UK Public Charging Price Index 2026: 59.2p per kWh, a PCPI Reading of 118.4 and the Complete Price Dataset

The 2026 headline index#

UK public electric vehicle charging cost an average of 59.2p per kWh in 2026, a reading of 118.4 on the EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index against a January 2024 base of 100. Ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging averaged 79.4p per kWh and home overnight charging averaged 7.9p, a gap of 10.1 times.

The index measures one thing and states it before anything else. It is the session-weighted mean price per kWh of every published public charging tariff in the United Kingdom, VAT included, captured on the first working day of each month and expressed against a fixed base period of January 2024 = 100. A reading of 118.4 therefore means that a typical public charging session in June 2026 cost 18.4% more per kWh than the same session cost in the base month. The base period does not move, and the reading for any past month is never revised.

Three findings run underneath the headline and the rest of this page supports each of them in turn. Public charging prices have risen 18.4% since the base period while home overnight rates have fallen, so the two have moved in opposite directions for two and a half years. The gap between the cheapest and the most expensive way to put energy into an electric car is now 14.7 times, from 5.4p per kWh on a home dynamic half-hourly tariff to 79.4p on ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging. And ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging now costs more per mile than petrol.

That last finding needs stating flatly and then qualifying immediately, because it is true and easy to misuse. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index put ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging at 21.5p per mile in 2026 against 14.9p per mile for a petrol car at 42 mpg. It is also the most expensive way to charge, it is used by a minority of drivers for a minority of their energy, and 82.4% of all charging energy in the United Kingdom is delivered at home. The blended figure across every source is 16.4p per kWh, or 4.4p per mile, which is roughly a third of the petrol cost. Both numbers are correct and neither one on its own describes the market.

The index reading is published alongside the price everywhere on this page, because the price on its own is a snapshot and the reading is a series. A figure of 59.2p per kWh tells a reader what charging costs today. A reading of 118.4 against a January 2024 base of 100 tells them what it has done since, and lets them place any future issue of the index against the same fixed point.

One convention runs through every figure here and is worth stating once. Prices are per kilowatt hour delivered to the vehicle, VAT included, as displayed at the point of use. Where a network prices per minute instead, which 2.0% of the basket does, the rate is converted to a per-kWh equivalent using the delivery rate measured on that class of device rather than its rated output, because a driver billed by the minute on a unit that tapers pays for time the car is not using.

How the Public Charging Price Index is built#

The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index tracks 4,208 individual published tariffs across 68 UK charging networks, weighted by the energy each speed band actually delivers. The 2026 index reading of 118.4 means public charging costs 18.4% more than it did in the January 2024 base period.

The basket is every published tariff on every network, captured on the first working day of each month. That includes ad-hoc pay-as-you-go rates, subscription member rates, roaming rates offered through third-party apps, and time-of-use variable rates, for every speed band each network operates. Tariffs are taken from published price lists, in-app displayed prices and on-device displayed prices, and where those three disagree the on-device price is used, because it is the price the driver actually pays at the moment of charging.

The weighting is the part that decides whether an index of this kind is worth citing. Each speed band is weighted by its share of charging sessions rather than by device count, because a lamp post unit and an ultra-rapid unit do not represent comparable charging events. Weighting by device count would put 38.6% of the index on 7kW to 8kW units and produce a headline that no driver would recognise. The weights are revised once a year each January and are held fixed for the twelve months in between, so a movement in the reading is a movement in price rather than a movement in the method.

Fees that are not a price per kWh are excluded from the headline and reported separately, which is the treatment that keeps the series comparable across issues. Subscription monthly fees, connection or session fees, minimum spends, overstay fees, site parking charges and pre-authorisation holds all sit outside the headline reading and are published in full in the section on additional fees. Free charging is included at zero rather than excluded, because a free device is a real price and dropping it would bias the mean upward. VAT is included, because the driver pays it.

The rebasing rule is absolute. The base period is fixed at January 2024 and will not be moved. Rebasing an index makes every previously published reading incomparable with every future one, and destroys the only thing that makes a series worth citing years after it was published. For the same reason a published reading is never revised: where an error is found, a correction is issued as a new dated note and the original reading stands.

Both weighting bases are published in the table below rather than only the one used in the headline. The index answers the question of what a typical charging session costs per kWh, not the question of what the market spends per kWh across all energy delivered. Those are different questions and they have different answers, so giving both is what stops an apparent inconsistency being read as an error. The device counts come from EV Cable Hub's 2026 charge point census, which is set out in full in the UK charge point census.

Charging price by speed#

Ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging cost 79.4p per kWh in the UK in 2026 and slow charging cost 44.6p, a difference of 78.0%. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index recorded the largest single-year rise in the 22kW band, up 6.8% to 58.4p.

The range matters more than the mean to anyone deciding whether to drive another mile to a different site. Within the ultra-rapid band the cheapest published tariff in the 2026 basket was 62.0p per kWh and the most expensive 99.0p, a spread of 37p that is worth £15.54 on a single 42 kWh charge. The slow band runs from 29.0p to 69.0p. Shopping around inside a band is worth more than moving between bands for most drivers, and that is not the conclusion the mean prices alone would suggest.

Price rises with speed for three reasons that are worth stating plainly, because being straight about them is what stops this section reading as an accusation. Higher-powered units need a larger grid connection and the standing charge on that connection is paid whether the unit is busy or idle. The hardware costs more per kWh it will ever deliver, and it depreciates against a shorter technology cycle. And utilisation per unit of installed capacity falls as capacity rises, so an ultra-rapid unit recovers its fixed costs across fewer kilowatt hours than its rating implies.

The band that moved most in the twelve months to June 2026 was not the fastest one. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index recorded a 6.8% rise in the 22kW band against 3.4% in the ultra-rapid band, and the pattern holds one band further down as well, with the 7kW to 8kW band up 5.4%. Competition in the ultra-rapid segment is intense and visible, several large operators price against each other publicly, and that competitive pressure is compressing margins at the top of the range while the middle of the range faces almost none.

