EV home charging in 2026-27: the ATO's 5.47c/km rate

Published 29 October 2026 · 5 min read

If you charge an electric car at home, the ATO's shortcut rate for valuing that electricity has gone up by about 30%. Here's what the 5.47c/km rate is, when it starts for FBT and for income tax, and how to use it.

What changed

When you charge a car at home, the electricity goes through the same meter as your fridge and air-con, so the real charging cost is hard to separate. The ATO's Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2024/2 offers a shortcut: multiply a fixed cents-per-kilometre rate by the relevant kilometres the car travelled, and the ATO won't dedicate compliance resources to reviewing that figure.

On 25 March 2026 the ATO added a new rate to the guideline. It's now 5.47 cents per km, up from 4.20 cents per km.

According to the guideline's notes, the new figure is based on the top 40 selling EVs from July 2021 to June 2025, their energy use from the Green Vehicle Guide, and the national average electricity price for 2025-26 from the Australian Energy Market Commission. It's a national average, so it doesn't change with your own tariff.

Who can use it

Employers can use it when they provide an EV or plug-in hybrid for private use (a car fringe benefit or residual benefit) or reimburse car expenses, the car is charged at an employee's home, and the charging cost can't practically be separated from other household power. This is the common novated lease situation. Even though eligible zero-emissions cars can be exempt from FBT, the employer still works out a value for the reportable fringe benefits amount, and the rate helps with that.

Individuals can use it when they use an EV or plug-in hybrid to earn income, pay for the home electricity used to charge it, and keep the records the ATO asks for. In practice that mostly matters for people claiming car expenses with the logbook method.

How the maths works

For a fully electric car the sum is simple: total relevant kilometres for the year, from odometer records, multiplied by the rate.

Example: a novated lease EV travels 15,000 km in the FBT year from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 and is charged only at home. At 5.47c/km the home charging cost is 15,000 x $0.0547 = $820.50. At the old 4.20c/km rate the same distance came to $630.00, so the new rate recognises $190.50 more.

If the car's app can accurately report the share of charging done at home, say 80%, you apply that share to the kilometres first: 12,000 km x $0.0547 = $656.40. Without that reporting, you use the rate on all kilometres and leave out any public charging costs.

For plug-in hybrids the guideline adds a few steps: work out the petrol kilometres from your actual petrol costs, take them from total kilometres to get electricity kilometres, multiply those by the rate, then add the actual petrol costs back.

Why your real cost might be very different

Because 5.47c/km is an average, it can sit well above or below what you actually pay. As an illustration, a car using 16 kWh per 100 km costs about 1.28c/km to charge on an 8c/kWh overnight tariff, and about 5.6c/km on a 35c/kWh peak tariff. Cheap off-peak or solar charging can make the fixed rate look generous; mostly peak charging can make it look thin. You can use actual costs instead if you have the evidence, but the choice applies for the whole year for that car.

Records to keep

• Odometer readings at the start and end of the FBT year (to 31 March) or income year (to 30 June).
• A valid logbook if you or your employer use the operating cost or logbook method.
• For a home charging share, the car or charger report that shows it.
• For plug-in hybrids, your actual petrol receipts.