Rateable values for EV charging bays in car parks run from £175 to £2,000 a bay

A bank of electric vehicle charging bays at a motorway service area is valued at £2,000 a bay for business rates, while bays in a council pay and display car park or a village hall car park can be valued at as little as £175 each. The figures come from guidance the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) added to its Rating Manual on Friday, which tells its valuers how to treat charging bays that sit in the car park of another property.

The guidance is written for VOA staff, but it shows landlords, charge point operators and the businesses that host them how the agency decides whether a set of bays becomes a separate entry in the rating list, and what value it carries if it does.

Exemption covers the equipment only

Plant and machinery used mainly or only for charging, covering power storage, transformation and transmission, is excepted from rating under regulations made for England in 2022, and the practice notes say that exception lasts until 31 March 2035. But the VOA says the exception does not extend to the site of the charging bays, which in many cases will be rateable in its own right.

The agency also notes that some rents for charging bays may have been agreed on the assumption that no rates would be payable, either because operators expected the host landlord to pick up the bill or because they believed the 2022 change took the whole site out of rating. It says that belief was wrong, and that valuers looking at rental evidence should bear in mind that headline rents may be higher as a result.

Who pays depends on the agreement

The deciding question is who has rateable occupation of the bays, and the guidance says that turns on the contract between the host and the operator.

• A lease is usually a strong sign that the landlord has given up possession, so the operator occupies the bays and a new rating list entry is likely.
• Under a licence or hosting agreement, the landlord normally keeps control and may be able to move the bays, so a separate entry is unlikely.
• Under a management or digital services deal, where the host buys the chargers, sets the price and keeps the income, paying the operator a commission, the bays stay part of the host's property and there is no separate entry.

Bays on the public highway are treated differently. The VOA says on-street charging bays will in most cases not go into the rating list, because neither the council that controls the road nor the operator is in rateable occupation.

Where bays remain part of a host property such as a shop, pub or school, any effect on that property's rateable value depends on the circumstances. A handful of bays at a large supermarket may make no real difference, and the guidance points out that new charging bays may simply replace ordinary parking spaces. Charging offered only to staff, or used to keep a company's own fleet running, may also make little difference, which the guidance contrasts with a public site selling charging for profit.

Six bands and four areas

Separately rated bays are valued per bay, using six location categories and four regional columns. The 2026 practice note gives these values for each bay:

• Prime (EVC1): motorway service areas, £2,000 everywhere.
• Excellent (EVC2): prime retail and leisure parks, supermarkets, food and drink stops on strategic roads and EV hubs, £1,800 in Inner London, £1,600 in the South East and Outer London, £1,500 in major urban centres and £1,400 elsewhere.
• Very good (EVC3): petrol stations, gyms, garden centres, convenience stores, prime hotels and city centre multi-storey car parks, from £1,100 to £1,400.
• Good (EVC4): pubs, restaurants, car showrooms, industrial or science parks, theme parks and historic attractions, from £650 to £900.
• Above average (EVC5): leisure centres, park and ride sites, farm shops and vineyards, from £300 to £450.
• Average (EVC6): council pay and display car parks, village halls, community centres, universities and hospitals, from £175 to £250.

The major urban centres are Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Bristol, Plymouth, Cardiff and Swansea. The VOA's own worked example is four bays in a prime retail park in Manchester, which gives a rateable value of £6,000. In the earlier 2023 practice note the same example came to £4,600, at £1,150 a bay.

The category follows the car park, not the wider area. Bays inside a pub's own car park count as "good" even if the pub stands on a retail park, while bays in a shared prime retail car park are "excellent". For dedicated hubs and forecourts, particularly those with extras such as catering, retail or valeting, valuers are told to seek advice from the VOA's transport team, and big advertising displays at a charging site can create a separate advertising entry.

The VOA says the scheme was agreed after talks with a group of the largest charge point operators. Its market summary records public charge points almost doubling from just under 30,000 in late 2021 to more than 53,000 at the start of 2024, and reaching almost 74,000 by the end of that year.