Buying advice · Cantonal road tax
Why the same used car costs almost twice the road tax
That motor vehicle tax differs from canton to canton is common knowledge. What almost nobody outside the motor trade knows: in most cantons the rebate for electric cars is time-limited — and the clock starts at first registration, not at purchase. Anyone taking over a three-year-old vehicle has missed most of it before ever holding the key.
Four cantons, four answers to the same question
We transcribed the tariffs of Grisons, Zurich, Lucerne, Bern, Zug, Aargau and St. Gallen from their official legislation. The calculation uses an electric car with 1’900 kg gross weight, 150 kW rated power and energy efficiency category A, bought new and kept for six years. Amounts rounded to whole francs.
| Canton | 1st year | in the 6th year | six years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grisons | CHF 90 | CHF 90 | CHF 540 |
| Zurich | CHF 46 | CHF 229 | CHF 642 |
| Lucerne | CHF 67 | CHF 333 | CHF 668 |
| Bern | CHF 85 | CHF 213 | CHF 766 |
| Zug * | CHF 190 | CHF 190 | CHF 1’140 |
| Aargau | CHF 235 | CHF 235 | CHF 1’410 |
| St. Gallen | CHF 268 | CHF 536 | CHF 2’144 |
Between St. Gallen and Grisons lies a factor of 4,0 — CHF 1’604 over six years, on one and the same vehicle. No trim level, no mileage and no bargaining changes that; what decides it is solely where the car is parked at night. The asterisk on Zug means: this canton is changing its basis of assessment, on 1 January 2027 and technology-neutrally. We calculate with the tariff in force today and say that it is going.
The part hardly anyone knows
Four of the seven cantons put a time limit on their rebate. Zurich grants it «from the year of first registration and three years thereafter», St. Gallen in the same wording, Bern likewise — Lucerne a year longer, namely five. What counts is therefore the date in the registration document, not the sales contract — and a change of holder does not reset the clock. The rebate is attached to the vehicle, not to the person.
What that costs is shown by the same electric car in Zurich over a six-year holding period: bought new, CHF 642 for the whole time; as a three-year-old used car, CHF 1’191 — 85,5 per cent more. Anyone taking over a four-year-old vehicle pays the full rate from day one.
The clock is attached to the vehicle, not to the holder. Buying a three-year-old used car means buying a rebate that is three quarters spent.
In Aargau the age changes nothing at all
Aargau calculates differently, and the difference is more than a formality. There, 20 per cent is deducted from the weight and 30 per cent from the power of a battery vehicle before the tariff even applies — the canton calls it a technology adjustment, not a rebate. It has no time limit: CHF 235 in the first year, the same amount in the tenth, whether bought new or taken over used.
A time-limited incentive rewards the first owner. An adjustment to the assessment base, by contrast, corrects the fact that a tariff based on weight systematically hits battery vehicles — they are heavy, and age does not change that. The effect shows over time: across six years Aargau is dearer than Zurich, Lucerne, Bern and Zug but markedly cheaper than St. Gallen — and the gap to St. Gallen widens every year, because there the bonus expires and in Aargau nothing expires. Zug works the same way: 50 per cent of the rates for electric passenger cars, with no time limit.
The electric advantage sits in the rebate, not in the tariff structure
For comparison, the same calculation for a combustion car: 1’600 kg gross weight, 110 kW, 1’984 cubic centimetres of displacement, 140 grams of CO₂ per kilometre, energy efficiency category C. It pays the same amount every year in all seven cantons, with no time limit and no bonus: Aargau CHF 247, Zurich CHF 248, Lucerne CHF 326, Zug CHF 330, Bern CHF 364, St. Gallen CHF 431, Grisons CHF 570.
From the fifth year the electric car in Zurich stands at CHF 229 against CHF 248 — still 7,7 per cent cheaper, no more than that. In St. Gallen it even flips: CHF 536 against CHF 431, so the electric car then pays 24,4 per cent more than the combustion car. St. Gallen taxes expressly technology-neutrally by weight and power, and the example electric car is 300 kilograms heavier and 40 kilowatts stronger. The difference comes not from the drivetrain but from the mass.
You cannot pick the canton of registration
An obvious thought, and it does not hold: under Article 22 of the Road Traffic Act, the canton of location is responsible. And under Article 77 of the Admission to Road Traffic Ordinance, the location is «the place where the vehicle is as a rule parked for the night after use» — not the seat of a company and certainly not the cheapest tariff. If a company car returns to the company seat on average twice a month over the weekend, the seat counts again.
Anyone moving the location obtains a new registration document (Art. 11 para. 3 SVG); waiting too long risks a fine. Nothing is paid twice: the former canton of location must refund the tax for the remaining period, which is stated in Article 105 paragraph 2 of the same act.
What this means for a purchase
Over six years the road tax on a new electric car ranges between CHF 540 and CHF 2’144 — noticeable, but rarely decisive on its own. On a used car in a canton with a time-limited rebate it almost doubles, and that is precisely where it usually goes uncalculated: buying used is taken to be the cheap route anyway.
In practice that means two things. Once the place of residence is settled, the date of first registration belongs in the check before a used purchase — not just the odometer. And anyone hesitating between two vehicles is better off calculating the tax over the whole holding period than over the first year: in the tab Total cost our calculator does that for these cantons from the tariff in force, and the field «age at purchase» shifts the deadline along with it.
What we do not know
- 19 cantons are missing. We only enter tariffs that a monthly run holds against the canton’s official page — without that counter-check, a table copied out once would be wrong after a year and would go on looking right.
- St. Gallen publishes no worked example. Whether the canton rounds to whole francs like Aargau or to five centimes like Bern is therefore open; we calculate unrounded, and a deviation of up to one franc from its own calculator is possible.
- Municipal surcharges, special provisions for disabled drivers and rebates outside the energy label are not covered.
- The two example vehicles are set, not measured: we do not hold a vehicle file with weight and power per model. It stands as an open item in the register.
The amounts above apply to these example values. Anyone entering their own vehicle gets different figures — the mechanism behind them stays the same, and it is the reason this article exists at all.
Sources: Canton of Zurich, Road Tax Act (VAG 741.1) and Road Tax Ordinance (VAV 741.11). Canton of Bern, Act on the Taxation of Road Vehicles (BSFG 761.611). Canton of Aargau, Road Tax Act (SAR 755.100) and Road Tax Ordinance (SAR 755.112). Canton of St. Gallen, Act on Road Traffic Levies (sGS 711.70). Federal law: Road Traffic Act (SR 741.01) Art. 11, 22, 99 and 105, and Admission to Road Traffic Ordinance (SR 741.51) Art. 77, retrieved via Fedlex.
For transparency: the tariffs are transcribed from the official sources of the cantons and are held automatically against those same pages every month; if a figure deviates, the run fails. The calculation uses the same code as the total-cost calculator on the home page, and every figure in this article is recomputed from it on every build — in all four languages. The two example vehicles are set assumptions, not a measurement on a specific model.
