Car Tax (VED) dates

[ClassicPete]

My dealer has told me that the date of the first car tax runs from the date of registration rather than the first of the month. Is he correct as I've never heard of car tax being valid from a random date?

[Philr]

He may be but as car tax can only start at the beginning of the month unless you register and tax a new vehicle on the 1st of a month you will only ever get 11 complete months and whatever is left from the month it was first registered/taxed.

[alan sh]

Your dealer is wrong. If you apply on the 8th of the month, it runs from the 1st. Not that you can use it then, but if you apply late on a renewal, you are deemed to have been legal driving it on the 7th or 6th etc.

Of course, if you apply on the 29th of the month, you've wasted almost a whole months money.

[terryp]

My car was first registered at the end of January 2022 (against my wishes) and I've just renewed the Tax effective 1st January 2023. So I lost a month's worth, but in the immortal words of Boris Johnson "thems the breaks".

[ClassicPete]

Thanks for those replies guys. I will be making sure that the dealer has the registration and tax date set at the 1st of the month. Whether that is February or March remains to be seen

[NoTwOld]

Its the same when you sell a car if you sell it on the 1st of the month or any day after that you cannot claim that months tax back

[P1car00n007]

I’ve been caught out by this before when transferring a vehicle, thinking I had more time left on the tax than I actually did. It's frustrating, but just how the system works.

If you’re looking into registration options, I found that $1 MONTANA Registration can be a great way to save on costs, especially for specialty vehicles like RVs, trailers, and classic cars. Definitely worth checking out if you want to avoid some of the usual registration headaches.