For a driver, the practical translation is the second table. A 42 kWh charge, which takes a 60kWh car from 10% to 80%, costs £33.35 on ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging and £18.73 on slow charging, and adds the same 155 miles either way. What differs is 22 minutes against 11 hours and 48 minutes. The right choice depends entirely on how long the car is going to be parked anyway, which is why the cost-per-mile figures in this section should never be read without the time column beside them. Cables and connectors for the higher bands are covered in our CCS charging cable range.

The bands themselves are worth defining, because the labels are used loosely elsewhere. Ultra-rapid means 150kW and above, rapid means 50kW to 149kW, fast covers 22kW and separately 7kW to 8kW, and slow means below 7kW. Those are the boundaries the EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index has used since the base period and they will not move, for the same reason the base period does not move: a band redefinition breaks the comparability of every reading published before it.

Charging price by network#

Shell Recharge was the most expensive large UK rapid charging network in 2026 at 89p per kWh ad-hoc, and ubitricity the cheapest large network at 45p. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index found a 44p spread between the cheapest and most expensive large-network ad-hoc rates, worth £18.48 on a single 42 kWh charge.

The table below gives all 30 networks with their ad-hoc rate, their subscription rate, any monthly fee and the monthly usage at which that fee pays for itself. It is presented without a verdict column on purpose. A network charging 89p per kWh for ultra-rapid charging on a motorway forecourt and a network charging 45p for lamp post charging on a residential street are not competing for the same session, and a ranking that treats them as if they were tells a reader nothing they can act on.

The structural finding is that most of the apparent price difference between networks is a speed difference. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index measured a correlation of 0.71 between a network's mean price and the mean rated speed of its devices. Networks that look expensive in the full table are overwhelmingly ultra-rapid-only networks, and networks that look cheap are overwhelmingly slow and fast on-street networks. Comparing like for like inside the ultra-rapid band, the spread narrows from 44p to 23p, and from 37p to 23p once the two Tesla Supercharger rates are separated.

The correlation with network size runs the other way at -0.34, which is a weaker relationship than the speed one but points in a useful direction: larger networks are, on the whole, slightly cheaper rather than slightly dearer. Pricing structures vary more than the headline rates do. 41 networks charge a single flat price across every device they operate, 22 operate speed-tiered pricing, 12 operate time-of-day pricing and 8 price differently by location type. A driver comparing two networks on a single quoted rate may be comparing two different things.

Direction of travel across the year was one-sided. EV Cable Hub's 2026 tariff basket recorded 44 networks raising prices in the twelve months to June 2026, 18 holding and only 6 cutting. The mean rise was 4.8% and the mean cut 2.1%, so even the networks moving in the driver's favour moved less far than those moving against. The largest single rise recorded was 7.7% and the largest single cut 1.3%. Price is only one axis of a network choice, and how the 68 UK networks compare on reliability and coverage covers the others.

One caution on reading the network table as a league table. Rates change, and the mean interval between price changes on a UK network is 9.4 months, so any single row here is a snapshot of a published price on the first working day of a month. What does not change quickly is the ordering, because it is driven by the speed mix each network has built, and rebuilding a network's speed mix takes years rather than months.

Ad-hoc against subscription pricing#

A UK charging subscription saved an average of 11.1% per kWh in 2026, cutting the mean public price from 59.2p to 52.6p. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index found the largest available discount was 40.5%, and that a subscription with a monthly fee needs 44 kWh a month before it breaks even.

The decision is trivial for most networks and needs arithmetic for a few. Of the 34 networks offering a member rate in 2026, 26 charge no monthly fee at all, which means signing up is free money and the only cost is another account. The remaining 8 charge a mean of £8.76 a month, ranging from £4.00 to £11.99, and those are the only ones where the sum matters.

The break-even is the monthly fee divided by the saving per kWh. On the largest discount in the 2026 basket, a 30p per kWh saving against a £8.99 monthly fee, break-even arrives at 30 kWh a month, which is about 111 miles of driving at 3.7 miles per kWh. At the other end, a 15p saving against a £10.99 fee needs 74 kWh a month, or 274 miles. A driver covering 8,000 miles a year and taking a fifth of their energy in public needs roughly 36 kWh a month in public, which sits between those two.

The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index treats subscription fees as outside the headline reading for exactly this reason: the fee is not a price per kWh and its effect depends entirely on volume. Including it would make the headline depend on an assumption about how much a driver charges, which is not a price measurement. The member rates themselves are in the basket and are published as a separate subscription-weighted mean of 52.6p per kWh, so both figures are available and neither is buried.

Across a full year the tariff strategy matters more than any single decision a driver makes at a charge point. At 8,000 miles a year, an ad-hoc public-only driver spends £1,280 and a home overnight driver spends £171, a difference of £1,109. Moving from ad-hoc public to subscription public saves £143 and changes nothing else about how the driver charges. That is the single cheapest saving available to a public-dependent driver, and 26 of the 34 available subscriptions cost nothing to take up.

Charging price by region#

Greater London had the most expensive public charging in the UK in 2026 at a mean of 62.4p per kWh, and Northern Ireland the cheapest at 51.8p. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index recorded a regional spread of 20.5%, worth £4.45 on a 42 kWh charge.

The regional table is the one local and regional press will run, and it needs its qualifier attached. The 20.5% spread across the all-speeds column is largely an artefact of what has been built where. Regions with a high proportion of ultra-rapid and rapid devices show a higher mean, and regions with a high proportion of on-street slow and fast devices show a lower one, because the mean is taken across whatever mix exists.

Comparing like for like removes most of it. On ultra-rapid charging alone the regional spread collapses from 20.5% to 4.5%, from 80.2p in the South East to 76.4p in Northern Ireland. Greater London, which tops the all-speeds column at 62.4p, sits at 79.8p on ultra-rapid against a UK ultra-rapid mean of 79.4p, which is within half a penny of the national figure. London is not an expensive place to charge quickly. It is a place with an unusually large stock of fast on-street devices priced above the national fast mean.

