What a home EV charger costs in 2026
A 7kW home charger costs £700 to £1,200 fully installed. The unit is roughly £400 to £700; the rest is the electrician, cabling and any board work. Most straightforward installs land around £800 to £1,000. If you rent or live in a flat, a government grant can take up to £500 off that. The calculator below estimates your cost after any grant you qualify for.
What will a home charger cost you?
Tell us your situation and the install type. We estimate the fitted price, apply any grant you qualify for, and show how fast it pays back on an off-peak tariff.
You pay, after grant
£
Payback assumes about £350 a year saved by charging on a 7p off-peak tariff instead of the price cap.
Charger costs are 2026 UK installed prices. EV chargepoint grant up to £500 from 1 April 2026 for renters, flat owners, landlords and on-street parking (GOV.UK). Confirm eligibility before ordering.
The belief that misreads the charger
Most people weigh a home charger as a convenience cost: "do I really need to spend £900 when the car comes with a plug-in lead?" Framed that way, it looks like an optional luxury. It is the wrong frame. The charger is not mainly about charging faster; it is about charging cheaper.
A 3-pin lead can only trickle power at the standard rate. A smart 7kW charger can schedule charging into an off-peak EV tariff window priced around 7p per kWh, less than a third of the price cap. That scheduling ability is what turns an EV from "fine" to "remarkably cheap", and it is the part the convenience framing misses entirely.
What you are actually paying for
A home-charger bill has three parts:
- 1.The unit (£400 to £700): a 7kW smart wallbox. Above this, brands differ on app quality and looks more than on charging speed; most homes are single-phase, which caps charging at 7kW regardless.
- 2.Installation (£300 to £600): a qualified installer, the cabling, isolators and any consumer-unit work. This is the variable part, a long cable run or a board upgrade pushes it up.
- 3.The grant (minus up to £500): only for renters, flat owners, landlords and on-street parkers. Homeowners with a driveway pay the full amount.
Note the single-phase ceiling: a "22kW" charger needs a three-phase supply that most UK homes do not have, so paying extra for one is usually wasted on a typical house. A 7kW unit fully charges an average EV overnight, which is all home charging needs to do.
The £500 EV chargepoint grant: who actually qualifies
The grant history matters because it is the source of most confusion. The original home grant was open to all homeowners, then withdrawn for houses with driveways in 2022. What remains, and was increased to up to £500 from 1 April 2026, is targeted at the people without a simple owned-driveway option:
- Renters (with the landlord's consent) and flat owners;
- Residential landlords fitting chargers for tenants;
- Households with on-street parking and no private driveway.
If that is you, the grant covers close to half a typical install, and the approved installer normally claims it on your behalf so you just pay the reduced price. If you own a house with a driveway, there is no home grant, but the charger still pays for itself through the off-peak tariff it unlocks.
The insider view: the charger is a tariff key
Here is the point the convenience framing buries. The home charger's payback does not come from the grant or from charging speed. It comes from the tariff it lets you onto. Off-peak EV tariffs require a smart charger that can schedule, so the £800 box is the entry ticket to charging at roughly 7p per kWh instead of 24.67p.
The payback nobody quotes An average driver saves around £350 a year by charging on a 7p off-peak tariff rather than the price cap. So even with no grant, an £800 charger pays for itself in a little over two years, then saves £350 every year after. With the £500 grant, a renter's net £300 charger pays back in under a year. Measured against the off-peak tariff it unlocks, a home charger is one of the fastest-returning upgrades a household can make.
This reframes the decision completely. The question is not "is a charger worth £900 for convenience?" It is "is it worth £900 to access electricity at a third of the price for the life of the car?" Put that way, the answer is almost always yes.
What to actually do
Fit a 7kW smart charger, not 22kW
Most homes are single-phase and cannot use 22kW. A 7kW smart unit charges overnight and schedules off-peak, which is all you need.
Check grant eligibility first
If you rent, own a flat or park on-street, claim the up-to-£500 grant. The installer usually applies it for you.
Pair it with an off-peak EV tariff
The charger only saves money if you move onto a 7p overnight tariff and let it schedule. That is where the £350 a year lives.
Get an OZEV-authorised installer
Grant claims require an approved installer. Get two or three quotes and check the cable run and any board work are included.
The bottom line
A home EV charger costs £700 to £1,200 fitted, less up to £500 if you rent or live in a flat. But its value is not speed or even the grant, it is the off-peak tariff it unlocks, worth about £350 a year. On that basis the charger pays for itself in two to three years and saves every year after. Fit a 7kW smart unit, claim the grant if you can, and above all get onto an off-peak EV tariff, because that is where the charger earns its keep.
Home charger FAQ
The Selectra expert answers your questions
A 7kW home charger costs £700 to £1,200 fully installed, with most installs landing around £800 to £1,000. The charger unit itself is roughly £400 to £700; the rest is installation, cabling and the electrician's time. A simple install on a wall next to the consumer unit is cheapest; long cable runs, a fuse-board upgrade or a buried armoured cable across a driveway add cost.
Yes, if you rent or live in a flat. From 1 April 2026 the EV chargepoint grant rose to up to £500 (from £350) and covers renters, flat owners, residential landlords, households with on-street parking and businesses, running until March 2027. Homeowners of houses with their own driveway are generally not eligible, that grant was withdrawn in 2022. Check the live rules on GOV.UK.
A standard 3-pin "granny" lead works but charges at about 2.3kW, roughly 8 miles of range an hour, so a full charge takes a day or more and it is not designed for daily use. A 7kW wallbox charges around three times faster (a full charge overnight) and, crucially, is a smart charger that can schedule charging into a cheap off-peak window. That scheduling, not the speed, is the real reason to fit one.
Because it unlocks a dedicated off-peak EV tariff. A smart 7kW charger schedules charging into the overnight window where electricity costs around 7p per kWh instead of the 24.67p price cap. For an average driver that is roughly £350 a year saved on charging, so an £800 charger pays for itself in two to three years, then keeps saving.
Tethered has the cable permanently attached, more convenient day to day. Untethered has just a socket, so you use your own cable, which keeps the unit tidy, lets you upgrade the cable, and suits multiple cars or future-proofing. Cost is similar. For a single car charged at home daily, tethered is usually the easier choice; untethered is the more flexible one.