Van Maintenance Costs UK: What to Budget Per Vehicle Per Year

Published 30 October 2026

Ask most small firms what they budget for van maintenance and you'll get a shrug. They pay when something breaks, and it always breaks in the busiest week of the year. That's not a budget, that's hoping.

My view is simple: every van should have a pot of money behind it, filled a bit every month, before anything goes wrong. Here's what I'd put in it, how I'd get to the number, and how to replace my guesses with your own figures.

The short answer

Here's a rough yearly budget for maintenance only. That means MOT, servicing, tyres, brakes, consumables and repairs. It leaves out fuel, tax, insurance, finance, depreciation and accident damage.

Item	Smaller, newer van	Larger or older van
MOT (once it's 3+ years old)	£40-£55	£45-£60
Servicing	£150-£250	£300-£600
Tyres (spread over their life)	£120-£200	£250-£400
Brakes (spread over their life)	£100-£200	£200-£400
Wipers, bulbs, battery, fluids, AdBlue	£80-£150	£150-£300
Unplanned repairs buffer	£250-£500	£600-£1,000
Roughly, per year	£750-£1,350	£1,550-£2,750

Be clear on what these are. They're planning figures, built from typical UK garage price ranges for each job, and not quotes. Your garage, your region and your van will move them around. Think of the table as a sensible place to start, not gospel.

A mid-life panel van sits between the two columns, which is why I'd start with about £125 a month per van and adjust from there.

What's in each line

MOT

The test itself is the cheap bit. DVSA sets a maximum fee: £54.85 for vehicles up to 3,000kg design gross weight (which covers a lot of vans) and £58.60 for goods vehicles over 3,000kg up to 3,500kg. Those are the figures on DVSA's published MOT test fees, and they were right when I wrote this, but check before you rely on them. Plenty of garages charge less than the maximum.

The test fee isn't the cost to worry about. A fail is. A partial retest is capped at half the test fee, but the repair that caused the fail comes on top. That's why the buffer line exists.

New vans don't need their first MOT until their third anniversary, so you can budget nothing for the first couple of years. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Servicing

A full service on a van typically runs from the low hundreds to a few hundred pounds, depending on the size of the van and who's doing it. Vans doing heavy mileage often need an interim service between the full ones, so don't assume it's one a year. Follow the manufacturer's schedule, and if you're not sure which applies to your van, ask the garage to tell you what's due and why.

Tyres

Vans are hard on tyres because of the weight they carry. The legal minimum tread depth is 1.6mm across the central three-quarters of the tyre, but I'd replace well before that. A set of four is a proper chunk of money, so I spread it across the 2-3 years they tend to last and put a bit aside each month. Then it's not a shock when the day comes.

Brakes

Loaded vans eat pads and discs. Pads on their own are the cheaper job, and pads plus discs is the bigger one. Both come round every few tens of thousands of miles, so I annualise it the same way as tyres.

Wipers, bulbs, battery, fluids and AdBlue

It's boring, but it adds up. Many modern diesel vans also use AdBlue, which is a running cost people forget to put in the budget. A blown bulb or a dead wiper is also one of the most annoying ways to fail an MOT, because it's cheap to fix and expensive to be caught out by.

The unplanned repairs buffer

This is the line most people leave out, and the one that matters most. Clutches, suspension, alternators, sensors and the rest don't ask permission. A buffer isn't pessimism, it's what makes a bad week boring instead of a crisis.

Why age and mileage matter more than van size

I'd say a van's age and mileage tell you more about its costs than its badge does:

Years 1-3: cheap. No MOT, little wear, maybe a warranty. Don't let this lull you into budgeting nothing.
Years 4-7: this is where tyres, brakes and the first big wear items turn up together. It's the stretch that catches people out.
Beyond that: the repair buffer grows. A cheap old van is often only cheap on the day you buy it.

If a van does a lot of miles, push your budget towards the higher column no matter how old it is.

How to work out your own number in an afternoon

My table is a starting point. Your real invoices are better. Here's how I'd do it:

Gather the last 12 months of garage invoices for each van. Your accounting software or a pile of receipts will do.
Sort them into planned and unplanned. Planned means MOT, services, tyres and brakes. Unplanned is everything that arrived by surprise.
Total each van on its own. You may find one van costing double the others, which is worth knowing.
Add what you already know is coming. Last year's MOT advisories are a free preview. You can read them on the GOV.UK MOT history checker, and I've written about how to use it properly in DVSA MOT History Checker: How to Use It for Fleet Vehicles.
Divide the yearly total by 12. That's the monthly pot for that van.

After a year of doing this, my figures can go in the bin and yours take over.

How to spend less without cutting corners

I'm not telling anyone to skimp. Skimping on a van that earns your living is the daftest saving there is. But there's plenty of waste to cut out:

Don't miss dates. A missed MOT or a van off the road costs far more than the test. How to Never Miss an MOT Date Again (Free Tools Inside) covers how.
Catch small faults early. A regular check routine finds a worn tyre or a failing bulb before it's an MOT fail or a breakdown. Setting Up a Vehicle Check Routine for a 3-5 Van Fleet shows you how to set one up.
Know which van is the expensive one. If one van keeps eating money, that's information. Without records, you'll never spot it.
Get more than one quote for the big jobs. Obvious, but it's amazing how often it isn't done.

How FleetGuv helps

You can't budget from records you don't have. That's why FleetGuv has a maintenance log for every van: you log the work that's due and the work that's booked, and the costs are recorded as you go. When your accountant wants the numbers, you export them to a CSV that's set up for Xero and QuickBooks. All your vans' costs end up in one place, ready for you to see which one is the money pit.

If you want to see how it works, the FleetGuv pricing page has the details.

The short version

Budget for every van, every month, before something breaks.
As a starting point, roughly £750-£1,350 a year for a smaller, newer van and £1,550-£2,750 for a larger or older one, plus fuel, tax and insurance on top.
Don't skip the unplanned repairs line. It's the one that saves you.
After 12 months of records, use your own numbers and bin mine.

Written by Chris, Founder of FleetGuv