The EV Road User Charge Is Stalled in Canberra — But NSW Has a Date and a Rate
If you drive an electric vehicle — or run a fleet that's been adding them — you've probably heard that a per-kilometre road tax is coming. What you may not have heard is how differently that story is playing out in Canberra and in Sydney.
In Canberra, the charge is on ice
A national road user charge for EVs was expected to be outlined in the May federal budget, ahead of a possible 2028 start. It wasn't. With EV sales surging and fuel prices at record levels, federal Transport Minister Catherine King all but ruled it out for now, saying the government doesn't want to disincentivise EV uptake and "it may not be the time for it right now". The policy hasn't been abandoned — Treasury has been working on it since 2025 — but there's no model, no rate and no legislation.
In NSW, there's a date and a price
The NSW Government's position, restated on its Electric Vehicle Strategy pages as recently as July, is that a distance-based road user charge will apply to eligible EVs from 1 July 2027 — or earlier, if EVs reach 30 per cent of new vehicle sales first. The indexed rate for 2026–27 is 3.095 cents per kilometre for battery and hydrogen fuel cell EVs, and 2.476 cents per kilometre for plug-in hybrids.
That 30 per cent trigger matters. Roughly one in five new cars sold in Australia is now electric, and the share has been climbing fast. If the trend holds, the sales trigger could arrive before the calendar date does. NSW EV owners shouldn't assume they have until mid-2027.
There's a constitutional catch
Victoria tried this first, charging EV owners 2.8 cents per kilometre from 2021. In 2023 the High Court struck the scheme down in Vanderstock v Victoria, ruling that a state-imposed distance charge was an excise only the Commonwealth can levy — and Victoria had to refund every dollar. NSW says it is still assessing what that decision means for its own charge. So the honest picture is: the Commonwealth can levy this tax but has chosen not to yet, while NSW has scheduled one it may not constitutionally be able to collect. Something has to give, and the most likely resolution is a federal scheme that the states plug into.
So what would it actually cost you?
Take a typical 15,000 km year. Under the NSW rate, a battery EV would pay about $464 a year (15,000 × 3.095 cents); a plug-in hybrid about $371 — plus the excise on every litre of petrol it still burns. Meanwhile a petrol car using 8 litres per 100 km pays roughly $644 a year in fuel excise at the current 53.7 cents per litre — it's just hidden in the pump price rather than arriving as a bill. On those averages, an EV still comes out ahead even after the charge. But averages are exactly the problem: your annual kilometres, your tariff, your fuel use and your vehicle mix decide whether the charge is a rounding error or a real cost.
This is a cost-per-kilometre question
You can only answer it with your own numbers. Whole-of-life cost is everything the vehicle costs you — energy or fuel, rego, insurance, servicing, tyres, and soon a road user charge — divided by the kilometres it actually travels. Most drivers know neither number. Odomly records both: trips are captured automatically with GPS and odometer entries are date-stamped, while fuel, charging and running costs are logged against each vehicle. That turns "how does this legislation affect me?" from a guess into arithmetic — your real cost per kilometre today, and exactly what adding 3.095 cents to it does. For a fleet, the same report runs per vehicle, so you can see which EVs, hybrids and petrol utes actually cost what — before a charging period ever opens.
When the charge arrives, the evidence is already there
Every scheme proposed so far works off a dated odometer reading at the start and end of the period and the kilometres in between — Victoria's version literally ran on odometer photos. Odomly users will have day-one readings and a verified kilometre history for every vehicle as a report, not a reconstruction.
No one can tell you yet what you'll pay, or when. But everyone can tell you what it will be priced in: kilometres — so the smartest move is knowing your cost per kilometre before the government does. Odomly is free for personal use at odomly.com, with fleet plans that put every vehicle on the same ledger.