Decomposing the regional gap, EV Cable Hub's 2026 tariff basket attributes 62.4% of it to speed mix and 28.1% to network mix, leaving 9.5% unexplained by either. That residual is the only part of the regional difference that can fairly be called a regional premium, and on a 42 kWh charge it is worth about 42p. Any coverage that presents the full 20.5% as a regional penalty is describing the infrastructure mix and calling it a pricing decision.

Below the region level the spread widens considerably, because local authority areas are small enough to be dominated by a single site type. The most expensive local authority mean recorded in 2026 was 68.4p per kWh and the cheapest 38.2p, with 24 authorities above 65p and 41 below 45p. The sharpest single cut in the data is not geographic at all: the mean price on the strategic road network was 81.2p per kWh against 57.4p off it, a premium of 41.5% that applies in every region equally.

Regional figures in this index are means of the tariffs available in a region rather than means of the sessions actually charged there, and the distinction matters where the two diverge. A region with a large stock of cheap on-street devices that are rarely used will read lower on this basis than a driver in that region actually experiences. The session-weighted regional figures move the spread by roughly two percentage points and are held for the annual weighting revision rather than published monthly.

• Regional spread, all speeds: 20.5%
• Regional spread, ultra-rapid only: 4.5%
• Share of the regional gap explained by speed mix: 62.4%
• Share explained by network mix: 28.1%
• Share unexplained by either: 9.5%
• Most expensive local authority mean price: 68.4p/kWh
• Cheapest local authority mean price: 38.2p/kWh
• Local authorities above 65p mean: 24
• Local authorities below 45p mean: 41
• Mean price on the strategic road network: 81.2p/kWh
• Mean price off the strategic road network: 57.4p/kWh
• Strategic road network premium: 41.5%

Charging price by time of day#

Twelve UK charging networks operated time-of-day pricing in 2026, with off-peak rates averaging 48.1p per kWh against 64.2p at peak, a difference of 33.5%. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index found time-of-use tariffs covered 386 of 4,208 tariffs in the basket, up from 118 two years earlier.

Time-of-day pricing in public charging is new enough that no continuous series on it exists, which makes the hourly curve below the most novel table on this page. Across the networks that operate it, the cheapest window of the day is 02:00 to 04:00 at a mean of 41.8p per kWh, 23.0% below the daily mean of 54.3p. The most expensive is 16:00 to 18:00 at 66.4p, 22.3% above it. The peak-to-trough difference within a single day on a single network is therefore larger than the entire spread between UK regions.

The practical saving is straightforward to state. Shifting a 42 kWh charge from 17:00 to 02:00 on a network with time-of-day pricing saved £10.08 in 2026. That is roughly the cost of the charge itself at a home overnight rate, achieved without changing anything except when the car is plugged in. On the largest differential recorded in the basket, 62.1% between peak and off-peak, the same shift is worth considerably more.

Almost nobody does it. EV Cable Hub's 2026 session study found 53.0% of public sessions starting between 10:00 and 18:00, which is the most expensive stretch of the day on every network that varies its price, and 8.1% starting between midnight and 06:00. Only 18.4% of drivers reported ever timing a public charge to hit a cheaper window, and 61.2% did not know their network had time-of-day pricing at all. The saving is real and largely unclaimed, which is a communication failure rather than a pricing one.

The trend is the part worth tracking into future issues. Networks operating time-of-day pricing rose from 4 in the January 2024 base period to 12 by June 2026, and time-of-use tariffs in the basket rose from 118 to 386 over the same period. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index treats a time-of-use tariff at its session-weighted mean across the day rather than at either its peak or its off-peak rate, so the spread of these tariffs does not by itself move the headline reading in either direction.

• Networks operating time-of-day pricing: 12
• Networks operating time-of-day pricing in 2024: 4
• Tariffs in the basket with a time-of-use element: 386
• Same figure in 2024: 118
• Mean off-peak rate: 48.1p/kWh
• Mean peak rate: 64.2p/kWh
• Mean peak-to-off-peak differential: 33.5%
• Largest peak-to-off-peak differential recorded: 62.1%
• Cheapest hour of the day on average: 02:00 to 04:00
• Most expensive hour of the day on average: 16:00 to 18:00
• Saving from shifting a 42 kWh charge from 17:00 to 02:00: £10.08
• Share of public sessions starting between 10:00 and 18:00: 53.0%
• Share starting between 00:00 and 06:00: 8.1%
• Share of drivers who report timing a public charge to a cheaper window: 18.4%
• Share who were unaware their network had time-of-day pricing: 61.2%

Cost per mile#

Ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging cost 21.5p per mile in the UK in 2026, against 14.9p per mile for a petrol car at 42 mpg. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index put home overnight charging at 2.1p per mile, making the gap between the cheapest and most expensive way to fuel an electric car 14.7 times.

The crossover is the single most quotable figure in this edition and it needs handling precisely. At the UK mean efficiency of 3.7 miles per kWh, a driver charging exclusively on ad-hoc ultra-rapid public charging pays 21.5p a mile, which is 44% more than a 42 mpg petrol car at 137.4p a litre and 69% more than a 52 mpg diesel. That is a genuine finding about the most expensive corner of the market, and it is not a finding about electric cars in general.

The qualifier belongs in the same paragraph rather than a later one. Almost nobody charges that way. EV Cable Hub's 2026 session study puts 82.4% of all charging energy at home, and the blended cost across every source a real driver actually uses came out at 16.4p per kWh, or 4.4p a mile. A driver who charges at home overnight and uses public charging only on longer journeys pays roughly a third of what the petrol equivalent costs. The crossover applies to the 18.6% of drivers who rely entirely on public charging, and for them it is a real and material cost.

Efficiency moves the answer more than most drivers expect, which is why the full matrix is published rather than a single row. At 3.0 miles per kWh, ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging costs 26.5p a mile. At 4.5 miles per kWh it costs 17.6p, below the 17.8p a 35 mpg petrol car costs. The same 79.4p per kWh produces a 50% range of outcomes depending on the car it goes into, and winter driving pushes every figure in this table towards its slower column.

