Electric Car Purchase Grant

You must be a private individual buying the car for private use. This offer covers the M1 vehicle category—passenger cars. Commercially registered passenger cars do not receive this grant. Dealer purchases for demonstration stock have their own grant category.

The car must be a new battery-electric vehicle, powered entirely by electricity, and an SEAI-approved model and variant. Plug-in hybrids and other cars with a combustion engine are outside this BEV-only offer. It must be registered for the first time in Ireland: a car previously registered in Ireland or another country is ineligible, including a used import.

SEAI’s vehicle-approval criteria include zero tailpipe carbon-dioxide emissions, more than 100 km of range per charge, the ability to reach 100 km/h on level ground under normal conditions, and a vehicle warranty including the battery of at least three years or 100,000 km. The importer supplies the conformity and warranty documents; buy through a dealer approved to sell that model under the scheme.

The vehicle must be registered and taxed as private. It must remain in the private registration category for six months from the date of the Letter of Offer. A change to another category, such as company registration, rescinds the offer and prevents payment to the dealer.

Status

Doorlopend open

Beperkingen per ronde

• Apply through an approved dealer before first registration and motor taxation.
• Grants are first come, first served within available scheme funding.
• The offer normally expires after four months or at calendar year-end, whichever is earlier; registration, tax and claim submission must be within its validity.

Use SEAI’s dealer register, which can be filtered by county and car make, to find an approved dealer. Agree the exact vehicle variant and the price breakdown with the dealer. The dealer completes the online application; both you and the dealer sign the application form before it is submitted. Check that the full starting price, grant deduction and final price are clear.

The dealer must obtain SEAI’s Letter of Offer before the car is registered or taxed. Both registration and first motor taxation must fall within the offer’s start and expiry dates. The offer normally expires after four months or on 31 December of the approval year, whichever comes first, unless SEAI states otherwise. All payment-claim information must also reach SEAI before that expiry.

If the exact variant on the application is wrong, the dealer must contact SEAI and submit a corrected application as directed. Do not proceed on the assumption that the vehicle details can be changed afterwards. If delivery is delayed beyond the offer period, the dealer must cancel the existing grant and reapply. If you decide not to buy the car, the dealer submits a cancellation request.

At handover, complete payment for the car and sign the transaction document with the dealer. The dealer submits it with the invoice, registration number and handover date. The invoice must show your name and address, the starting price, VAT and VRT, discounts or trade-in amounts, the SEAI grant deducted, the final price and confirmation that it is paid in full.

SEAI checks the vehicle’s first registration, tax dates, exact variant and the dealer’s valid tax clearance and insurance before paying the dealer. Grants are available first come, first served within the scheme budget. If a year’s payment budget is exhausted, payments to dealers can be deferred until further funds become available, with deferred payments then taking priority.

The dealer must give SEAI and its agents access to its business premises within seven days of a request, except where SEAI accepts exceptional circumstances. Breaches can lead to cancellation, refusal of payment or recovery of grant money from the dealer; the repayment deadline is one month from SEAI’s written demand.