Car tax reminders, and what it costs to forget

Road tax does not renew itself, the reminder letter does not always arrive, and the penalties start the day it lapses.

The DVLA reminder is a letter, and letters go missing

DVLA posts a V11 reminder before your vehicle tax runs out. When it arrives, it works. When it does not — a house move, a redirected post, a letter that goes in the pile — there is nothing else. No text, no email, no light on the dashboard.

Tax also does not transfer when a vehicle changes hands any more. Buy a car and it is untaxed from the moment it is yours, whatever the previous owner had paid for.

What it costs if it lapses

These are DVLA's published figures, from their enforcement policy:

What happens	What it costs
Late Licensing Penalty	£80, halved to £40 if paid within 33 days
Out-of-court settlement, untaxed and no SORN	£30 plus 1.5× the outstanding tax
Out-of-court settlement, untaxed with a SORN in force	£30 plus 2× the outstanding tax
Court, untaxed and no SORN	£1,000 or 5× the tax, whichever is greater
Court, untaxed with a SORN in force	£2,500 or 5× the tax, whichever is greater
Clamped	£100 release fee, within 24 hours
Impounded	£200 release fee, plus £21 a day storage

An £80 penalty for forgetting a date is the cheap outcome. The expensive one is the clamp.

How the app handles tax

You do not enter anything. The tax status and the renewal date come straight from DVLA, the same way MOT dates come from DVSA. Save a vehicle and the date is simply there, kept current on its own. If a vehicle is untaxed, or has a SORN in force, the app says so rather than showing a date that no longer means anything.

Each vehicle also shows its VED band and an estimated annual cost, worked out from the published GOV.UK rate tables. That figure is an estimate for guidance, not the amount DVLA will charge — a car over £40,000 when new pays a supplement that depends on its original list price, and no public record holds that. The official amount is always on GOV.UK's vehicle tax checker, and the app links straight to it.

Road tax card in My Cars App showing status, renewal date and estimated annual cost — Status and date from DVLA. The cost is our estimate, and says so.

DVLA and DVSA vehicle details including CO2, Euro status and vehicle category — The figures the estimate is built from, so you can check the working.

Vans, lorries and motorbikes

Not every vehicle is taxed on CO₂, and the app does not pretend otherwise. A lorry over 3,500kg is charged by revenue weight and axle configuration, so it gets no cost estimate at all rather than a car's figure that would be wrong by a thousand pounds. A van up to 3,500kg is shown at the flat light goods rate, and a motorbike by engine size. The tax status and the renewal date arrive from DVLA exactly the same way for all of them — see vans and lorries.

Reminders arrive 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before the date, and on the day — scheduled by your own phone, so they turn up whether or not the app is open.