The model table is the one a reader uses on themselves. It runs from a Fiat 500e at 4.4 miles per kWh, costing 1.8p a mile on a home overnight tariff and 18.0p on ad-hoc ultra-rapid, to a Porsche Taycan at 3.2 miles per kWh, costing 2.5p and 24.8p on the same two sources. Every figure in it is the published price per kWh divided by the vehicle's measured efficiency, with no additional loss factor applied, so the arithmetic can be checked in a line. Broader running-cost context sits in UK EV running costs and total cost of ownership, and the household-level version of this calculation is in what it costs to charge an electric car in the UK.

Winter is the missing variable in every cost-per-mile figure published anywhere, including this one. The efficiency columns here are measured across the full year, and a cold January drops real-world efficiency materially below the annual mean on most vehicles, which pushes every cost-per-mile figure in this section towards its 3.0 miles per kWh column for several months of the year. A driver budgeting from an annual mean will under-budget in winter and over-budget in summer by roughly the same amount.

Public charging against home charging#

Ad-hoc ultra-rapid public charging cost 10.1 times more per kWh than home overnight charging in the UK in 2026, at 79.4p against 7.9p. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index found that a driver with no home charging pays £1,413 a year more at 8,000 miles than a driver who charges overnight at home.

The arithmetic is simple and that is what makes it hard to argue with. At 8,000 miles a year and 3.7 miles per kWh, a car needs 2,162 kWh. At a home overnight rate of 7.9p per kWh that costs £171 a year. A driver who cannot charge at home and takes the same energy from a mix of public charging pays £1,584, a difference of £1,413. At 12,000 miles the gap is £2,120 and at 20,000 miles it is £3,533.

The gap has widened rather than narrowed across the life of the index. In the January 2024 base period home overnight charging cost 8.4p per kWh and ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging cost 70.8p, a multiple of 8.4 times. By June 2026 the two were 7.9p and 79.4p, a multiple of 10.1 times. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index has recorded the multiple rising at every issue since the base period, because home overnight rates have fallen 6.0% in the last twelve months while public rates rose 4.4%.

The population affected is measurable. EV Cable Hub's 2026 home tariff study found 71.4% of UK battery electric vehicle households have off-street parking and 64.2% have a home charge point installed, leaving 28.6% without off-street parking and 18.6% relying entirely on public charging. Applied to the current fleet that is an estimated 360,840 drivers, and the aggregate excess they pay against a home-charging equivalent comes to £509.9m a year.

Of that gap, 15.5% is the VAT differential and 84.5% is the underlying difference in the energy price itself, so equalising VAT would narrow it without closing it. This is presented as arithmetic rather than as an argument. The figures describe a cost distribution, not a policy position, and they are published so that anyone arguing either side has to argue against the same numbers. For drivers in this group the equipment questions matter more than average, and our EV charging cable range and granny chargers cover the options, with the difference between Mode 2 and Mode 3 charging explaining which applies where.

There is a second-order effect in this section that is easy to miss. The home overnight rates that make the comparison so stark are available only to households that can install a charge point, which requires off-street parking, and the tariffs themselves generally require a smart meter and a charge point capable of scheduling. Each of those is a small barrier, and the drivers who face all three are the same drivers already paying the public rate. The gap is therefore self-reinforcing rather than merely large.

• UK BEV households with off-street parking: 71.4%
• UK BEV households without off-street parking: 28.6%
• UK BEV households with a home charge point: 64.2%
• BEV drivers relying entirely on public charging: 18.6%
• Annual cost, home-charging driver at 8,000 miles: £171
• Annual cost, public-dependent driver at 8,000 miles: £1,584
• Annual gap: £1,413
• Annual gap at 12,000 miles: £2,120
• Annual gap at 20,000 miles: £3,533
• Share of the gap attributable to the VAT differential: 15.5%
• Share attributable to the underlying energy price: 84.5%
• Number of UK BEV drivers estimated to be public-dependent: 360,840
• Aggregate annual excess paid by public-dependent drivers: £509.9m

The VAT gap#

Public charging carries 20% VAT and home charging carries 5%, a differential worth 10.1p per kWh on an ultra-rapid charge in 2026. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index calculated that equalising the two rates would cut ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging from 79.4p to 69.5p per kWh.

The arithmetic is published in full so it can be checked rather than taken on trust. An ultra-rapid charge at 79.4p per kWh inclusive of 20% VAT is 66.2p ex VAT, carrying a VAT element of 13.2p. The same 66.2p at 5% would retail at 69.5p, a saving of 9.9p per kWh. Across the public mean of 59.2p the equivalent figures are 49.3p ex VAT, a 9.9p VAT element and an equalised price of 51.8p, a saving of 7.4p.

Translated to a driver, the differential is worth 2.7p a mile at 3.7 miles per kWh on ultra-rapid charging. For a public-dependent driver at 8,000 miles a year it is £160, at 12,000 miles £240 and at 20,000 miles £400. Those are the figures for the group who cannot avoid public charging; a driver charging mostly at home already pays the 5% rate on the overwhelming majority of their energy and the differential barely touches them.

At national scale the numbers are as follows. EV Cable Hub's 2026 session study puts public charging energy delivered in the United Kingdom in the twelve months to June 2026 at 2,148 GWh. VAT collected on that energy at 20% comes to £212.6m. The same energy at 5% would raise £53.2m, a difference of £159.4m. Of the energy concerned, 41.2% was delivered to drivers with no home charging available to them.

This section publishes the figure and stops there. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index takes no position on whether the two rates should be equalised, which is a question about tax policy rather than about prices. Neutrality here is practical rather than principled: a number presented without an argument attached gets used by outlets and researchers across the political spectrum, and a number presented as a campaign gets used by one side and disputed by the other.

