Written by Peter Allen MAAT, co-founder and Finance Director of Buzz Accounting, with more than 20 years in accountancy.
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For benefit in kind and for capital allowances, most are now cars. HMRC applies a primary suitability test, and a double-cab is typically equally suited to carrying people and goods, so it has no predominant suitability and is treated as a car. The transitional rules differ, which is why so much of what is written about this is wrong. For benefit in kind, a vehicle purchased, leased or ordered before 6 April 2025 keeps the old van treatment until the earlier of disposal, lease expiry or 5 April 2029. For capital allowances the window is far shorter: a contract entered into before commencement, with the expenditure incurred before 1 October 2025. The VAT treatment did not change at all, and pick-ups under one tonne payload were already cars.
"Van or car" is not one question. The same vehicle can be treated one way for VAT, another for capital allowances and another for benefit in kind, and the answers do not have to agree with each other. Working out one of them and assuming it settles the others is the mistake that costs money here.
HMRC no longer treats the capital allowances and benefit-in-kind definitions of a car as excluding double-cab pick-ups by reference to payload in the way it previously did. The change came with transitional arrangements, and there are two different transitional dates depending on which tax you are looking at.
That means the answer for a specific vehicle depends on when it was bought or ordered, and which of the three questions you are asking. The right answer cannot be given without the dates.
The capital allowances calculator shows what the relief is worth under each treatment.
This question is part of Vans, tools and capital allowances, which covers the whole area.
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