Accredited official statistics

Vehicle licensing statistics, United Kingdom: July to September 2025

Published 15 January 2026

© Crown copyright 2026

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-licensing-statistics-july-to-september-2025/vehicle-licensing-statistics-united-kingdom-july-to-september-2025--2

About this release

This release presents statistics on motor vehicles in the United Kingdom (UK) covering the period up to September 2025. They are based on administrative data held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). These statistics include:

  • new vehicle registrations

  • all licensed vehicles

  • zero emission vehicles

A range of detailed data tables and large data files are available online. Also available is a full list of definitions used in this release.

These statistics cover the whole of the United Kingdom, which is Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) and Northern Ireland. Data prior to July 2014 covers Great Britain only.

If you have any feedback on this release, please contact vehicles statistics.

These are accredited official statistics and were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2012. For more information, see the About these statistics section.

Headline figures

Latest figures for 2025 Quarter 3 (July to September), show the number of new vehicle registrations increased by 3%, when compared to 2024 Quarter 3 (July to September).

As at September 2025, there were 1,759,000 licensed zero emission vehicles on the road, representing 4.2% of all licensed road using vehicles.

Comparing 2025 Quarter 3 (July to September) with 2024 Quarter 3 (July to September), in the UK there were:

  • 696,000 vehicles registered for the first time, an increase of 3% (VEH0150)

  • 135,000 vehicles registered for the first time that were zero emission, an increase of 23% (VEH1153a)

  • 124,000 cars registered for the first time that were zero emission, an increase of 21%

As at September 2025, compared to September 2024, in the UK there were:

  • 42.4 million licensed vehicles, an increase of 1% (VEH0101a)

  • 1,759,000 licensed zero emission vehicles, an increase of 36% (VEH1103a), including 1,630,000 zero emission cars, an increase of 37%

As at September 2025, zero emission vehicles accounted for 4.2% of all licensed road using vehicles, an increase of 1.1 percentage points compared to September 2024.

New registrations of vehicles: overview

There were 696,000 vehicles registered for the first time in the UK in 2025 Quarter 3 (July to September). This was an increase of 3% compared to 2024 Quarter 3 (July to September) (VEH0150).

Table 1: Vehicles registered for the first time in the year by body type, UK, 2025 Q3 (July to September) and 2024 Q3 (July to September) (VEH0150)

Body type   2025 Q3 (July to September): New registrations (thousands) 2024 Q3 (July to September): New registrations (thousands) New registrations (year on year % change)
Total   696  672  3.5
Cars    549  519 5.7
Light goods vehicles (LGVs)   89 93    -4.3
Heavy goods vehicles (HGVs)   11   12  -8.9
Motorcycles 29   30  -4.1
Buses and coaches  2  3   -22.0
Other vehicles       15   15     6.4

Monthly seasonality

When DVLA issues a new registration plate series, there is usually a peak in new vehicle registrations. Since 1999, new plates have been issued twice a year, in March and September.

New registrations of zero emission vehicles

Zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) are a sub-set of ultra low emission vehicles (vehicles that are reported to emit less than 75g of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the tailpipe for every kilometre travelled), currently only including:

  • battery electric vehicles (BEVs)

  • fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs, sometimes referred to as hydrogen powered)

There were 124,000 zero emission cars registered for the first time in July to September 2025, an increase of 21% from July to September 2024. Zero emission cars accounted for 23% of all new car registrations, compared to 20% in July to September 2024.

There were 9,000 zero emission light goods vehicles (LGVs) registered for the first time in July to September 2025,  an increase of 65%, compared to July to September 2024. Zero emission LGVs accounted for 10% of all new LGV registrations, an increase from 6% in July to September 2024.

Table 2: Zero emission vehicles registered for the first time by body type, with previous year and total new registrations comparison, UK, 2025 Q3 (July to September) and 2024 Q3 (July to September) (VEH1153a)

Body type   2025 Q3 (July to September): New registrations of zero emission vehicles 2025 Q3 (July to September): Proportion (%) of all new road using vehicle registrations that are zero emission 2024 Q3 (July to September): Proportion (%) of all new road using vehicle registrations that are zero emission
Total       134,758   19.8   16.7
Cars    124,284      22.7     19.8
Light goods vehicles  8,693 9.8    5.7
Heavy goods vehicles   226 2.2    0.6
Motorcycles    959   3.3  3.4
Buses and coaches     578 26.6    17.8
Other vehicles    18   2.3    3.4

Heavy vans

Cars and light goods vehicles (up to and including 3.5 tonnes) can typically be driven by those with a category B driving licence. Since July 2018, people with this licence can also drive alternatively fuelled vehicles up to 4.25 tonnes (which are classified as Heavy Goods Vehicles, HGVs, those over 3.5 tonnes) with some additional training.