• VAT rate on public charging: 20%
• VAT rate on domestic electricity including home charging: 5%
• Differential: 15 percentage points
• Value of the differential on the public mean of 59.2p: 7.4p/kWh
• Value on ultra-rapid at 79.4p: 9.9p/kWh
• Cost per mile impact at 3.7 mi/kWh, ultra-rapid: 2.7p
• Annual impact for a public-dependent driver at 8,000 miles: £160
• Annual impact at 12,000 miles: £240
• Annual impact at 20,000 miles: £400
• Public charging energy delivered in the UK in the twelve months to June 2026: 2,148 GWh
• Aggregate VAT collected on public charging at 20%: £212.6m
• Aggregate at 5%: £53.2m
• Difference: £159.4m
• Share of public charging energy delivered to drivers with no home charging: 41.2%

Price movement month by month#

The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index rose from 116.8 in January 2026 to 118.4 in June 2026, an increase of 1.4% over six months. Public charging prices rose 4.4% year on year while home overnight rates fell 6.0%.

The monthly series is what makes this a genuine index rather than an annual study, and its most useful property is that it moves slowly and predictably. Month-on-month changes in the first half of 2026 ran between +0.2% and +0.6%, with no month recording a fall. Charging prices are not volatile in the way wholesale energy is, because networks reprice infrequently: the mean interval between price changes on a single network was 9.4 months, the shortest interval recorded was 3 months, and only 8 networks changed price more than once in the twelve months to June 2026.

Three things drive the movement and they can be separated. Wholesale energy accounted for 41.2% of the public charging price in 2026, network operating costs and margin 38.6%, and VAT 20.2%. Wholesale moves fastest but passes through slowly and partially, because networks buy forward. Connection and standing charges move with the regulated network settlement rather than with the market. Competitive pressure works in the opposite direction and is concentrated almost entirely in the ultra-rapid segment.

That last point explains the shape of the year. The ultra-rapid band rose 3.4% in the twelve months to June 2026, the slowest of any band, while the 22kW band rose 6.8%, the fastest. The rapid band rose 2.8%, the 7kW to 8kW band 5.4% and the slow band 4.1%. The bands where drivers can most easily compare prices before committing are the bands rising most slowly, and the bands where a driver arrives, plugs in and finds out afterwards are rising fastest.

Across the full life of the index the compounding is visible in single steps. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index read 100.0 in January 2024, 105.6 by July 2024, 110.2 by January 2025, 113.4 by July 2025, 116.8 by January 2026 and 118.4 by June 2026. The rate of increase has slowed at every reading since the base period, from +5.6% in the first half-year to +1.4% in the most recent, which is the clearest sign in the data that the market is maturing rather than continuing to reprice upward at will.

Reading the monthly series correctly requires one caution about what a single month means. A month in which no large network repriced will still show a small movement, because the basket changes as networks add and withdraw tariffs and as free devices switch to a paid rate. Those composition effects are real price movements from a driver's point of view and are deliberately not stripped out, but they mean a month-on-month change of 0.2% should not be read as a price rise at any particular network.

• PCPI reading, June 2026: 118.4
• Change since the January 2024 base: +18.4%
• Change over twelve months: +4.4%
• Change over six months: +1.4%
• Ultra-rapid band change over twelve months: +3.4%
• Rapid band: +2.8%
• 22kW band: +6.8%
• 7kW to 8kW band: +5.4%
• Slow band: +4.1%
• Home overnight change over twelve months: -6.0%
• Home flat rate change: -2.4%
• Networks raising prices in the period: 44
• Networks cutting prices: 6
• Networks holding prices: 18
• Mean interval between price changes on a network: 9.4 months
• Shortest interval recorded: 3 months
• Networks that changed price more than once in twelve months: 8
• Mean size of a price rise: +4.8%
• Mean size of a price cut: -2.1%

Connection fees, minimum charges and overstay penalties#

28.4% of UK public charging devices carried an overstay or idle fee in 2026, at a mean of £0.62 per minute. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index found connection fees applied to 6.8% of tariffs at a mean of £1.24, and minimum charges applied to 4.1% at a mean of £2.80.

These charges sit outside the headline reading and are reported here in full, which is the treatment that keeps the series comparable. A fee that depends on how long a driver leaves a car plugged in is not a price per kWh, and folding it into the index would make the reading depend on driver behaviour rather than on what networks charge. Excluding it silently would be worse, so it is excluded and published.

Overstay fees have grown faster than any other element of the cost of charging. Devices carrying one rose from 21,180 in the 2025 edition to 27,930 in 2026, an increase of 31.9%, and the mean fee rose from £0.58 to £0.62 a minute. Incidence is heavily concentrated at the fast end: 74.2% of ultra-rapid devices and 61.8% of rapid devices carry one, against 21.4% of fast devices and 3.1% of slow devices. That distribution makes sense as congestion management on scarce high-power units, and it is also where a driver is least likely to be watching the clock.

The threshold at which the fee overtakes the electricity is the number worth knowing. On a 22kW device at 58.4p per kWh, an overstay fee of £0.62 a minute exceeds the energy cost after 39 minutes. On a 150kW device at 79.4p it takes 6 minutes. Grace periods average 8 minutes and range from nothing at all to 30 minutes, and 41.2% of overstay fees have no cap, so the exposure at a site with no grace period and no cap is genuinely open-ended. The highest single overstay fee reported to EV Cable Hub's 2026 session study was £68.00 against a mean of £8.42.

The other fees are smaller but less visible. Connection or session fees apply to 286 tariffs at a mean of £1.24, which on a small top-up charge can add more than the speed premium does. Minimum charges apply to 172 tariffs at a mean of £2.80. Separate parking charges apply at 19.0% of device locations at a mean of £2.14 an hour, and on a long slow charge that is frequently the largest single line on the bill. Pre-authorisation holds, which are not a cost but do remove money from an account, apply at 31.8% of devices at a mean of £28.

Overstay fees are the element of charging cost most likely to change materially between issues of this index, and they are the element a driver has most control over. The fee exists to move cars off scarce high-power units, and on that measure it works: EV Cable Hub's 2026 session study found dwell time beyond the grace period at ultra-rapid sites falling as incidence of the fee rose. Whether the level is proportionate to that purpose is a separate question, and one this index publishes the numbers for rather than answers.

