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Used EV Grants in 2026: What You Can Actually Claim

August 19, 2026· Wise EV
Used EV Grants in 2026: What You Can Actually Claim

Across all five markets we cover, the headline EV grant is a new-car grant. The UK's £3,750 Electric Car Grant, Germany's new BAFA premium worth up to €6,000, France's coup de pouce worth up to €5,700, Spain's Programa Auto+ worth up to €4,500: all five schemes hand the money to somebody buying a car that has never been registered. If you are shopping for a three-year-old ID.3 or a used Zoe, none of that is coming your way. What follows is the money that actually is, market by market, checked against the government sources rather than the press releases.

Table of contents

The quick version

MarketHeadline schemeUsed cars?What a used buyer can actually get
UKElectric Car Grant, up to £3,750No, new onlyPre-April-2025 cars never pay the Expensive Car Supplement; £20 VED on 2001 to 2017 EVs
GermanyE-Auto-Förderung, €1,500 to €6,000No, new onlyKfz-Steuer exemption transfers with the car; THG-Quote worth 300 euros plus a year
FranceCoup de pouce, up to €5,700No, new onlyMetropolitan schemes from €1,500 to €12,500, most of which do cover used
SpainPrograma Auto+, up to €4,500Only under 12 months oldMunicipal IVTM discount up to 75%
UkraineNoneNot applicableNothing. The VAT exemption on imports ended 1 January 2026

If you want to see what those numbers do to the total cost of two specific cars, put them side by side in the Wise EV comparison tool and look at the tax and running-cost rows rather than the sticker price.

United Kingdom: no used grant, but two tax quirks worth money

The Electric Car Grant opened on 15 July 2025 and runs to 31 March 2030, backed by £2 billion. Band 1 is worth up to £3,750, Band 2 up to £1,500, and the recommended retail price has to be £37,000 or less. You never apply for it. The dealer claims it and shows it as a discount on the invoice.

Eligibility is limited to new M1 passenger vehicles with zero tailpipe emissions, at least 100 miles of range, a three-year or 60,000-mile vehicle warranty and an eight-year or 100,000-mile battery warranty. Used cars are not eligible, full stop. There is no used-EV equivalent scheme in the UK, and none has been announced.

So where is the money for a used buyer?

The Expensive Car Supplement is a registration-date trap. Zero-emission cars only became liable for the supplement if they were first registered on or after 1 April 2025. An EV registered before that date does not pay it at all, however expensive it was when new. That is worth real money: the supplement is £440 for 2026/27 and it runs for five years. A 2024 car that cost £55,000 new pays nothing. A near-identical 2025 car pays £2,200 over five years.

The threshold moved on 1 April 2026, from £40,000 to £50,000 for zero-emission cars. Guidance differs on which cars the higher threshold reaches, so check the V5C date rather than assuming.

Older EVs pay less standard VED too. In 2026/27 the standard rate is £200, and EVs registered between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2026 pay it. But EVs first registered between 1 March 2001 and 31 March 2017 pay £20 a year. A first-generation Leaf or i3 is in that band.

Battery certification is now backed by a warranty. In July 2026 Aviloo launched a used-EV battery guarantee in the UK alongside Germany, Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Ireland. It pays €3,000 if the battery's state of health drops below an individually calculated limit within a year or 20,000 km, and refunds the test cost if you claim. Research by APD Global Research for Startline Motor Finance found 87% of motorists want an independent certified assessment of how previous owners treated the battery, so the demand was there well before the product was.

Germany: the one exemption that follows the car

Germany reintroduced a purchase premium in 2026 and, like the others, closed it to used buyers. Applications opened on 19 May 2026 through BAFA. The amounts run from €1,500 to €6,000, with a minimum of €3,000 for battery-electric cars and €500 more per child for up to two children. Taxable household income has to be €80,000 or less, rising by €5,000 per child to a maximum of €90,000. Only cars first registered from 1 January 2026 qualify. The environment ministry's own FAQ describes the programme as aimed at "Kauf oder Leasing von Neuwagen", and the ADAC summary is blunter: "Gebrauchte E-Autos werden nicht gefördert." A review of used-car eligibility is not expected before 2027.

Now the good part, and it is the single most valuable thing on this page for a German used buyer.

