The EV chargepoint grant pays 75% of the cost of a home chargepoint, capped at £500 per socket, and runs until 31 March 2027. It is restricted to flat owner-occupiers, renters with off-street parking, households with only on-street parking, and landlords.[1] The cap rose from £350 to £500 on 1 April 2026.[2] Owners of houses with driveways stopped qualifying in 2022.
- Grant amount
- 75%of cost, up to £500 per socket
- Scheme deadline
- 31 Mar 2027current gov.uk end date
- Landlord limit
- 200 sockets£500 each, across sites
- Raised on
- 1 Apr 2026from £350 to £500
- Your route in
- OZEV installerthey claim it for you
What is the EV chargepoint grant?
It is the surviving descendant of the old homecharge scheme, administered by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV). The state pays 75% of the cost of buying and installing one chargepoint socket, up to £500, deducted straight off your installer’s invoice.[1] On a typical £999 installed charger,[4] 75% would be £749, so you hit the cap and pay £499. In effect: half-price charger, if you are on the eligibility list.
The current schemes are funded to 31 March 2027.[1] That sounds comfortably distant, but installer surveys, landlord permissions and OZEV confirmation all take time, so an autumn 2026 start is sensible rather than cautious.
Who qualifies in 2026?
The logic of the scheme: help the people for whom home charging is structurally hard, and leave everyone else to the market.
| Scheme | Amount | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Renters and flat owner-occupiers | 75% up to £500 | 1 socket, private off-street or allocated parking |
| Households with on-street parking only | up to £500 | chargepoint + approved cross-pavement solution |
| Residential landlords | up to £500 per socket | 200 sockets across sites |
| Workplace Charging Scheme | up to £500 per socket | 40 sockets across sites |
| State-funded education institutions | up to £2,000 per socket | 40 sockets across sites |
All figures from the gov.uk grant hub, checked 18 July 2026.[1]
Maximum grant per socket by scheme, 2026-27
Two details catch people out. Renters qualify in any residential property, but flat owners must live in the flat they own; and both need genuinely private off-street or allocated parking for the standard grant.[3] If your parking is the road outside your house, you want the on-street scheme instead, which funds a cross-pavement cable channel and pairs naturally with our guide to charging an electric car without a driveway.
Landlords get the most generous ceiling: £500 per socket across up to 200 sockets, covering private landlords, social housing providers and property management companies.[1] The fine print for both sides of a tenancy is in EV charger grants for landlords and renters.
What changed on 1 April 2026?
Three things worth knowing about, all from the official change notice.[2]
- The money went up. The per-socket cap rose from £350 to £500 across the household, landlord and workplace schemes, and state-funded schools now get up to £2,000 per socket.
- The process tightened. Applications go through a new platform, photo evidence is required with claims, and, crucially, you must not install until OZEV confirms your application.
- Three schemes closed. The staff and fleets grant, the commercial landlord grant and the residential landlord infrastructure grant all shut to new applications.
How do you apply?
You mostly do not; your installer does. The claim is submitted by an OZEV-approved installer on your behalf, which makes choosing one the only real task on your list.[3] The sequence:
- Check your category against the gov.uk criteria (the official grant pages are the authority on eligibility, not this or any other guide).
- Gather evidence. Renters need written landlord permission that names the landlord, names you and states the property address.[3]
- Pick an OZEV-approved installer and get a surveyed quote.
- Wait for OZEV confirmation, then book the installation.
- Pay the discounted invoice. The grant never touches your bank account; it arrives as £500 off the bill.
What evidence do you need?
The scheme runs on documents, and having them ready is the difference between a two-week and a two-month application:
- Proof of your category. Renters and flat owners are claiming a property status, so expect to evidence the tenancy or the leasehold, and the private off-street or allocated parking that goes with it.[3]
- The landlord letter. For renters, written permission that names the landlord or property manager, names you, and states the address of the property. A friendly text message does not count.[3]
- An eligible vehicle. The scheme is for people who own or lease a qualifying electric vehicle (or have one on order); your installer checks yours against the list.[3]
- Photos. Since April 2026 claims include photographic evidence of the installation, which your installer handles as part of the paperwork.[2]
How far does £500 actually go?
Further than the percentages suggest, because the cap does the work. The grant pays 75% of cost up to £500, and 75% of anything above £667 already exceeds £500, so on any normal installation you simply get the full £500 off. Applied to real July 2026 installed prices:
| Charger | Installed price | After £500 grant |
|---|---|---|
| Ohme ePod | £949 | £449 |
| Pod Point Solo 3S (untethered) | £999 | £499 |
| Pod Point Solo 3S (tethered) | £1,049 | £549 |
Manufacturer prices from source 4. In other words, an eligible renter or flat owner gets a fully installed smart charger for about the price of a mid-range phone, and the payback arithmetic in our installation cost guide roughly halves.
How did the scheme get this shape?
A short history explains the odd eligibility list. Until 2022, any homeowner with off-street parking could claim; that universal scheme closed once wallboxes went mainstream, and support was refocused on people with structural barriers: flats, rentals, shared parking. The £350 cap then held from 2022 until 1 April 2026, when it rose to £500 and the scheme portfolio was pruned to the five schemes listed above, all funded to 31 March 2027.[1][2] What happens after March 2027 is unannounced, which argues for claiming while the window is open rather than assuming a fourth extension.
What if you own a house with a driveway?
Then the grant era ended for you in 2022, and no current scheme applies. The consolation is that you occupy the best position in British EV ownership anyway: private parking, your own meter and free choice of tariff. A £999 installed wallbox[4] paired with an 8p overnight tariff recovers its full cost in about 29 months of driving 8,000 miles a year, compared with charging at the July 2026 cap rate of 26.11p/kWh.[5] The working is in how much it costs to install an EV charger at home, and the tariff table in the cheapest way to charge an electric car.
Can you claim for more than one socket?
Depends who you are. Since April 2026, residents claim for one socket per property: a two-EV household shares one grant-funded chargepoint and pays full price for any second unit.[2] Landlords sit at the other extreme, with up to 200 sockets across their sites, which turns the scheme into a portfolio decision: a landlord electrifying parking at ten properties can bank £5,000 of grant across them.[1] Workplaces get 40 sockets, counted across all their sites rather than per building.[1]
The socket, not the property or the person, is the unit of account throughout, which occasionally matters: an untethered chargepoint with one socket is one grant, however many cables the household owns.
What about workplaces and schools?
The Workplace Charging Scheme survived April 2026 intact and enlarged: vouchers worth £500 per socket for up to 40 sockets for businesses, charities and public sector bodies, and an outsized £2,000 per socket for state-funded schools and education institutions.[1] If your employer has a car park and any appetite for it, the scheme turns workplace charging into one of the cheapest infrastructure decisions they will ever make. Worth forwarding to whoever manages the building.
The bottom line
If you rent, own a flat, park on the street or let property, the state will pay up to £500 per socket towards your charging setup until March 2027, and the process costs you little beyond choosing an approved installer and waiting for one email. Check your category on gov.uk, get the permission letter if you need one, and do not let anyone drill the wall before OZEV says yes. The £500 will not change your life, but it buys roughly half a wallbox, and wallboxes buy 8p electricity for the next decade. Small grant, long lever.