MileMind
Running costs
How much does it really cost to run a car in the UK?
Finance is only the start. Here's how to find the true monthly number — and why it's worth knowing.
Ask most people what their car costs and you'll get one number: the monthly finance payment, or the price on the windscreen when they bought it. It's the wrong number — or at least, only a small slice of the real one.
The car itself is just the entrance fee. Everything after that — fuel, insurance, tax, the service you forgot was due, the tyre that gave up in January — is the running cost, and it's where the money quietly goes. In 2026 the average UK car costs somewhere around £6,900 a year to keep on the road, or roughly £580 a month, once you count everything properly. For a lot of drivers it's the second-biggest outgoing after the roof over their head, and almost none of them could tell you the figure.
Here's how that number breaks down, why the averages will lie to you a little, and a simple way to work out your own.
The five costs that make up the number
Strip it back and running a car comes down to five big lines. These are rough UK averages for a typical petrol or diesel car doing around 7,000–8,000 miles a year — treat them as a starting point, not gospel.
| Cost | Roughly, per year |
|---|---|
| Depreciation (the car losing value) | £2,550 |
| Fuel or charging | £2,180 |
| Insurance | £600–£1,100+ |
| Servicing, repairs & MOT | £860 |
| Road tax (VED) | £200 |
| All in | ≈ £6,900 / yr |
Illustrative 2026 UK averages, drawn from published motoring-cost data. Your own figures will vary — a lot — with the car, your mileage, your age and your postcode.
Why the biggest cost is the one you never see
Notice what tops the list. It isn't fuel or insurance — it's depreciation, the value your car sheds simply by existing. A car worth £20,000 today might be worth £13,000 in three years; that £7,000 gap is a real cost, you just never write a cheque for it. It only shows up on the day you sell.
This is also where averages get slippery, so one important note:
Don't count the car twice. If you bought outright, depreciation is your car cost. If you're on finance or a lease, your monthly payment is already covering that loss of value (plus interest) — so use your actual payment instead of the depreciation line, not on top of it.
Get that one thing right and your number suddenly makes sense. Everything else is more predictable.
The other four, briefly
Fuel or charging. With petrol hovering around 150p a litre and diesel closer to 165p in mid-2026, the pump is the cost you feel most often — but it's rarely the biggest. Switch to an EV charged mostly at home and this line can fall dramatically; rely on public rapid chargers and it climbs back up.
Insurance. The wildest card in the deck. A settled driver in a quiet postcode might pay £500; a 19-year-old in a city, several thousand for the same car. It's also the fastest-rising cost of the last few years, so last year's premium is a poor guide to this year's renewal.
Servicing, repairs and the MOT. A service and the odd repair average out to a few hundred pounds a year, lumpy rather than steady — nothing for months, then a £400 morning. The MOT itself is capped by law at £54.85, so any garage quoting more is charging for work, not the test.
Road tax (VED). For most petrol and diesel cars it's a flat £200 a year in 2026/27. Two catches: a brand-new car's first-year rate can be far higher depending on emissions, and any car with a list price over £40,000 pays a £425 supplement on top for five years. Since April 2025, electric cars pay standard VED too.
Think in three buckets, not one big scary total
£6,900 in one lump is a number that makes you want to look away. It's far more useful — and less frightening — split into three buckets, which happens to be how we think about it at MileMind:
- The car — your finance or lease payment, and any excess-mileage risk if you lease.
- Essentials — fuel and charging, insurance, road tax, MOT and servicing. The stuff you can't legally or practically avoid.
- Misc — parking, cleaning, a phone mount, the car wash you swore you'd stop paying for. Small, forgettable, and collectively larger than you'd guess.
The point of splitting it up isn't tidiness. It's that each bucket has a different job: the car is mostly fixed, essentials are where good habits save real money, and misc is where the leaks hide.
How to work out your own number
You don't need a spreadsheet or a finance degree. For one month, do this:
- Write down your finance or lease payment (or, if you own the car outright, an honest guess at what it's dropping in value each month).
- Add up every fuel-up or charge.
- Divide your annual insurance and road tax by twelve and drop those in.
- Set aside roughly £70–£90 a month for servicing and repairs, even in the months nothing breaks.
- Keep every parking ticket, car wash and bit of kit. This is the bucket that surprises people.
Total it, and you'll have something almost nobody has: the real, personal answer to "what does this car cost me?" — not a national average, but your number.
This is the entire reason MileMind exists.
Log a fuel-up, a service or a parking ticket in a few taps, and MileMind rolls it all into one honest monthly number — sorted into the car, the essentials and the misc, with projected costs kept separate from what you've actually spent. No spreadsheet, no ads, private by design.
Download on App StoreKnowing the number won't make your car cheaper on its own. But it turns a vague, slightly anxious "cars are expensive" into something you can actually see, plan around and trim. And that's most of the battle.
Figures in this article are illustrative UK averages for 2026, gathered from published motoring-cost data, and are provided for general information only — they're not financial advice. Your own costs will vary with your car, mileage, driving and circumstances. Tax and VED rates are correct to the best of our knowledge for the 2026/27 tax year; always check current rates at gov.uk.
