Plenty of businesses still file EV charging under the same heading as the fruit bowl in reception or the occasional Friday pizza; a nice touch if the budget allows, first to go when it doesn’t.
That framing was never quite right, and it’s getting less accurate every year that the statistics on EV drivers increases. Outside of how it reflects on staff and clients, the regulations and the tax rules have already moved past treating it as optional.
Building regulations already treat it as infrastructure
Since 15 June 2022, the Building Regulations has required new non-residential buildings in England with more than 10 parking spaces to include at least one active EV charge point, plus cable routes ready for roughly a fifth of the remaining bays.
A new legal minimum sitting in the same part of the rulebook as fire escapes and accessible parking means that, for existing buildings, calling EV charging a “perk” feels a bit out of step with the world today.
There’s a specific tax rule that backs this up, and it’s been in place since April 2018: electricity provided through a dedicated workplace charge point isn’t a taxable benefit for the employee, provided the charging is available to staff generally rather than doled out selectively and the point itself sits on premises the employer controls.
Compare that with most other things a business might offer as a genuine reward, a gym membership, a company phone with personal use baked in, and the difference in tax treatment is the whole story. HMRC doesn’t tax the car park, and it doesn’t tax the staff kitchen either.
It isn’t taxing this, because it isn’t behaving like a perk in the way HMRC defines one.
There’s a funding window, but it’s closing
The Workplace Charging Scheme currently covers up to 75% of the cost of buying and installing chargepoints, up to £500 per socket and a maximum of 40 sockets. It’s been running in some form since 2021, but this is its final extension. The scheme closes permanently on 31 March 2027, and after that there’s no indication anything will replace it.
For a business still weighing up whether this counts as infrastructure worth budgeting for now or a nice-to-have for later, the funding itself is quietly making that decision on a deadline. Getting a site survey booked in before then is a smaller job than it sounds, and it’s the kind of thing that comes up alongside solar or heat pump enquiries as a renewable energy service from GSM.
What a client sees when they pull into the car park
There’s a more immediate version of this argument too, separate from tax codes and building regs. A visiting client or an investor will start learning things about your business from the moment the building first comes into view. The car park is one of the first impressions, and companies that appear future-oriented and carbon conscious are far more impressive (no matter the industry) than those that feel ‘stuck in the mud’.
A car park with no charging at all doesn’t sink a deal on its own, but it’s the kind of detail that quietly signals which category a building falls into before anyone’s said a word out loud.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
