UK EV Charging Grants

Last reviewed: 13 August 2026

The old £350 Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme - the grant most people still ask about - stopped covering standard homeowners back in 2022. What's left is narrower and more specific: support for flat owners and renters, and, since a March 2024 policy update, a grant for households that don't have a driveway and need to run a cable across a public pavement to charge.

The cross-pavement grant, and why it's more complicated than it sounds

Central government will currently fund up to £500, or 75% of the cost (whichever is lower), for a smart charger installed alongside an approved cable channel product - Kerbo Charge and Pavecross are the two names that come up most. That's the national policy. Locally, it's a different story: plenty of councils either won't permit these installations at all, or charge a non-refundable fee - sometimes up to £250 - just to review the enquiry, before any work is approved. National policy incentivising something local policy blocks is the single biggest source of frustration in this whole category, and it's why a council-by-council view of what's actually permitted matters more than the grant rules themselves.

Approval has to come before installation

A rule change means installers can no longer apply for the grant retroactively on a customer's behalf. You have to get approval through the government portal yourself, before any physical installation starts. In practice that means a wait - people routinely report 30 or more days for approval - during which a new car sits on a standard three-pin "granny charger" if there's no other option. If your car is arriving before your grant clears, that gap is survivable, but it's worth planning for rather than discovering on the day.

Edge cases the main guidance doesn't cover

A few situations come up often enough to be worth naming directly: landlords refusing permission for a charger on a rented property or flat, chargers that were installed free through a salary-sacrifice scheme and later stolen for scrap copper value (where a rental property's insurance excess can be higher than the claim is worth), and confusion over whether a retrospective application - claiming after installation - is ever allowed (it isn't, under current rules).

Rules and figures in this category shift often, so treat specific numbers here as a starting point, not a substitute for checking GOV.UK/OZEV directly before you apply - see oureditorial standards for how we keep this updated.