Salary sacrifice home charger: can you include it in your EV scheme?

7 min read · 2 April 2026. Yes — and for most UK employees on a salary sacrifice EV, including the home charger in the same agreement is the right answer. The tax efficiency stacks on top of the vehicle's, the at-home charging cost is dramatically lower than public rapid charging, and the bundle approach (charger + solar + battery) compounds the saving further. This guide covers HMRC's position, how the gross deduction works for the charger specifically, and what makes the Perx bundle structurally different from a charger-bought-separately approach.

HMRC's position on home chargers

Workplace charging — at the employer's premises — is explicitly exempt from Benefit-in-Kind tax for company-car drivers. The exemption is unambiguous and has been in place since the early 2020s.

Home charging is more nuanced. Where an employer provides a home charger as a separate standalone benefit (outside any salary-sacrifice arrangement), HMRC's position has historically required the charger to be assessed against general BIK rules, with the employee paying tax on the value of the benefit.

Where the home charger is provided as part of a salary sacrifice arrangement on a company car — which is how Perx and most modern UK schemes operate — HMRC's settled position is that the charger and its installation form part of the company car benefit, assessed within the broader BIK calculation rather than as a separate taxable item. The result is that the gross-deduction salary sacrifice mechanism applies cleanly to the charger cost, producing the same income tax and NI saving as the vehicle itself.

This is the position UK schemes operate on confidently in 2026, and the position the leasing companies, scheme providers and major UK employers all rely on. Specific tax advice should always be taken on individual schemes; the regime is settled enough that the practical scheme structure is well-tested.

How the gross deduction applies to charger cost

A typical 7kW home charger and standard installation costs £800–£1,200 in the UK in 2026, depending on the unit specification, the electrical work required, and any grid-connection upgrades. Within a salary sacrifice agreement, that cost is amortised across the contract term — typically 3 to 5 years — and added to the monthly gross deduction.

For a £1,000 charger amortised across 3 years, the additional gross sacrifice is roughly £28 per month. For a higher-rate (40%) taxpayer with 8% NI, the income tax saving on that £28 is ~£11.20, the NI saving is ~£2.24 — total saving £13.44 per month, with a small BIK addition (around £1 of income tax owed back on the in-kind value). Net effect: roughly £15 of monthly take-home cost for the charger, against £28 of gross sacrifice.

The maths works the same way at basic rate: £28 gross, £5.60 income tax saving, £2.24 NI saving, ~£20 net cost. In both cases the salary-sacrifice-via-EV-scheme route is materially cheaper than buying the charger directly post-tax.

The Perx bundle: charger, solar, battery

The structural differentiator of our Perx salary sacrifice EV scheme is the bundling. Where most schemes offer the vehicle alone (and treat the charger as an external add-on), Perx groups four optional components into one gross-deduction agreement:

The vehicle. A fully electric BEV from the 8,000+ vehicle catalogue.
The home charger. A 7kW or 22kW home charger with installation, included by default unless the employee declines.
Solar panels. Optional residential solar PV — typically 4–6 kWp installation. Generates electricity for home use including EV charging.
Battery storage. Optional home battery — typically 5–10 kWh capacity. Stores solar generation or off-peak grid electricity for later use.

Each component is independent. An employee can take the car alone, or the car + charger, or the full bundle. Each component sacrificed is gross-deducted, producing the same income tax and NI saving as the vehicle.

The economic logic of the full bundle is that the marginal cost of EV charging approaches zero. Solar generates the electricity on sunny days; the battery stores it for overnight use; the charger pushes it into the EV. The combined system runs on home-generated electricity for the bulk of the year, with grid topup on darker days at off-peak overnight rates of 7–10p per kWh. The blended cost-per-mile across the bundle is materially lower than vehicle-plus-charger alone.

The charging cost advantage: 7p/mile vs 23p/mile

The reason the home-charger discussion matters financially is the gap between home-charging cost and public-charging cost.

Home charging on a standard domestic tariff: 25–30p per kWh. At 4 miles per kWh on a typical mainstream EV, that's 6–7p per mile.
Home charging on an EV-specific overnight tariff: 7–10p per kWh. That's roughly 2p per mile.
Public destination charging: 40–60p per kWh, producing 10–15p per mile.
Public rapid charging: 60–80p per kWh, producing 15–20p per mile. Some networks closer to 23p+ per mile.

