Guidance

Using the plug-in vehicle grant portal

Updated 24 November 2023

The plug-in vehicle grant (PIVG) scheme portal allows:

• a dealer to submit the required information about the vehicle for which a grant is being claimed
• a customer purchasing a vehicle to have the PIVG grant deducted from the vehicle price at the point of sale
• all claims to subsequently be verified before any grant is paid out

The Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles (OZEV) then repays grant claims to vehicle manufacturers on a monthly basis.

The system has been designed and is managed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), hereafter referred to as the scheme administrators, on behalf of OZEV.

Under the PIVG scheme, consumers pay the discounted price automatically and do not have to go through a separate application process.

Only dealers and manufacturers need to access the portal directly.

The PIVG scheme offers grants towards the price of eligible vehicles. See the current grant rate available for each kind of vehicle. It is available to all private individuals and businesses buying or leasing a vehicle at the point of purchase directly from the dealership or manufacturer.

Customer grant limits

There are limits on the total number of grants available to each business, organisation or individual through the plug-in van and truck grant scheme each financial year (1 April to 31 March).

Limits apply to end customers and not to lease companies.

It is the responsibility of the portal user to check how many grants their customer has applied for in the relevant year before committing to sell the vehicle with the grant amount deducted. This includes orders for vehicles that they placed with other manufacturers or dealers.

For lease orders, the lease company must check with their customer how many grants they have applied for in the relevant year. This provides assurance to the portal user that their customer has not exceeded the order limit and is therefore eligible for the grant on orders being placed.

Orders in excess of the allowed limits will be cancelled or the grant rate amended to the applicable rate by the scheme administrators.

Allowed limits

Each business, organisation or individual may receive up to 1,500 plug-in van and/or truck grants each financial year subject to the following limits:

Small truck grant

Each business, organisation or individual may receive up to 10 small truck grants each financial year at £16,000. There are a total of 250 small truck grants available across the whole market each year.

If either of these limits has been reached, the grant will be paid at the large van rate of £5,000

You can email PluginGrants@dft.gov.uk to check how many of the small truck grants remain.

Large truck grant

Each business, organisation or individual may receive up to 5 large truck grants each financial year at £25,000. There are a total of 100 large truck grants available across the whole market each year.

If either of these limits has been reached, the grant will be paid at £16,000.

Each business, organisation or individual can get up to 10 grants at the £16,000 rate. There are 250 grants of up to £16,000 available.

After that limit is reached, the maximum a company, organisation or individual can apply for is £5,000, subject to the 1,500 grants per customer limit.

You can email PluginGrants@dft.gov.uk to check how many of the large truck grants remain.

To ensure that customer limits are applied correctly, the grant rate for newly created plug-in truck grant applications will default to £5,000.

The DVLA will manually amend the grant to the correct rate after the order has been created. This is to mitigate the risk that grants are paid at the higher rate in excess of the allowed limits.

Once grant rates have been adjusted to the higher rate, any amendments to the order will cause the grant rate to automatically default back to £5,000.

If this occurs, contact the portal administrators at pluginvehiclegrant@dvla.gov.uk as soon as possible and the grant rate will be amended to the correct level.

We will treat linked enterprises as an ‘undertaking’ for the purpose of enforcing per company or organisation limits.

A linked enterprise is one where a group of enterprises such as businesses or companies are sufficiently linked, such that they should be treated as a single undertaking. For further definition of linked enterprise, see Linked enterprise definition for applying plug-in van and truck grant limits.

Portal users must secure confirmation from their customers that they understand this definition when checking total orders already placed by the business in the relevant year.

OZEV reserves the right to recoup grant funds if evidence shows an end customer has exceeded the cap.

Wheelchair accessible vehicle grant limit

One thousand grants are available between 1 April and 31 March each year.

You can email PluginGrants@dft.gov.uk to check how many grants remain.

