Guidance

Using the Electric Car Grant portal

Updated 15 July 2025

This guidance is about how to use the plug-in vehicle grant portal to administer the Electric Car Grant (ECG).

There is separate guidance on using the plug-in portal for other OZEV plug-in grants.

The Electric Car Grant (ECG) uses the plug-in vehicle grant portal to record eligible vehicle sales.

Vehicles can only be added to the grant portal once an application has been made by the manufacturer, and vehicle eligibility has been confirmed in writing by either the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) or the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA).

The grant portal allows:

• a dealer to submit the required information about the eligible vehicle for which a grant is being claimed, on behalf of the purchasing end customer
• all claims to be verified before any grant is paid out
• OZEV to pay approved grant claims to vehicle manufacturers on a monthly basis

As with the wider plug-in vehicle grant schemes, consumers will pay the discounted price automatically and do not have to go through a separate application process. Only dealers and manufacturers need to access the portal directly.

All grants offer a discount on the purchase price of eligible vehicles. It is available to all private individuals and businesses buying or leasing an eligible vehicle at the point of purchase directly from the dealership or manufacturer.

The ECG, launched on 16 July 2025, will use the grant portal in a similar manner to existing plug-in vehicle grants.

You should read this guidance thoroughly before submitting any orders.

Errors in orders submitted to the portal may result in no grant funding being disbursed for an order.

The plug-in grant portal is managed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), hereafter referred to as the scheme administrators.

Ensuring validation of orders and grant payment

Orders can only be validated if all vehicles claimed for within a batch/group:

• have a VIN (vehicle identification number) listed - dealers should check carefully that this has the correct transposition of numbers and letters
• have been registered with the DVLA for road use
• have the correct vehicle registration number - ‘cherished plate’ details should be entered if they are going to be used when the vehicle is registered
• have a correct date of registration - which matches data on the DVLA database
• have the above details correctly recorded on the plug-in vehicle grant portal

If your order is showing as ‘awaiting validation’ or ‘failed validation’, this may be because:

• one or more of the vehicles within the order have not yet been registered with the DVLA - the order validation process uses the DVLA registration database, so this source can be consulted by dealerships if in any doubt
• the correct registration number may have been entered at time of purchase, but the customer may since have registered the vehicle using a cherished plate - dealerships can ask at the point of sale whether a cherished plate is going to be used
• an incorrect registration number has been entered
• an incorrect date of registration has been entered
• the fuel type does not match
• incorrect model variant selected which has differing CO2 emission values

Retrospective claims

Grants must be claimed before registration. This means that the order must have been successfully saved onto the portal before the vehicle is registered with the DVLA.

This applies for all vehicles, including demonstration models.

The grant can only be claimed retrospectively (that is, after a vehicle has been registered) in exceptional circumstances. Retrospective claims will be allowed only at the discretion of OZEV. We will not consider claims older than 6 months.

We will only consider one retrospective claim per dealership, unless in the most exceptional circumstances.

This position can be updated at any time at OZEV’s discretion.

Grant level and lead times

To secure the grant, an order should be started as soon as a contract has been entered into with the customer.

A grant is not guaranteed until the vehicle has been validated through the portal.

Any order placed on the system for a specific customer is guaranteed the grant at the level advertised at the time the order was placed on the grant portal.

That is provided that within 9 months of the date the order is placed, the vehicle is registered and has been delivered to the customer. The order must also appear on the grant portal as either:

• completed
• awaiting payment
• awaiting audit status

OZEV reserves the right to change this delivery window at any time and without notice.

It is the dealer’s responsibility to track orders and ensure they are progressing through the system correctly.

Orders in ‘awaiting audit’ status will only proceed to payment when the audit checks have been completed and passed.

The documents requested for audit purposes should be provided within 28 days of request.

Orders will be cancelled if:

• documents are not provided for audit within the 28 consecutive days of the request
• the order has exceeded the completion deadline by more than 28 consecutive days

This applies to all vehicles, including demonstration models.

How the grant should be applied

The grant amount should be deducted from the purchase price, which is captured in the portal. On the vehicle order summary page of the portal, the purchase price means the actual price that would be paid by the customer without the grant, not the recommended retail price. The purchase price should include any industry discount offered by the manufacturer and represent the price the consumer would have paid without the ECG.

