Electric Company Cars: 100% Deductible Until 2027, and What the Deadline Is Actually Worth

Everyone selling you a car this autumn has the same line: order before New Year or lose thousands. The number is real. It is not thousands.

For a €40,000 electric company car on a five-year lease, ordering in 2026 instead of 2027 is worth about €566. For a €65,000 car, about €879. Over the whole five years — roughly €9 to €15 a month.

Worth having. Not worth a rushed configuration, a worse discount, or a car you did not actually want.

The deadline that costs real money is a different one, and it is further out. Here is the arithmetic for both.

What changes on 1 January 2027

A fully electric car bought or leased by a Belgian company is 100% deductible today. That ends for new orders at the end of 2026, and steps down every year after:

Two things about this table matter more than the percentages themselves.

The rate is fixed when you acquire the car, and it stays with that car. You do not move down the table each January. A car ordered in 2026 is 100% deductible in 2029 and in 2031, for as long as the same taxpayer uses it. This is why the comparison below runs over five full years rather than one.

The order date decides, not the delivery date. What counts is the date the order form is signed. A car ordered on 20 December 2026 and delivered in September 2027 keeps the 100% rate. Given current delivery times on some models, this is the whole practical point of the deadline.

One warning attached to that, because it is being sold badly: an order signed before the deadline with an artificially distant delivery date, arranged for no reason other than to reach the older rate, is exactly the construction the tax authority has said it will look at. A genuine order with a long lead time is fine. A parked order is not.

The calculation

Two cars at the price points that actually appear in Belgian company fleets, both on a five-year full-service operational lease.

Car A — €40,000 catalogue value. Lease €650/month excl. VAT → €39,000 over 60 months. Electricity at 18 kWh/100 km → 3,600 kWh/year → €6,300 over five years. Five-year cost base: €45,300.

Car B — €65,000 catalogue value. Lease €1,050/month excl. VAT → €63,000 over 60 months. Electricity at 21 kWh/100 km → 4,200 kWh/year → €7,350 over five years. Five-year cost base: €70,350.

The non-deductible slice is what you pay corporate tax on. At 100% there is no slice at all.

At the reduced 20% SME rate, the 2027 figures become €453 and €704; the 2029 figures €1,586 and €2,462.

So the honest version of the sales pitch: crossing from 2026 into 2027 costs you between €450 and €880 across five years, depending on the car and your tax rate. It is a real cost and it is not nothing. It is also not a reason to make a worse decision about the car.

The deadline that does cost thousands

Look at the 2029 row again. The step from 100% to 95% is worth a few hundred euro. The step from 100% to 82.5% is worth €1,982 on the small car and €3,078 on the large one — three to four times as much.

Most companies do not order a car every year. They order on a cycle, and a five-year lease signed now comes up for renewal in 2031, when new orders sit at 67.5%. The decision you are actually making this autumn is not "2026 or 2027". It is where each future renewal lands on that table.

That is the planning question worth an hour. The December deadline is worth a phone call.

What does not change either way

Two costs move with the car and not with the order date, which is why they are absent from the table above:

The benefit in kind. What the driver is taxed on depends on the catalogue value, the CO₂ coefficient and the age of the car. An identical car ordered in 2026 or 2027 produces an identical benefit in kind. It does not enter this comparison.

The CO₂ solidarity contribution. The employer's monthly contribution for an electric car is the statutory minimum, and it is indexed upward on a schedule of its own. Also identical between the two scenarios.

Both matter to the total cost of the car. Neither is affected by which side of New Year you sign, so neither belongs in a now-versus-2027 comparison. If a quote presents them as part of the deadline saving, the quote is padding the number.

One genuine adjustment in the other direction: where a contract separately identifies a financing component, that interest is not subject to the deduction limitation at all. On a full-service operational lease it is usually not split out, so the figures above treat the whole rental as limited. If your contract does split it, your gap is slightly smaller than the table shows.

What to do this week

If you were going to order an electric car anyway in the next few months, sign before 31 December 2026. The saving is modest but it is free — you were buying the car regardless.

If you are being pushed to decide quickly on a car you are unsure about, the deadline is not a good enough reason. €566 over five years does not cover a bad configuration or a lost discount.

If you run more than one car, spend the hour on the renewal cycle instead. That is where the four-figure numbers are, and unlike December's deadline it is still fully in your control.

Whichever you choose, record the order date. The rate attaches to the car for its whole life with you, which means that in 2030 someone will need to know what was signed in 2026. That is the single piece of paper this entire regime turns on, and it is the one most likely to be missing when it is needed.