Ensuring validation of orders and grant payment

Orders can only be validated if all vehicles within:

• have a VIN (vehicle identification number) listed. Dealers should check this has the correct transposition of numbers and letters (for example, Z instead of 2 or 7)
• have been registered with the DVLA
• have the correct vehicle registration number (cherished plate details should be entered if they are going to be used when the vehicle is registered)
• have a correct date of registration (which matches data on the DVLA database)
• have the above details correctly recorded on the plug-in vehicle grant portal

If your order is showing as ‘awaiting validation’ or ‘failed validation’, this may be because:

• one or more of the vehicles within the order have not yet been registered with the DVLA. The order validation process uses the DVLA registration database, so this source can be consulted by dealerships if in any doubt
• the correct registration number may have been entered at time of purchase, but the customer may since have registered the vehicle using a cherished plate. Dealerships can ask at the point of sale whether a cherished plate is going to be used
• an incorrect registration number has been entered
• an incorrect date of registration has been entered
• the fuel type does not match
• incorrect model variant selected which has differing CO2 emission values

Supplementary evidence

Orders for multi-stage build and wheelchair accessible vehicles will require supplementary evidence to be provided before the grant can be paid. The evidence should be provided when, or before, registration details are added to the portal.

We will place orders in these categories into ‘on hold’ status if this information is not provided.

Multi-stage build vehicles

For multi-stage builds that have been approved to the grant scheme using route 2. Multistage build on Form D must be supplied prior to a grant request.

This must confirm the range of the vehicle to PlugInApprovals@vca.gov.uk including the grant portal order ID in the subject of your email.

Wheelchair accessible vehicles

Portal users must provide evidence that the vehicle has been converted to wheelchair accessible for the order to progress to payment.

Vehicles must be converted before first registration.

Accepted documentation is either a copy of the:

• UK individual vehicle approval (IVA) certificate, whereby its class code confirms the vehicle is a WAV
• EC or UK(NI) or GB certificate of conformity (CoC), whereby sections relating to bodywork and special purpose vehicles confirm the vehicle is a WAV

Photographs of each completed vehicle should also be provided as evidence of the conversion. They should clearly show:

• the registration plate
• the vehicle identification number
• that the vehicle has been converted and is now wheelchair accessible

This documentation should be sent to pluginvehiclegrant@dvla.gov.uk with the grant portal order ID in the subject of the email.

It is the dealer’s responsibility to liaise with vehicle converters and supply the required evidence to DVLA when claiming the wheelchair accessible vehicle grant.

Retrospective claims

Grants must be claimed before registration. This means that the order must have been successfully saved onto the portal before the vehicle is registered with the DVLA.

This applies for all vehicles, including demonstration models.

The grant can only be claimed retrospectively (that is, after a vehicle has been registered) in exceptional circumstances.

Retrospective claims will be allowed only at the discretion of OZEV. We will not consider claims older than 6 months.

We will only consider one retrospective claim per dealership, unless in the most exceptional circumstances.

This position can be updated at any time at OZEV’s discretion.

Grant level and lead times

To secure the grant, an order should be started as soon as a contract has been entered into with the customer.

A grant is not guaranteed until the vehicle has been validated through the portal.

Any order placed on the system for a specific customer is guaranteed the grant at the level advertised at the time the order was placed on the grant portal.

This is provided that within 12 months of the date the order is place, the vehicle is registered and has been delivered to the customer. The order must also appear on the grant portal as either:

• completed
• awaiting payment
• awaiting audit status

Note that the 12 months completion deadline is a temporary extension. OZEV reserves the right to change this at any time.

It is the dealer’s responsibility to track orders and ensure they are progressing through the system by correctly.

Orders exceeding 9 months on the portal that have not reached completed, awaiting payment or awaiting audit status will enter into ‘on hold’ status.

After the 12 months completion deadline, ‘on hold’ orders will be cancelled by the portal administrators. Such orders will not be reinstated except in exceptional circumstances and at OZEV’s discretion.

Orders in ‘awaiting audit’ status will only proceed to payment when the audit checks have been completed and passed.

The documents requested for audit purposes should be provided within 28 days of request.

Orders will be cancelled if:

• documents are not provided for audit within the 28 consecutive days of the request
• the order has exceeded the completion deadline by more than 28 consecutive days

This applies to all vehicles, including demonstration models.

Definition of price

The plug-in vehicle grant is taken off the purchase price of the vehicle.

This is different to the plug-in vehicle grant price cap, which is applied on the basis of recommended retail price (RRP) including VAT.

For private, business, fleet or demonstration models the purchase price means the actual price paid by the customer, including any discount, not the recommended retail price.

The purchase price includes:

• number plates
• vehicle excise duty (as applicable)
• VAT (as applicable)
• any discount (including rebates and manufacturer discounts)

It does not include:

• optional extras
• delivery charges
• first registration fee

The purchase price (inclusive of VAT) is calculated by adding together the basic rate, VED and number plates, and subtracting the new vehicle discount from the subtotal.

