FullWorkings UK tax and finance calculators

Capital allowances

2026-27

What you bought

CostWhat you paid for the equipment this year, excluding reclaimable VAT. £
What it isCars are treated completely differently, so this changes the answer more than anything else here.
Which poolSpecial rate covers integral features, long-life assets and higher-emission cars.
Pool brought forwardWhat was left in this pool at the end of last year. £
Your tax rateThe allowance is a deduction, so it is worth your rate on it.

What you can claim

Tax saved this year £0.00 this year
Into the pool£0.00
Written down at—
Writing down allowance£0.00
Claimed this year£0.00
Tax saved£0.00
Carried forward£0.00
Before the pool is cleared—
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How this is worked out

Equipment is not an expense you deduct in one go. It goes through capital allowances: the annual investment allowance first, then whatever is left is written down at a percentage a year for as long as it takes.

⚠ Cars never qualify for the annual investment allowance

Whatever they cost, however the business is run. This is the single most common mistake with capital allowances, because almost everything else a business buys does qualify. A £30,000 van is relieved in full this year; a £30,000 car is relieved at a few per cent a year and takes well over a decade.

Vans, lorries and motorcycles are not cars for this purpose, so they do get the allowance. What counts as a car is a vehicle suitable for private use that was not built for transporting goods.

⚠ The main pool rate fell in April 2026

From 18% to 14%. Anything already sitting in a pool now runs off more slowly than it did, and a good deal of published material still says 18%. The special rate pool is unchanged.

The change lands on 1 April for companies and 6 April for unincorporated businesses, so a spring purchase can fall either side of it depending on which tax the business pays.

Writing down never quite finishes

It is a percentage of a shrinking balance, so mathematically the pool never reaches zero. The small pools allowance is what ends it: once the balance is at or below the threshold you can write off the whole thing in one year rather than carrying £40 of pool for a decade.

The allowance is a deduction, not a refund

Claiming £10,000 of allowances does not put £10,000 in your pocket. It reduces the profit you are taxed on, so it is worth your tax rate on it — £2,000 to a basic rate taxpayer, £2,500 to a company paying the main rate of Corporation Tax.

What this does not cover

Full expensing and the 50% first-year allowance, which let a company deduct the whole cost of new plant with no AIA limit — and which usually beat the AIA for a company buying heavily. The 40% first-year allowance from January 2026. The 100% first-year allowance on new zero-emission cars and charge points, which is the one route by which a car can be relieved in full. Structures and buildings allowance. Balancing charges when you sell something you have claimed on, which can hand the relief straight back. Short accounting periods, which reduce the AIA in proportion. And private use, which reduces the claim by the private share.

Where these figures come from

Every figure above is read from a dated rate file rather than written into the page, and each one is checked against the gov.uk page it came from. How these numbers are kept right sets out the whole process.

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