Payment method and the contactless premium#

UK drivers paying by contactless card paid a mean of 62.1p per kWh in 2026 against 52.6p on a network subscription, a premium of 18.1%. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index found roaming through a third-party app cost 66.4p per kWh, the most expensive route to the same electricity.

The same device can charge four different prices for the same kilowatt hour depending on how the driver pays, and the spread between the cheapest and most expensive route is 26.2%. A subscription or app account rate averaged 52.6p per kWh, the same network's app without a subscription 59.2p, a contactless card tap 62.1p and a roaming session booked through a third-party app 66.4p. Nothing about the electricity, the device or the session differs between those four.

Contactless is the route most drivers reach for and it is rarely the cheapest. EV Cable Hub's 2026 tariff basket found 39 networks charging more on contactless than in their own app, 22 charging the same and 7 charging less, with a mean premium of 4.9% over the network's own app rate and 18.1% over the subscription rate. Contactless acceptance itself is strongly skewed by speed: 92.4% of devices rated 50kW and above take a card, against 4.1% of devices below 8kW.

Roaming carries the largest premium and is the least visible, because the driver sees a single price in a single app and has nothing to compare it against. The mean roaming premium over the host network's own ad-hoc rate was 12.2% in 2026 and the largest recorded was 31.4%. Roaming reaches 74,280 devices, which is the reason drivers use it, and 38.6% of drivers hold a roaming card of some kind. It is a convenience product with a price attached, and the price is not usually disclosed as such.

Pre-authorisation holds are the hidden cost of paying by card rather than by account. The mean hold in 2026 was £28 and the mean time to clear was 4.2 days, with the longest clearance recorded at 14 days. A driver using several networks by contactless on a long journey can have well over £100 held against a card at once. Drivers carry a mean of 4.2 charging apps and 26.4% use a single network's app exclusively, which is the behaviour that avoids both the roaming premium and the hold. How the networks differ beyond price is covered in how the 68 UK networks compare on reliability and coverage.

• Devices accepting contactless card payment: 34,020
• Share of devices: 34.6%
• Contactless acceptance on devices 50kW and above: 92.4%
• Contactless acceptance below 8kW: 4.1%
• Mean contactless premium over the network's own app rate: 4.9%
• Mean contactless premium over the subscription rate: 18.1%
• Networks charging the same price on contactless as in-app: 22
• Networks charging more on contactless: 39
• Networks charging less on contactless: 7
• Mean roaming premium over the host network's ad-hoc rate: 12.2%
• Largest roaming premium recorded: 31.4%
• Devices reachable through at least one roaming platform: 74,280
• Mean pre-authorisation hold on contactless: £28
• Mean time for a pre-authorisation hold to clear: 4.2 days
• Longest hold clearance recorded: 14 days
• Share of drivers who use one network's app exclusively: 26.4%
• Mean number of charging apps installed per driver: 4.2
• Share of drivers holding a roaming RFID card: 38.6%

Charging cost by location type#

Motorway service area charging cost a mean of 81.2p per kWh in the UK in 2026 against 57.4p off the strategic road network, a premium of 41.5%. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index recorded supermarket charging at 54.6p and hotel charging at 46.8p.

Location type is a cleaner cut than region, because it groups devices by the economics of the site rather than by an administrative boundary. The range runs from 81.2p per kWh at motorway service areas down to 39.8p at education sites, with fuel forecourts at 79.8p, dedicated charging hubs at 76.4p, retail parks at 62.8p, supermarkets at 54.6p, on-street residential at 48.4p and public sector and NHS sites at 42.6p.

The motorway premium has three components and none of them is opportunism. Land at a motorway service area is expensive and the charging bays displace parking that earns money another way. The grid connection needed to run a bank of ultra-rapid units at a site with no other large load is a substantial capital item with a standing charge attached. And dwell time is short, which sounds like an advantage but means the site delivers fewer kilowatt hours per hour of bay occupancy than a destination site does across a long stay.

Comparing like for like flattens most of the spread, exactly as it does across regions. On ultra-rapid charging alone the range runs from 82.4p at motorway service areas to 74.6p at public sector sites, a spread of 10.5% against the 104% spread on the all-speeds column. The all-speeds figure mostly reflects what has been installed where: motorway sites are almost entirely ultra-rapid, and education and on-street sites are almost entirely fast and slow.

Mean session cost tells a different story again, because it combines price with how much energy a driver takes at each kind of site. The mean session across all locations cost £10.86 for 18.3 kWh. At motorway service areas it was £18.36 and at hotels £15.02, despite hotels charging 46.8p per kWh against 81.2p, because a hotel session runs overnight. 18.6% of destination locations and 44.2% of workplace locations are free at point of use, and 34.8% of retail locations require a separate parking payment at a mean of £2.14 an hour. Which connector each site type expects is covered in which connector you need at each location type.

Location type also explains most of what looks like network pricing. An operator whose estate is concentrated on motorway service areas and fuel forecourts will show a higher mean price than one concentrated on supermarkets, without either having made a different decision about margin. Comparing two networks on their headline mean is therefore comparing their site portfolios as much as their pricing, which is why the like-for-like ultra-rapid table exists.

• Strategic road network premium over off-network: 41.5%
• Motorway service area mean price: 81.2p/kWh
• Off-strategic-road-network mean price: 57.4p/kWh
• Most expensive location type: motorway service area
• Cheapest paid location type: education site
• Mean session cost across all locations: £10.86
• Mean session energy across all locations: 18.3 kWh
• Highest mean session cost by location type: motorway service area at £18.36
• Share of destination locations that are free at point of use: 18.6%
• Share of workplace locations free at point of use: 44.2%
• Share of retail locations requiring a separate parking payment: 34.8%
• Mean separate parking charge where applied: £2.14/hour

Free charging#

6,440 UK public charging devices were free to use at the point of the 2026 index, 6.5% of the network, down from 7.5% a year earlier. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index found free charging concentrated in workplace and supermarket locations, where 44.2% and 12.1% of devices respectively carried no charge.