Delivery fee, first registration and optional extras are not included in the calculation of purchase price.

Any discount (including rebates) offered on the vehicle to the customer by either the dealer or the company must be applied to the price before the application of the grant.

Internal manufacturer sales

Internal manufacturer sales covers cases where a vehicle is retained by the company (for example, loaned to companies or organisations for trial purposes or for own use).

In this case, purchase price refers to the RRP of the vehicle, including and excluding the items referred to above. Where the actual purchase price of the vehicle is lowered for internal transaction purposes, the grant should be applied on the RRP of the vehicle.

For all these types of sales, the Office for Zero Emissions (OZEV) will require notification of when an order has been put into the system, in the form of an email containing:

• a list of the vehicles
• an example invoice before the first transaction is made

Vehicles that are eligible for the grant

All vehicles must have been confirmed by OZEV as eligible under the rules of the PIVG scheme to receive the grant.

If a vehicle does not appear on the list of eligible vehicles on the portal then portal users should query this with the manufacturer.

Orders created for the wrong vehicle will fail validation and will be cancelled except in exceptional circumstances at OZEV’s discretion.

The list of vehicles eligible for the grant and their categories is updated as new vehicles come to market and older vehicles are withdrawn from sale.

Portal user responsibilities

Users must read, understand and comply with the terms and conditions/legal notices associated with the use of this system.

All users should be aware that:

• it is the dealer’s responsibility to reduce the price of the vehicle by the appropriate grant amount and ensure the price paid by the customer reflects their full entitlement
• it is the dealer’s responsibility to promptly provide true and accurate information as required by the system, to enable manufacturers to make their grant claim
• dealers are expected to provide any necessary documents as further evidence for audit as and when required
• it is the dealer’s responsibility to review the status of their orders using the filter functionality on the grant portal and progress orders promptly where required
• it is the dealer’s responsibility to ensure that their end customer has not exceeded the allowed limits as outlined in per customer grant limits
• arrangements for the reimbursement of the grant amount to dealers are the responsibility of the vehicle manufacturer and the dealer – neither OZEV nor the portal administrators have any responsibility for this process
• manufacturers will have full view of orders for all of their vehicles – dealers should, therefore, expect to discuss claims with their manufacturers
• where a model straddles the grant price caps:
  • each model with a variant or trim with RRP below the cap will be listed separately on the list of eligible vehicles in the OZEV grant portal
  • it is the responsibility of dealers and manufacturers to ensure that orders for variants or trims of the model which are priced above the cap and are therefore ineligible for the grant are not created on the grant portal
  • any order placed for a vehicle found to be priced above the cap will be cancelled
• manufacturers are responsible for checking monthly claims to ensure that all vehicles are eligible for the grant and that the grant value is correct
• OZEV will ensure that vehicles claiming the grant are eligible through its audit process
• it is the dealer’s responsibility to liaise with wheelchair accessible vehicle converters and supply the required evidence to DVLA when claiming the wheelchair accessible vehicle grant
• if a dealer has left the dealership/business, contact DVLA so their user account can be closed
• if a dealer has moved to a different dealership, they should not use the same user account as in their previous role. Contact DVLA about the change in circumstances so the account, access and portal can be updated accordingly

Lease orders

It is the dealer’s responsibility to ensure that end customer details have been provided for all lease company orders, whether private or business purchases.

End customer always refers to the customer of the lease company not the lease company themselves.

Any claims made without this information or found to contain the wrong customer details will be cancelled.

OZEV reserves the right to request supporting evidence to confirm end customer details provided are accurate and that orders are for the sole use of the business in question.

The end customer name may not be changed once the order has been created.

Export vehicles

To be eligible for the grant, vehicles must be registered in the UK and the customer must have paid UK value added tax (VAT) on the vehicle.

This excludes claims from vehicles registered under the personal export, new means of transport and direct export schemes.

For these purposes registration is defined as either:

• referred to in section 21 of the vehicle excise and registration act 1994 and licensed for use on UK roads
• registered under the terms of the diplomatic privileges act 1964 and licensed for use on UK roads

Members of the British armed forces living abroad will still be eligible to claim for the PIVG and can use their British Forces Post Office (BFPO) postcode.

British diplomats living abroad or foreign diplomats living in the UK are also still eligible to claim for the PIVG.

Diplomatic vehicles

Diplomatic vehicles and vehicles with export plates will not validate automatically with the DVLA vehicle records database and will need to be manually validated by the scheme administrators.