Invoices clearly showing the purchase price minus the grant must be available and would be requested during an audit process. All invoices are subject to audit to ensure the grant is not being advertised or used improperly. The components of the purchase price should be itemised on the invoice, alongside the ECG grant amount to produce the final price.

Delivery fee, first registration and optional extras are not included in the calculation of purchase price.

Any discount (including rebates) offered on the vehicle to the customer by either the dealer or the company must be applied to the price before the application of the grant.

The purchase price is different to the eligibility price, which is applied on the basis of recommended retail price (RRP) including VAT.

Definition of eligibility price

To be eligible for the ECG, a car must be priced at or below £37,000 RRP.

The definition of RRP includes:

• VAT, including VAT reclaimable by a business
• vehicle manufacturer or dealer’s mandatory extras including delivery charges or administration fees
• the battery cost (including where the battery is leased)
• any non-standard option fitted by the manufacturer or dealer affecting the capacity of the battery, drive train configuration or maximum net power

The definition of RRP excludes:

• any non-standard option fitted by the manufacturer or dealer which does not affect the capacity of the battery, drivetrain configuration or maximum net power
• modifications such as ‘police packs’, ambulance/fire engine modifications
• modifications for disabled users, including WAV conversions
• warranties, excluding the mandatory warranties identified in the ECG guidance
• insurance and service packages, or other similar products
• first registration fee and cost of first licence
• discounts, including rebates

Where a vehicle model has multiple powertrain options (that is options that affect the capacity of the battery, drive train configuration, or maximum net power) eligibility will be determined by the RRP price for the lowest priced variant of each distinct powertrain.

For example, if a vehicle model has a 50Kwh battery option priced at £35,000 - £40,000 and a 60Kwh battery option priced at £40,000 - £45,000, all of the 50Kwh battery variants will be eligible, none of the 60Kwh battery variants will be eligible.

Internal manufacturer sales

Internal manufacturer sales cover cases where a vehicle is retained by the company - for example, loaned to companies or organisations for trial purposes or for own use.

For all these types of sales, OZEV will require notification of when an order has been put into the system, in the form of an email containing:

• a list of the vehicles
• an example invoice before the first transaction is made

Vehicles that are eligible for the grant

All vehicles must have been confirmed by OZEV as eligible under the rules of the ECG to receive the grant.

If a vehicle does not appear on the list of eligible vehicles on the portal, and manufacturers have received written confirmation of eligibility, then portal users should query this with the manufacturer.

Orders created for the wrong vehicle will fail validation and will be cancelled except in exceptional circumstances at OZEV’s discretion.

The list of vehicles eligible for the grant and their categories is updated as new vehicles come to market and older vehicles are withdrawn from sale.

Grant payment

Grants are paid by OZEV directly to vehicle manufacturers or their UK representative. The manufacturer is responsible for arranging payment to individual dealers.

OZEV conducts the payment run on a monthly basis, usually on the eighth day of the month or the nearest working day. On the day of the payment run, OZEV will contact manufacturers to set out the grant claims with payments expected to be made.

Manufacturers are responsible for submitting claims for payment to OZEV within 5 working days following the payment run.

Any discrepancies with orders must be reconciled before OZEV pays claims. Manufacturers will push back any incorrect claims to ‘in pipeline’ at this stage.

Manufacturers will push the status of claims back if any of the order details entered into the portal differ from the manufacturer’s internal system. This could be vehicle model, VIN, registration number or pricing issues.

The manufacturer will normally receive payment for claims within 16 working days from when the claims have been approved.

If you have an order that has reached completed status and have not yet received payment, contact your manufacturer to find out when payment will be made.

The scheme administrators are not in the OZEV to manufacturer, or manufacturer to dealership payment process and will be unable to assist in payment queries.

If you have an order that has reached awaiting payment status, the order must be included in a monthly pay run to reach completed status before a payment is pending.

Orders will need to enter ‘awaiting payment’ by the end of the previous month to catch the next scheduled pay run.

Audit

The portal will select 10% of orders that have been validated for audit.

When an order has been selected for audit - the status will change to awaiting audit, the dealer is required to send corresponding invoices to PlugInVehicleGrant@dvla.gov.uk.

A review will then be completed on the information that has been entered into the portal.

If an order is selected for audit, dealers must respond within 28 consecutive days.

