. The Transport Statistics Finder provides an overview of all statistical tables published by the department.
Vehicle licensing statistics
Statistics on the number of licensed vehicles and new vehicle registrations derived from data held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), which administers vehicle registration and licensing records in the United Kingdom. The information is broken down by the type of vehicle, the characteristics of vehicles and a geographic breakdown.
Vehicle licensing information on current and previous vehicle licensing statistics are available.
Vehicle excise duty evasion statistics
Statistics on the number of unlicensed vehicles ‘in traffic’ and ‘in active stock’, as well as their characteristics and the potential lost revenues through vehicle excise duty evasion. Based on a roadside survey, which since 2011 has been carried out every 2 years.
Please note, as announced in October 2024, we have made some adjustments to our regular publication cycle that affects this statistical series. The next release has been postponed.
Vehicle excise duty information on current and previous vehicle excise duty evasion statistics are available.
Change to the Vehicle excise duty evasion statistics: 2023
The Vehicle excise duty evasion statistics: 2023, published in December 2023, do not feature an estimate of the value of potential revenue loss from vehicle excise duty (VED) evasion.
As the guidance used to assign VED rates for vehicles has evolved and become more intricate, the challenge of reflecting this into the calculations and methodology used to estimate the value of VED evasion from a large sample of vehicles has greatly increased. As part of our on-going efforts to ensure quality in our statistics we have identified a risk that the existing methodology, used to estimate this, is no longer capable of producing an estimate we consider to be sufficiently robust and compliant with its designation as an accredited official statistic.
We have continued to produce statistics on the estimated incidence of VED evasion as part of this release including the number of unlicensed vehicles ‘in traffic’ and ‘in active stock’, as well as their characteristics.
We are working with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to explore new methodologies to resume producing this value estimate for future publications. If you would like further information, please vehicles.statistics@dft.gov.uk.
About the vehicle statistics data and reports
All of the statistics published are accredited official statistics. The vehicle statistics were assessed by the UK Statistics Authority and confirmed as accredited official statistics in April 2012.