The Kfz-Steuer exemption transfers to you. Battery-electric cars first registered between 18 May 2011 and 31 December 2030 are exempt from vehicle tax for up to ten years, and no later than 31 December 2035. Zoll states it plainly: "Bei einem Halterwechsel übernimmt die neue Halterin oder der neue Halter die jeweils noch verbleibende Dauer der Steuerbefreiung." Buy a used EV first registered in 2022 and you inherit roughly six remaining years of zero vehicle tax. When the exemption runs out, the weight-based rate is then reduced by 50%.

This is worth checking on any specific car, because it is set by first registration date and nothing else. Two otherwise identical cars a year apart in age carry different amounts of remaining exemption.

The THG-Quote pays you annually regardless of who bought the car new. Any registered keeper of a battery-electric vehicle in Germany can sell their greenhouse-gas quota once per calendar year. Providers were offering more than €300 during 2026, although ADAC warns that many contracts contain no guaranteed payout clause. Plug-in hybrids are excluded. The submission deadline at the Umweltbundesamt is 15 November each year. You need the Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I in your name, which a used buyer has by definition.

France: nothing national, quite a lot local

France is the market where the national picture looks worst and the local picture looks best.

The coup de pouce véhicules particuliers électriques, funded through energy-savings certificates, is worth €5,700 for households in energy poverty, €4,700 for modest-income households and €3,500 for everyone else, plus €1,200 to €2,000 where the battery was made in Europe. The conditions are a purchase price of €47,000 or less including tax, a mass under 2.4 tonnes and an environmental score of at least 60. And the government page says it directly: "Seules les voitures particulières neuves sont éligibles à cette aide."

The two schemes that used to help are gone. The €1,000 bonus écologique for used EVs ended in December 2024. The prime à la conversion was abolished on 2 December 2024 and was not replaced.

There is also a cost that has moved the wrong way, and it hits used buyers specifically. Article 119 of the loi de finances n° 2025-127 let regional councils decide for themselves whether to keep the carte grise exemption for clean vehicles. From 1 May 2025 almost all of them dropped it. In 2026 only Hauts-de-France still reduces the regional tax for EVs, and that reduction was cut to 50% on 1 April 2026. Because the regional tax is charged whenever a vehicle changes keeper, a used EV purchase is taxed exactly like a new one. On a 5 CV car that is roughly €119 in Hauts-de-France, about €314 in a region charging the €60 per CV ceiling, and around €359 in Île-de-France. One consolation: vehicles more than ten years old get 50% off the regional tax whatever they run on.

The local schemes are where a used French buyer gets paid. Most of them explicitly cover used cars:

SchemeAmountNotes
Grenoble Métropole€1,500 to €12,500Used included, income-scaled
Métropole du Grand Paris€3,000 to €6,000Income test, scrappage required
Aix-Marseille-Provence€1,000 to €5,000Bouches-du-Rhône residents, income conditions
Toulouse Métropole€2,000 to €5,000Used included
Rouen Métropole€2,000 to €4,000€5,000 inside the ZFE, replaces a Crit'Air 3 or worse
Grand Reims€2,000 to €6,000Used included
Eurométropole de Strasbourg€2,000 to €4,000Used included
Grand Lyon€2,000 to €3,000Used included
Occitanie éco-chèque mobilitéUp to €1,600Vehicle over 12 months old, price €30,000 or less

These open and close through the year on limited budgets, so check JeChangeMaVoiture.gouv.fr for your commune before you commit to a car.

Spain: "used" means twelve months old

Spain looks like the exception. Read the regulation and it mostly is not.

Plan MOVES III stopped taking applications on 31 December 2025. Its replacement, Programa Auto+, was created by Real Decreto 609/2026 of 22 July, published in the BOE on 23 July 2026 and in force the following day. The Ministry of Industry opened the application platform at 10:00 on 4 August 2026.

Auto+ does fund vehicles that are not brand new. The catch is in the wording: no more than twelve months may have passed between first registration and the invoice date, and for the 2026 round the first registration has to be 1 January 2025 or later. It also has to come from a dealer or an official sales point, which rules out private sales. The price cap is €45,000 before tax after commercial discounts, and the maximum aid for an M1 passenger car is €4,500, with dealers required to add a discount of at least €1,000 of their own.

