Great Britain zero-rates domestic electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027

What changed in detail

On 8 September 2026 HMRC published Revenue and Customs Brief 10 (2026) and an accompanying Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN). The measure was announced on 21 July 2026.

The TIIN states that the measure introduces a temporary zero rate of VAT for qualifying supplies of electricity in Great Britain for the period 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, and that the rate remains 5% on all other types of domestic fuel UK-wide. In Northern Ireland the rate on qualifying electricity is unchanged, and supplies there continue to be charged at the reduced rate where they qualify for relief.

The mechanism is a Treasury Order. HMRC cites sections 29A(3) and 96(9) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 as the power to amend Schedule 7A, and sections 30(4) and 96(9) as the power to amend Schedule 8. The Order restricts the Schedule 7A Group 1 reduced rate for electricity to supplies in Northern Ireland, and inserts a new Group 24 into Schedule 8, “Domestic Electricity: England and Wales and Scotland”, carrying the same qualifying descriptions as the existing relief.

That Order has been made. The Value Added Tax (Supplies of Domestic Electricity) Order 2026, SI 2026/987, was made on 7 September 2026 and laid before the House of Commons on 8 September 2026, coming into force on 1 October 2026.

:::note Correction, 21 September 2026 This record originally said the Treasury Order was “still to be made”, because the frozen change it overlays recorded that no instrument had been found at its capture date of 12 September 2026. The Order had in fact been made on 7 September and laid on 8 September — both before that capture date. The measure is law; only our search for it came back empty. The frozen entry still carries status: proposed and is append-only, so the correction is recorded here and is owed upstream as a superseding entry.

This is the same measure announced on 21 July 2026 and recorded at that earlier stage as gb-domestic-electricity-zero-rate-2026; neither entry carries a supersedes edge today. :::

What it means

A rate change with a start date three weeks out and no instrument yet is an awkward thing to configure for. HMRC does not usually publish a Brief and a TIIN for a measure that then fails to appear, so building the 0% treatment now is sensible — but going live on it before the Order is made means charging 0% with no legal basis, and unwinding that is a credit-note exercise across every domestic bill in the window.

Two traps sit in the detail. The split is geographic, not fuel-based: Northern Ireland stays at 5%, so a supplier with customers on both sides of the Irish Sea needs two treatments rather than one. And gas, heat and every other domestic fuel stay at 5% UK-wide — this is electricity only, for six months.