The trajectory is the story rather than the level. Free charging accounted for 12.4% of UK public devices in the January 2024 base period, 7.5% in the 2025 edition and 6.5% in 2026. On that path it becomes a rounding error within four years. 28 networks still offer some free charging and 11 withdrew it during the twelve months to June 2026, which is the mechanism behind the decline: sites are not being removed, their tariffs are being switched on.

Where free charging survives, it survives at destinations rather than on the road. Workplace locations account for 3,616 of the 6,440 free devices, supermarkets for 1,433, retail parks for 486, hotels for 384, leisure sites for 312 and public sector sites for 209. Only 118 free devices are rated 50kW or above, which is 0.5% of rapid provision. Free charging is a car park amenity, and it has essentially never existed as a way of covering distance.

It is also less free than the headline suggests, which is the honest note this section needs. 71.4% of free devices carry a time limit, averaging 2 hours 18 minutes. 34.6% require a linked purchase or a membership of some kind, and 61.2% require registration in an app before the session will start. A driver who parks, registers, charges for the permitted window and leaves has still handed over data and, frequently, a transaction they would not otherwise have made.

In energy terms free charging is marginal and shrinking. The mean free session delivered 12.4 kWh, worth £7.34 at the public mean price. Across the twelve months to June 2026 free devices delivered 68 GWh, which is 3.2% of all public charging energy. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index includes free tariffs at zero rather than excluding them, so the decline in free charging is one of the quieter contributors to the rise in the headline reading.

• Devices free at point of use: 6,440
• Share of all public devices: 6.5%
• Share in 2025: 7.5%
• Share in the January 2024 base period: 12.4%
• Free devices at workplace locations: 3,616
• Free share of workplace devices: 44.2%
• Free devices at supermarkets: 1,433
• Free share of supermarket devices: 12.1%
• Free devices at retail parks: 486
• Free devices at hotels: 384
• Free devices at leisure sites: 312
• Free devices at public sector sites: 209
• Free devices rated 50kW or above: 118
• Free share of rapid devices: 0.5%
• Free devices with a time limit: 71.4%
• Mean time limit on a free device: 2h 18m
• Free devices requiring a linked purchase or membership: 34.6%
• Free devices requiring app registration: 61.2%
• Mean energy delivered per free session: 12.4 kWh
• Value of that energy at the public mean: £7.34
• Total free energy delivered in the twelve months to June 2026: 68 GWh
• Free energy as a share of all public energy delivered: 3.2%
• Networks offering any free charging: 28
• Networks that withdrew free charging in the period: 11

What a full charge costs#

Charging a 60kWh electric car from 10% to 80% cost £33.35 on ad-hoc ultra-rapid public charging in the UK in 2026 and £3.32 at home overnight. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index put a full 0% to 100% charge on the same car at £47.64 on ultra-rapid and £4.74 at home.

The two tables below give every combination of battery size and charging source, because that is the question drivers actually ask and a single worked example never quite matches the car in the drive. Battery sizes run from 38 kWh to 100 kWh and cover the great majority of the current UK fleet. The arithmetic is energy multiplied by price and nothing else: no charging loss, no efficiency assumption, no rounding applied before the final figure.

The 10% to 80% window is used because it is how rapid charging actually works. Charging tapers sharply above 80% on almost every vehicle, so the last fifth of the pack takes a disproportionate share of the time, and most drivers on a journey stop before it. On a 60kWh car that window is 42 kWh, which is the basis for the £33.35 ultra-rapid figure and for the 42 kWh charge used as a reference throughout this page.

The full 0% to 100% table exists for the home charging case, where the taper matters much less because the car is parked for hours anyway. It also carries the petrol comparison column, which converts the battery to miles at 3.7 miles per kWh and prices those miles at 14.9p. On a 60kWh car that is 222 miles for £33.08 in petrol against £4.74 charging at home overnight and £47.64 on ad-hoc ultra-rapid. The same journey, the same car, a fourteen-fold difference between the cheapest and dearest way to fuel it.

Read down a single row and the spread across sources is the finding. A 77 kWh battery taken from 10% to 80% costs £2.91 on a home dynamic half-hourly tariff and £42.80 on ad-hoc ultra-rapid. Read across the columns and battery size barely changes the ranking, because every figure is linear in energy. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index publishes both tables in full rather than a chart alone, because a table can be copied into a spreadsheet and a chart cannot. The wider household picture is in what it costs to charge an electric car in the UK.

The charge windows in these tables are deliberately not adjusted for charging losses between the meter and the battery. A public rapid charger bills for energy delivered at the connector and a home charge point bills at the meter, and the loss between the two differs by a few percentage points across sources. Applying a correction would make the tables slightly more accurate as a measure of energy stored and considerably less useful as a measure of what appears on the bill, which is what a driver is actually asking about.

Price forecast#

On the trajectory recorded across thirty issues of the index, the EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index reaches 126.4 by the end of 2028 and 132.8 by the end of 2030, equivalent to 66.4p per kWh. The index forecast places ad-hoc ultra-rapid charging at 84.2p per kWh by 2030.

The method is stated plainly because a forecast without one is an opinion. The observed index trend is decomposed into a wholesale energy component, currently 41.2% of the public price, a network operating and margin component at 38.6%, and VAT at 20.2%. Each component is projected on its own basis and recombined. The ultra-rapid band is modelled separately from the rest, because competition is compressing its margin at a measurably different rate from the bands below it.

The central case has the index at 119.6 by the end of 2026, 122.4 in 2027, 126.4 in 2028, 129.6 in 2029 and 132.8 in 2030. That is a mean public price of 66.4p per kWh by 2030 and an ultra-rapid rate of 84.2p, or 22.8p a mile. Home overnight charging is forecast to fall further over the same period, from 7.9p to 7.0p, so the home-to-ultra-rapid multiple widens from 10.1 times today to 12.0 times.

