Number of Cars in the UK 2026

Because cars are racking up fewer miles each year and able to stay on the road longer than ever before (the average age of cars in the UK has risen to 8.6 years old), there are more cars on the road now than ever before. Below we summarize UK car licensing statistics including car ownership for typical UK households.

How Many Cars are Registered in the UK?

According to NimbleFins analysis of data from the Department of Transport, there were 33,282,727 cars licensed in Great Britain at the end of Q2 2025 (and 34,353,216 in the UK). If you think roads are significantly more crowded now than there were a generation ago, you're absolutely right. Over the past 30 years, the number of cars in GB has risen 55%. If growth continues at the same pace, we could have 45 million cars on British roads by 2045.

The number of registered cars rises nearly every year (with the exception of 2020, when the number of cars dropped by 0.6%)—it is startling because looking back on 30 years worth of data, 2020 was the only year that the number of registered cars decreased.

The number of cars in Great Britain continues to rise steadily, except for a small drop in 2020

Average Number of Cars per Household UK

In January 2026, the latest available figures showed that households in England had an average of 1.21 cars. However if we exclude London (the area with the lowest rate of vehicle ownership) then the typical English household had 1.3 cars. In London, households had 0.74 cars, meaning on average not every household has a car. Households in the South West have the highest rate of car ownership, with an average of 1.40 cars per household. (Note: "Cars" includes vans for this dataset.)

The biggest decrease in car ownership per household has occurred in London. In the 20 years from 2004 to 2024, the number of cars per household in London dropped 9%, from 0.81 to 0.74.

The biggest increase in car ownership per household was in the North East, where the number of cars per household grew 24% from 0.89 in 2004 to 1.11 in 2024.

The number of cars in English households

How Many Households Don't Have a Car?

In England overall, 21.8% of households don't have a car. This number is a bit skewed by London, where 41.4% of households have no car. If we consider households outside of London then 18.3% don't have a car. In other words, less than 1 in 5 households outside of London don't drive. The East, South West and South East have the highest rates of car ownership, with roughly 85% of households having at least one car or van in these areas.

Around 22% of households in England have no car or van

Households without a car generally rely on public transportation to get around, enabling them to save hundreds or thousands of pounds a year on car-related expenses like car insurance.

Note: for purposes of this section, references to "car" include both cars and vans.

Number of Cars by Fuel Type

By the end of June 2025, petrol and diesel cars still dominated British roads (accounting for 86% of cars). In fact, 55% of cars on the road were petrol and 30% were diesel. In terms of real numbers, there were 19,039,056 petrol cars and 10,405,472 diesel cars registered in the UK in mid 2025.

Notably, the mix of cars on the road is changing. In just one year, from Q2 2024 to Q2 2025, the number of plug in cars increased by 34.5%; the number of fully electric, zero emission cars increased by 38%. In contrast, the number of ICE cars dropped in the same time period (petrol registrations by 1% and diesel by 5%).

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