In practice that is a nearly-new or demonstrator scheme, not a second-hand one. A 2021 Kia e-Niro bought from a private seller gets nothing.

What a genuine used buyer in Spain can get is municipal. The IVTM circulation tax allows a bonificación of up to 75% for electric vehicles. Madrid applies 75% with no time limit, València 75%, Sevilla 75% for five years. It is set by each municipal ordinance, so the amount and duration change when you cross a boundary. Two things matter when you buy used: the previous owner's bonificación does not automatically carry over, and many municipalities require you to apply for it rather than granting it by default. Register the change of keeper with the DGT, then check your town hall's ordinance and file the request if one is needed.

Worth knowing about the tax side: MOVES money counts as a ganancia patrimonial in your IRPF return and is added to your general taxable base, so a grant is worth less than it looks once your marginal rate is applied. A separate state IRPF deduction of 15% on the purchase exists, on a base of up to €20,000, but confirm with the Agencia Tributaria whether a specific car qualifies.

Ukraine: not an incentive story, a customs story

Ukraine has no purchase incentive for electric cars, new or used. What it had was an import tax break, and that ended.

From 1 January 2026 the VAT exemption on imported electric vehicles lapsed. Imports are now charged 20% VAT on the customs value, plus excise of €1 per kWh of battery capacity. Import duty on passenger battery-electric cars remains at 0%.

The effect is straightforward. A 40 kWh Nissan Leaf, the single most common imported EV in the country, costs roughly €2,400 more to clear customs than it did in 2025 because of the VAT alone. On a €15,000 car with a 60 kWh pack you are looking at €3,000 in VAT and €60 in excise, so about €3,060 on top before you have paid for transport or registration.

If you are comparing an already-imported car on the Ukrainian market against one you bring in yourself, the sums have changed since last year and older guides are wrong. Our 2026 grants and car tax guide covers the numbers in more detail. Parliament has discussed restoring the exemption, but nothing has been passed, so budget for the tax and treat any return of the break as a bonus.

What to do before you sign

The pattern across all five markets is the same. National money follows new cars. Used buyers get tax treatment, local schemes and, in Germany, one genuinely valuable transferable exemption.

Three checks pay for themselves:

  1. Look up the first registration date, not the model year. In the UK it decides whether the Expensive Car Supplement applies. In Germany it decides how many years of Kfz-Steuer exemption you inherit. In Spain it decides whether Auto+ can touch the car at all.
  2. Check the municipality, not just the country. France and Spain both push the meaningful used-car money down to the metropolitan or town-hall level, and the amounts are not small.
  3. Get the battery tested before you agree a price. Degradation is the cost that dwarfs every incentive on this page. Our guide to used EV battery health explains what a good report looks like, and the total cost of ownership comparison shows how it feeds into the numbers over five years.

FAQ

Can I get any national grant in Europe for a used electric car in 2026?

In the five markets covered here, no. The UK, Germany and France all restrict their national schemes to new vehicles. Spain's Programa Auto+ reaches vehicles up to twelve months old bought from a dealer, which is nearly-new rather than used. Ukraine has no purchase scheme.

Does the German vehicle tax exemption really transfer when I buy the car?

Yes. Zoll's guidance states that on a change of keeper the new keeper takes over the remaining period of the exemption. It is tied to the car's first registration date, so what you inherit is whatever is left of the ten years.

Will I pay the Expensive Car Supplement on a used EV in the UK?

Only if the car was first registered on or after 1 April 2025. Zero-emission cars registered before that date are not liable at all.

Is the French carte grise still free for electric cars?

Not in most regions. Almost all ended the exemption from 1 May 2025 after the 2025 finance law let them choose. Hauts-de-France still reduces it, at 50% since 1 April 2026. The tax applies to used purchases the same way it applies to new ones.

Can I claim the THG-Quote on a second-hand EV in Germany?

Yes. It goes to whoever is the registered keeper, so once the Zulassungsbescheinigung Teil I is in your name you can claim for that calendar year. The deadline with the Umweltbundesamt is 15 November.

Do I have to reapply for the Spanish IVTM discount after buying used?

Usually. The previous owner's bonificación does not automatically follow the car, and many municipalities require a request within a set deadline. Check your local ordinance after registering the transfer with the DGT.

References

All figures verified 19 August 2026.

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