The scenarios matter more than the central line. In the low case, where ultra-rapid competition compresses margins further and wholesale energy stays flat, the index reaches 122.4 by 2030 and ultra-rapid charging falls to 76.4p per kWh, below where it sits today. In the high case, where wholesale energy rises and network build costs pass through to the driver, the index reaches 146.2 and ultra-rapid charging reaches 94.8p, or 25.6p a mile. The multiple against home charging ranges from 10.9 times to 13.5 times across those two.

Everything in this section is a model output rather than an observation, and it is labelled as such throughout. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index will publish this forecast's error against measured readings in each subsequent edition, which is the only honest way to run a forecast alongside a measured series. The forecast that matters most for the shape of the market is the component split: wholesale falls from 41.2% to 38.4% of the price by 2030 while the network share rises from 38.6% to 41.4%, so an increasing share of what a driver pays is the cost of the charging network itself rather than the electricity going into the car.

• Year in which the PCPI is forecast to pass 125, central case: 2028
• Year in which ultra-rapid is forecast to pass 85p, central case: 2031
• Forecast home overnight rate in 2030, central case: 7.0p/kWh
• Forecast home-to-ultra-rapid multiple in 2030: 12.0x
• Forecast multiple in the low case: 10.9x
• Forecast multiple in the high case: 13.5x
• Wholesale energy share of the public charging price, 2026: 41.2%
• Network operating and margin share, 2026: 38.6%
• VAT share, 2026: 20.2%
• Forecast wholesale share, 2030: 38.4%
• Forecast network share, 2030: 41.4%

Year on year, 2025 against 2026#

The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index rose 5.0 points between the 2025 and 2026 editions, from 113.4 to 118.4, a price increase of 4.4%. Home overnight charging fell 6.0% over the same period, widening the home-to-public gap from 9.1 times to 10.1 times.

The comparison table is a permanent fixture of this page. Each January the previous year's column moves left, a new column appears on the right and the section is republished, so a reader arriving in any future year finds the same 27 measures compared on the same basis. Nothing is dropped when it stops being flattering and nothing is added because it makes a better headline.

The prices moved as the headline suggests, but the composition of the market moved more. Tariffs in the basket rose 14.2% to 4,208 while networks covered fell 8.1% to 68, which is consolidation rather than contraction: fewer operators running more devices and publishing more distinct rates. Networks offering a subscription rose from 29 to 34 and the mean subscription discount widened from 10.4% to 11.1%, so the gap between an informed driver and an uninformed one grew.

Three measures widened faster than prices did. Devices carrying an overstay fee rose 31.9%, devices accepting contactless rose 46.8% and the contactless premium over the subscription rate rose from 16.4% to 18.1%. Taken together those describe a market where paying the easy way costs progressively more than paying the informed way, and where the penalty for lingering has become a routine part of the pricing structure rather than an exception at busy sites.

Three measures are worth watching into the next edition and they are named here so this section can be checked against its own prediction. The first is the 22kW band's rate of increase, which at 6.8% is running at double the ultra-rapid rate and is the clearest sign of where competition is absent. The second is the free charging share, which fell from 7.5% to 6.5% and is on a path to insignificance. The third is the contactless premium, which has risen at every edition of the EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index and is the measure most likely to attract regulatory attention if it continues.

The comparison also shows what did not move, which is usually the more interesting half. The cheapest public tariff recorded fell from 32.0p to 29.0p while the most expensive rose from 95.0p to 99.0p, so the range widened at both ends even as the middle moved up by a fairly ordinary 4.4%. A market whose mean rises modestly while its extremes separate is a market where knowing where to charge is worth more each year, which is the practical case for publishing an index of this kind monthly rather than annually.

Previous issues of the index#

This is the thirtieth monthly issue and the third annual flagship edition of the EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index. The base period, January 2024, recorded a mean public charging price of 50.0p per kWh, meaning UK public charging has risen 18.4% across the life of the index.

The index publishes on the fifth working day of each month, covering the preceding calendar month, with an annual flagship edition each January. Every monthly issue is snapshotted to a permanent dated page carrying that month's headline reading, its speed band table and its network table, and every annual flagship is snapshotted to a dated page of its own. Archive pages carry a canonical pointer back to this page and a banner identifying which issue they are.

Archive pages are never deleted and never redirected. A citation to the June 2026 issue will still resolve to the June 2026 figures in ten years, rather than silently resolving to whatever the current reading happens to be. That is the difference between a page that can be cited and a page that can only be linked, and it is worth the maintenance cost of keeping thirty dated pages alive.

The address of this page never changes either. The year appears in the title, the hero, every chart caption and the methodology, but not in the URL, so accumulated links to the index survive every annual roll forward. A reader arriving from a three-year-old citation lands on the current edition with the archive one click away, rather than on a page that has been superseded and left to rot.

The base period is fixed at January 2024 and will never be rebased. Moving a base is the single most destructive thing an index publisher can do, because it makes every previously published reading incomparable with every future one and quietly invalidates every citation already in circulation. The EV Cable Hub Public Charging Price Index will carry the January 2024 base for as long as it is published, even once the readings run well above 150.

Anyone wanting to cite a specific figure from a specific month should cite the dated archive page for that issue rather than this page, which is republished. This page always carries the current reading. The archive page for a given month carries that month's reading permanently, and the two will diverge from the day after publication.

Interactive tools#

Two calculators built on the 2026 index, a comparator covering all 30 networks in the basket, a searchable table of every figure on this page, and an eighteen-item cost reduction checklist that remembers where you got to. Everything runs in the browser.

Each tool is driven by the tables above rather than by a separate dataset, and each one reproduces the published figures exactly for the inputs those tables use. Where a result differs from a table on this page, the table is right and the tool has a bug worth reporting.

Methodology#

Every figure on this page comes from one of four EV Cable Hub studies: a monthly tariff basket of 4,208 published rates across 68 networks, a study of 84,600 charging sessions, a home tariff study of 1,840 households, and a census of 98,340 public charging devices.

Frequently asked questions#

Thirty questions on UK charging prices, each answered with the 2026 index figure first.

Every answer below is drawn from the tables on this page. Where a figure is modelled rather than measured it is described as such.