If you are claiming for a diplomatic vehicle, contact PlugInVehicleGrant@dvla.gov.uk to make DVLA aware.

Grant payment

Grants are paid by OZEV directly to vehicle manufacturers or their UK representative. The manufacturer is responsible for arranging payment to individual dealers.

OZEV conducts the payment run on a monthly basis, usually on the eighth day of the month or the nearest working day. On the day of the payment run, OZEV will contact manufacturers to set out the grant claims with payments expected to be made.

Manufacturers are responsible for submitting claims for payment to OZEV within 5 working days following the payment run.

Any discrepancies with orders must be reconciled before OZEV pays claims. Manufacturers will push back any incorrect claims to ‘in pipeline’ at this stage.

Manufacturers will push the status of claims back if any of the order details entered into the portal differ from the manufacturer’s internal system. This could be vehicle model, VIN, registration number or pricing issues.

The manufacturer will normally receive payment for claims within 15 working days from when the claims have been approved.

If you have an order that has reached completed status and have not yet received payment, contact your manufacturer to find out when payment will be made.

The scheme administrators are not in the OZEV to manufacturer or manufacturer to dealership payment process and will be unable to assist in payment queries.

If you have an order that has reached awaiting payment status, the order must be included in a monthly pay run to reach completed status before a payment is pending.

Orders will need to enter ‘awaiting payment’ by the end of the previous month to catch the next scheduled pay run.

Audit

The portal will select 5% of orders that have been validated for audit.

When an order has been selected for audit the status will change to awaiting audit, the dealer is require to send corresponding invoices to PlugInVehicleGrant@dvla.gov.uk.

A review will then be completed on the information that has been entered into the portal.

If an order is selected for audit, dealers must respond within 28 consecutive days.

Dealers should provide an invoice on headed paper that includes the following information:

• retailer information, name and address, VAT number and company registration number
• the baseline price itemised to show the VAT, number plates, less any discount offered to the customer
• the grant amount shown separately

These audit requirements apply to demonstrator vehicles.

Invoices must be provided for these vehicles. Consignment notes are not acceptable.

The audit check is to confirm that:

• vehicle and customer details match the online system and DVLA vehicle record database
• the price of the vehicle stated on the customer invoice matches the order on the portal
• the correct grant amount has been applied
• optional extras have been itemised separately and do not feature in the pre-grant amount
• the vehicle is eligible for the grant, where vehicle model has variants or trims which straddle the price cap

It is the portal user’s responsibility to ensure that contact information is kept up to date.

Requests for information sent to contact details that are no longer valid could result in the audit check failing and the order being cancelled.

Linked enterprise definition for applying plug-in van and truck grant limits

To ensure fair distribution there are limits on the total number of grants available to each business, organisation or individual through the plug in van and truck grants each financial year (1 April to 31 March).

Where a number of linked enterprises meet the definition of a ‘single undertaking’, we will treat them as one business for the purpose of applying this cap.

A group of linked enterprises will be treated as a ‘single undertaking’ when either:

• one enterprise has a majority of the shareholders’ or members’ voting rights in another enterprise

• one enterprise has the right to appoint or remove a majority of the members of the administrative, management or supervisory body of another enterprise

• one enterprise has the right to exercise a dominant influence over another enterprise pursuant to a contract entered into with that enterprise or to a provision in its memorandum or articles of association

• one enterprise, which is a shareholder in, or member of, another enterprise, and controls alone, pursuant to an agreement with other shareholders in or members of that enterprise, a majority of shareholders’ or members’ voting rights in that enterprise

Portal users should ensure that their customers understand this definition when checking their orders do not exceed the annual cap.

Enterprises that have one or other of such relationships through an natural person or group of natural persons acting jointly are also considered linked enterprises if they engage in their activity or in part of their activity in the same relevant market or in adjacent markets.

Where considered necessary, OZEV reserves the right to request further information or documentary evidence from relevant parties to verify whether orders arose from a single undertaking. These will be used to check that claims are eligible for the grant.

OZEV reserves the right to recoup grant funds if evidence shows that an end customer has exceeded the cap.

Contact

Dealerships should contact their manufacturers in the first instance and the scheme administrators at PlugInVehicleGrant@dvla.gov.uk if they have outstanding queries. They should not contact OZEV directly.

Manufacturers should contact OZEV with any queries that cannot be answered by the scheme administrators at plugingrants@dft.gov.uk.