EV road tax in Germany: exempt until when?
In almost every Evident cost breakdown for a pure EV, the vehicle-tax line shows a plain €0. That’s not a rounding artefact or an assumption on our part — it’s statute.
What the exemption actually says
Pure EVs (BEVs) first registered by 31 December 2030 are exempt from vehicle tax (Kfz-Steuer) — for up to 10 years from first registration, but no later than 31 December 2035 (§ 3d KraftStG, introduced by the 8th KraftStG amendment act). That 2035 date is a hard outer limit, not a second date to pick from: a car first registered in 2030 only gets around 5 years of exemption in practice, not the full 10 — the end date overrides the ten-year rule.
Once the exemption ends, or for a BEV first registered after 31 December 2030, a weight-based tax applies instead. To be honest about it: Evident’s model doesn’t differentiate that rate yet. In practice this affects almost no car listed today — but where it would apply, we currently still show €0 rather than the smaller, real number. We’d rather flag that gap than invent a figure.
Official, not estimated
The tax line isn’t an estimate the way depreciation or maintenance are — it follows the statute directly. That’s why it carries the “Official” label in the cost breakdown, not “Model” or “Calibrated”. What the other labels mean is covered in »Price checked«.
Bought new or used: the clock starts at first registration
The 10-year window runs from the car’s first registration, not from your purchase date — the same logic as the factory warranty (see New or used?). Buy a car first registered in 2028, still exempt, in the year 2031: the exemption still ends in 2035 at the latest — not 2038, which a fresh 10-year term from your purchase would suggest. You get roughly 4 years from your purchase, not 10.
The difference from a combustion engine
Combustion cars pay two components: a displacement charge (every started 100 cc costs €2.00 for petrol, €9.50 for diesel) plus a tiered CO₂ charge above a 95 g/km allowance — the tiers rise from €2.00 to €4.00 per gram. A pure EV simply has no displacement and 0 g/km tailpipe CO₂ — hence an exemption, rather than a formula that happens to compute two zeros.
Practical tip: check the first-registration year in the technical specs on any car page — that tells you how many exemption years a used car has left. The tax line itself sits right in the cost breakdown, carrying the “Official” label.
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