The statistics presented here place these “heavy vans” into the light goods vehicle category to align with these policy changes.

Chart 1: Zero emission car and light goods vehicles (LGVs) registered for the first time as a percentage of all new registrations, UK, 2021 Q3 (July to September) to 2025 Q3 (July to September) (VEH1153a)

Chart 1 shows the new zero emission registrations of cars and light goods vehicles (LGVs) as a percentage of all new registrations in the first quarter (July to September) since 2021. In July to September 2025 both cars and LGVs have seen growth in their proportion of zero emission registrations compared to previous years. Zero emission cars accounted for 23% (up from 20% in July to September 2024) of new vehicle registrations, while zero emission LGVs accounted for 10%  (up from 6%  in July to September 2024).

Licensed vehicles

The number of licensed vehicles grows more slowly than the total number of new registrations. This is a consequence of vehicles leaving the on-road stock through a variety of routes, such as:

  • receiving a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN)

  • being written off or scrapped

  • being exported from the UK

Table 3: Licensed road using vehicles and licensed zero emission vehicles by body type, with one year and total stock comparison, UK, 2025 Q3 (July to September) (VEH1103a)

Body type 2025 Q3 (July to September): Licensed road using vehicles (thousands) 2025 Q3 (July to September): Licensed zero emission vehicles (thousands) 2025 Q3 (July to September): Proportion (%) of all licensed road using vehicles that are zero emission
Total           41,607    1,759     4.2
Cars          34,486    1,630  4.7
Light goods vehicles   4,903  106     2.2
Heavy goods vehicles   522      1  0.3
Motorcycles     1,476  14  0.9
Buses and coaches     144   7     4.9
Other vehicles   75    1 0.9

What vehicles are included?

These figures only include vehicles that are licensed for use on UK roads, which typically requires paying Vehicle Excise Duty (VED).

Vehicles that are not licensed should typically be given a SORN. The keeper can then re-license their vehicle at any time. Detailed tables relating to vehicles with a SORN are available.

Improvements made in this release

If you have any feedback on this release, please contact vehicles statistics.

Background notes

About these figures

Almost all the statistics in the vehicle licensing statistics series are derived by Department for Transport statisticians from extracts of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) vehicle database. The main purpose of the database is to administer vehicle registration and licensing records in the United Kingdom.

For further information about the data used in this release, please see our guidance page which contains:

  • detailed notes and definitions

  • a note on users and uses of these statistics

There is also a Statement of Administrative Sources for the DVLA vehicles database.

In this release, numbers may not add up to totals and percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.

Geographic coverage

In July 2014, vehicle and registration services for Northern Ireland were centralised at DVLA, where these services for Great Britain were already administered. This created a single vehicle register for the United Kingdom, in place of separate registers for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. From this time, statistics can be provided for both Great Britain and the United Kingdom.

Data quality

The databases used for these statistics can be regarded as being virtually complete in terms of the number of vehicles registered for the first time, licensed vehicles, and vehicles with a SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification). However, there may be some errors in some of the specific details of individual vehicles.

The Department for Transport has previously estimated that under 2% of the vehicle records have an inaccuracy in one of the variables used for the statistics published. Other factors to consider in interpreting these statistics include:

  • changes in legislation

  • seasonal variation which affects some vehicle types

  • foreign registered vehicles may also use UK road without bring registered with DVLA

  • Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) evasion

Most of these factors will only have a marginal effect for most uses of the data.

About these statistics

These official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2012. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

Details of ministers and officials who receive pre-release access to these statistics up to 24 hours before release can be found in the pre-release access list.

Next release

Vehicle licensing statistics are published quarterly.

Dates of future releases will be advertised via the DfT statistical publications schedule.

To hear more about DfT statistics publications as they are released, please follow us on X.

DfT also publishes ‘Cars and light goods vehicles registered for the first time by body type and fuel type’ as part of the monthly faster indicators of transport activity statistics series.

Data are sourced by a combination of vehicle registration data supplied by the 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.

Although SMMT figures provide a very early indication of the vehicle market which broadly matches DfT official statistics, there are persistent differences between these figures as the SMMT data does not account for imported cars/LGVs or vehicle registrations from new manufacturers. The DfT faster indicators address these issues and so is closer to the final DfT estimates than SMMT data.

Comparison with the EU car market

The ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association) produce new registration figures collected from trade bodies across Europe, covering the EU, the UK, and the EFTA (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland). UK data is provided by The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which represents new car sales rather than new registrations with DVLA, so although the figures will be broadly comparable, they will not match.

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