25% of orders placed in the period between the scheme’s launch (16 July 2025) and the portal being open for orders (11 August 2025) will be selected for audit.

Dealers should provide an invoice on headed paper that includes the following information:

• retailer information, name and address, VAT number and company registration number
• the final price itemised to show the VAT, number plates, less any discount offered to the customer
• the grant amount shown separately

These audit requirements apply to demonstrator vehicles.

Invoices must be provided for these vehicles. Consignment notes are not acceptable.

The audit check is to confirm that:

• vehicle and customer details match the online system and DVLA vehicle record database
• the price of the vehicle stated on the customer invoice matches the order on the portal
• the correct grant amount has been applied
• the model powertrain version is eligible for the grant

It is the portal user’s responsibility to ensure that contact information is kept up to date.

Requests for information sent to contact details that are no longer valid could result in the audit check failing and the order being cancelled.

Portal user responsibilities

All users must read, understand and comply with the terms and conditions/legal notices associated with the use of this system.

Dealer responsibilities

It is the dealer’s responsibility to:

• reduce the purchase price of the vehicle by the appropriate grant amount and ensure the price paid by the customer reflects their full entitlement
• promptly provide true and accurate information as required by the system, to enable manufacturers to make their grant claim
• provide any necessary documents as further evidence for audit as and when required
• review the status of their orders using the filter functionality on the grant portal and progress orders promptly where required

If a dealer has left the dealership/business, the dealership/business is responsible for contacting DVLA so their user account can be closed.

If a dealer has moved to a different dealership, they should not use the same user account as in their previous role. Contact DVLA about the change in circumstances so the account, access and portal can be updated accordingly.

Manufacturer responsibilities

Manufacturers are responsible for checking monthly claims to ensure that all vehicles are eligible for the grant and that the grant value is correct.

Joint dealer and manufacturer responsibilities

Arrangements for the reimbursement of the grant amount to dealers are the responsibility of the vehicle manufacturer and the dealer - neither OZEV nor the portal administrators have any responsibility for this process.

Manufacturers will have full view of orders for all of their vehicles - dealers should, therefore, expect to discuss claims with their manufacturers.

Where a model straddles the grant price cap, each distinct powertrain version of a model with RRP below the cap as defined above will be listed separately on the list of eligible vehicles in the OZEV grant portal. It is the responsibility of dealers and manufacturers to ensure that orders for versions of the model with different powertrains which are priced above the cap, and are therefore ineligible for the grant, are not created on the grant portal. Any order placed for a vehicle found to be priced above the cap will be cancelled.

OZEV will ensure that vehicles claiming the grant are eligible through its audit process.

Lease orders

It is the dealer’s responsibility to ensure that end customer details have been provided for all lease company orders, whether private or business purchases.

End customer always refers to the customer of the lease company not the lease company themselves.

Any claims made without this information or found to contain the wrong customer details will be cancelled.

OZEV reserves the right to request supporting evidence to confirm end customer details provided are accurate and that orders are for the sole use of the business in question.

The end customer name may not be changed once the order has been created.

Export vehicles

To be eligible for the grant, vehicles must be registered in the UK and the customer must have paid UK value added tax (VAT) on the vehicle.

This excludes claims from vehicles registered under the personal export, new means of transport and direct export schemes.

For these purposes registration is defined as either:

• referred to in section 21 of the vehicle excise and registration act 1994 and licensed for use on UK roads
• registered under the terms of the diplomatic privileges act 1964 and licensed for use on UK roads

British armed forces and diplomatic vehicles

Members of the British armed forces living abroad will still be eligible to claim for the ECG and can use their British Forces Post Office (BFPO) postcode.

British diplomats living abroad or foreign diplomats living in the UK are also still eligible to claim for the ECG.

Diplomatic vehicles and vehicles with export plates will not validate automatically with the DVLA vehicle records database and will need to be manually validated by the scheme administrators.

If you are claiming for a diplomatic vehicle, contact PlugInVehicleGrant@dvla.gov.uk to make DVLA aware.

Contact

Dealerships should contact their manufacturers in the first instance and the scheme administrators at PlugInVehicleGrant@dvla.gov.uk if they have outstanding queries. They should not contact OZEV directly.

Manufacturers should contact OZEV with any queries that cannot be answered by the scheme administrators at ECGApplications@ozev.gov.uk.