Clients are being told that ordering before New Year saves them thousands. On a five-year lease it saves between €450 and €880. The number that justifies a file note is further down the schedule, not at this year's end.

This briefing sets out the step-down in article 66 CIR 92 as it applies to zero-emission cars, the date that fixes the rate, and a worked five-year comparison at two price points. Figures are computed at the 25% rate with the 20% reduced rate shown alongside.

The schedule, and what fixes a car's place in it

Zero-emission cars acquired up to 31 December 2026 are deductible at 100%. For acquisitions from 1 January 2027 the rate steps down annually:

The percentage is fixed at acquisition and applies for the entire period the same taxpayer uses the vehicle. It does not follow the calendar. A car acquired in 2026 is still deductible at 100% in 2031; a car acquired in 2027 is capped at 95% for its whole life in the business, including the years when the table has moved lower. This is the single most misread feature of the regime, and it cuts both ways — it protects an early order permanently and it penalises a late one permanently.

Consequence for the file: the acquisition year is a permanent attribute of the asset, not an annual computation. It belongs in the fixed-asset register or the lease schedule, not in the year's working papers alone.

Acquisition date means the order date

For this step-down, the operative date is the date the order form is signed, not the delivery date and not the first depreciation. A vehicle ordered in December 2026 and delivered during 2027 retains 100%.

This is a real planning instrument on models with long lead times, and clients should be told it exists. It is also the point at which the advice needs a second sentence, because the arrangement has an obvious abuse: an order concluded before 1 January 2027 carrying an extreme delivery date, entered into for the sole purpose of reaching the more favourable regime, is a construction the administration has indicated it will contest. A genuine order with a long manufacturer lead time is not the same thing and should not be advised against. The distinction is the commercial reality of the order, and the file should be able to show it — a normal quotation, a normal deposit, a delivery date consistent with the model.

The worked comparison

Two catalogue values typical of Belgian company fleets, both on a 60-month full-service operational lease, 20,000 km per year, electricity at €0.35/kWh borne by the company.

The disallowed portion is the cost base multiplied by (1 − rate); the cash effect is that portion at the corporate rate.

At the 20% reduced rate: €453 and €704 for 2027; €1,586 and €2,462 for 2029.

The 2027 step is worth a few hundred euro over five years. The 2029 step is worth three to four times that. For a client running a replacement cycle rather than a single car, the renewal year is the material variable and this year's deadline is close to noise.

What is excluded from the comparison, and why

Benefit in kind. Computed from catalogue value, CO₂ coefficient and age. Identical for the same car whether acquired in 2026 or 2027, so it cancels out of a timing comparison. It remains relevant to the total cost of the vehicle and to the 20%-of-remuneration test where the reduced corporate rate is in play — but not here.

CO₂ solidarity contribution. The employer's monthly contribution for an electric vehicle is the statutory minimum and is subject to its own indexation and scheduled increases. Also identical across the two scenarios. Quote the current figure from the client's social secretariat rather than from an article — the published minimum has moved more than once and secondary sources are inconsistent on it.

Financing component. The deduction limitation of article 66 does not extend to interest and financing charges. On a financial lease or hire purchase where interest is separately identified, that element stays fully deductible and is outside the comparison. On a full-service operational rental the invoice is normally not split, and the figures above accordingly treat the entire rental as subject to the limitation. Where a contract does identify a financing element, the gap narrows slightly.

VAT. Recovery remains governed by the professional-use rules and the 50% ceiling. Unaffected by the acquisition year, and not part of this calculation.

Scope reminders

The step-down concerns zero-emission cars. Combustion-engine cars acquired from 1 January 2026 are at 0%, and plug-in hybrids sit on their own regime. Light commercial vehicles are outside the article 66 car limitation entirely and continue on ordinary professional-use rules — check the vehicle's actual classification before applying any of the above, because clients routinely describe a bestelwagen as a company car and the answer changes completely.

For the file

• Record the order date on every electric vehicle acquired from now on, in the asset register or lease schedule. The rate is permanent and someone will need to evidence it years later.
• Where a client orders in late 2026 for 2027 delivery, keep the quotation and the order form. The lead time is the defence.
• Flag replacement years falling in 2029 and later on multi-car clients now. That is where the four-figure differences are, and it is a conversation that has to happen before the renewal, not at it.
• Do not present benefit in kind or the solidarity contribution as part of a deadline saving. They are identical on both sides of the date, and including them overstates the case to a client who may later check it.