Across a 12,000-mile year, the difference between mostly-home-charging at 7p/mile and mostly-public-rapid at 23p/mile is roughly £1,920 per year of additional fuel cost. The home charger pays for itself within the first year of operation if it shifts a meaningful portion of the charging mix away from public rapid networks.

This is the same gap that produces the EV reimbursement gap on UK fleets: drivers reimbursed at generic AER rates that don't reflect the home-charging cost they're actually paying. For a salary-sacrifice driver charging at home through a Perx-bundled charger, the cost is theirs to bear (or the employer's to reimburse via an accurate scheme) — but the underlying number is half what it would be on public rapid alone.

Workplace charging exemption

Separately from the home-charger picture, employers can install workplace EV charging at their premises and offer free use to employees as a clean BIK exemption. This works alongside salary-sacrifice EVs — the employee charges at home overnight (low cost), occasionally at the workplace for free, and only on public rapid as a fallback. The combined picture across the three modes is what makes UK fleet EV economics work.

For employers who are also Orbis fleet customers, the per-vehicle charging data — including which mode each charging session used — is surfaced via the OEM-native data layer. The cost-per-mile picture is real and continuous, not an estimate. This sits alongside the broader fleet picture in fleet intelligence software pricing, where the per-vehicle Intelligence module surfaces actual charging cost against generic assumptions.

What about employees without home charging?

Employees in flats, terraces without driveways, or rented accommodation where charger installation is not possible face a different calculation. Without home charging, the salary-sacrifice EV economics depend on workplace charging, public destination charging at supermarkets and car parks, and occasional public rapid use.

The vehicle saving (3% BIK) still applies cleanly — the BIK arithmetic is independent of where the charging happens. The charging-cost picture is less favourable than for home-charging drivers, but the salary-sacrifice route still beats personal lease + post-tax public charging because the gross-deduction tax efficiency on the vehicle still applies.

For salary-sacrifice drivers without home charging, the right approach is usually: take the vehicle on Perx, skip the home-charger component (no point sacrificing a charger you can't install), and use workplace + public destination as primary charging modes. The arithmetic still works — just less dramatically than for home-charging drivers.

The BIK context

Throughout, the foundation of the home-charger maths is the underlying EV BIK rate. At 3% in 2025/26, the entire gross-sacrifice → BIK loop produces a small in-kind tax bill against a large income tax + NI saving. The detail of how the BIK regime works is in our guide to electric company car BIK rates — including the announced trajectory through 2027/28 and the comparison against ICE rates.

Frequently asked questions

Can I sacrifice a home EV charger through salary sacrifice?

Yes. Most modern UK EV salary sacrifice schemes — including Perx — allow the home charger and its installation to be sacrificed alongside the vehicle, in the same gross-deduction agreement. The cost is gross-deducted from monthly pay before income tax and NI, producing the same proportional saving as the vehicle. A 7kW home charger and standard installation typically adds £40–£60 per month to the gross sacrifice, which becomes roughly £25–£35 effective monthly cost for a higher-rate taxpayer.

Is a home charger a benefit in kind?

HMRC currently treats workplace charging at the employer's premises as exempt from BIK for company-car drivers. The position on home chargers provided by an employer is more nuanced and has shifted over recent guidance: where the home charger is provided as part of a salary sacrifice arrangement on a company car, HMRC's settled position is that the charger and its installation are part of the company car benefit and assessed within the broader BIK calculation. Specific tax advice should always be taken for the individual scheme — the position is settled enough for most modern UK schemes to operate on it confidently.

Does HMRC allow solar panels in salary sacrifice?

Solar panels are not a category HMRC has specific salary-sacrifice guidance on, but the underlying principle — gross deduction in exchange for a contractual benefit — applies as it does for any other non-cash benefit. Where solar panels are bundled into the salary-sacrifice EV agreement, the cost is sacrificed in the same way. Specific tax treatment varies by scheme structure, and some employers prefer to keep solar outside the EV agreement; Perx specifically supports a bundled approach. Tax advice on the specific structure should always be taken before launching.

What is the Perx bundle?

The Perx bundle is the salary sacrifice EV scheme operated by Covase, the parent of Orbis IO. It groups together four optional components into one gross-deduction agreement: the fully electric vehicle, a home charger with installation, residential solar panels, and home battery storage. Each component can be included or excluded independently. Bundled together, the combination produces the cheapest possible at-home charging cost for the EV — sun-generated electricity stored in the battery and used to charge the car overnight at near-zero marginal cost.