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Electric vehicles · Ireland

SEAI EV Home Charger Grant & Charging Cost Checker

The grant decision and the charging-cost decision are separate, and this checker answers both. A charger can still make financial sense without a grant if it replaces regular public fast charging, so the result carries a payback as well as an eligibility route. No off-street parking is not treated as an automatic refusal either: SEAI funds a charger-arm or similar solution where the local authority has declared the work exempted development or granted permission. And before any of that, it checks whether an ordinary three-pin lead would keep up with your mileage overnight, because for a lot of drivers it would.

Interactive tool

Enter your details

An eligibility route, the charger cost after any grant, whether a plug-in lead would keep up instead, cost per 100 km, annual comparisons and simple payback against public charging.

Step 1 of 3Grant route · Costs
  1. Grant route · Costs, step 1
  2. Driving · Energy prices, step 2
  3. Petrol comparison, step 3

Grant route

Do you have private off-street parking?
Has this property already received the home-charger grant?
Is this apartment or shared residential parking?

Costs

The installer's quoted price before the grant is taken off. The grant is deducted for you.

Nothing is saved. Your inputs are used only to calculate this result.

Personalised answer

Your result stays in view

Complete 3 short steps and this panel fills with your answer.

  • A direct answer to the question, in one line
  • The figures behind it, broken down
  • Practical next steps and the assumptions used

Evidence

The figures this tool uses

€300
Home-charger grant maximum
The lesser of €300 or the eligible cost. It needs a charger on the SEAI register, a Safe Electric contractor and approval before the work begins.
SEAI Electric Vehicle Home Charger Grant · checked 24 August 2026
2.3 kW
Delivery rate of an ordinary three-pin lead
On a 10 A domestic socket. Over an eight-hour night that is about 18 kWh, which is more than many drivers need.
Verdanyx modelling assumption · checked 24 August 2026

Before you begin

What you need to check the EV charger grant

  • Use a consumption figure measured at the charger, so charging losses are included.

  • Enter the public tariff you would actually use rather than assuming every public session is a fast charge.

Reading the answer

Understanding your grant and charging costs

The grant route comes out as eligible, not eligible, or redirected to the apartment scheme.

Payback compares charging at home with charging in public. It says nothing about the cost of buying the car.

Boundaries

Assumptions and limitations

Working assumptions

  • The home grant is the lesser of €300 or eligible cost and requires a registered smart charger and Safe Electric contractor.
  • Driving costs exclude vehicle purchase, maintenance, tax and insurance.

Where to be careful

  • Without off-street parking the charger-arm route needs a local-authority planning declaration or permission first. This tool does not model that step, and it can decide whether the project happens at all.
  • Apartment infrastructure follows a separate scheme and may involve an owners’ management company.
  • SEAI approval must be in place before works begin.

Worked example

The same question, answered end to end

A driver with off-street parking, 17,000 km a year, a car using 17 kWh per 100 km, charging at home on a 21c night rate against a 59c public tariff.

What was entered

  • Private off-street parking, no previous grant on the property, not an apartment.
  • €1,100 quoted to supply and fit the charger.
  • 17,000 km a year at 17 kWh per 100 km.
  • Home charging at 21c per kWh; public charging at 59c; petrol at €1.80 a litre against 6 L per 100 km.

How it is worked out

  1. Eligibility passes on all three questions, so the grant is the lesser of €300 and the quote: €300, leaving €800 to pay.

  2. 17,000 km at 17 kWh per 100 km is 2,890 kWh a year.

  3. At 21c that is about €607 at home; the same energy at 59c in public is about €1,705.

  4. The petrol comparison is 17,000 km at 6 L per 100 km — 1,020 litres — at €1.80.

  5. Daily need is 2,890 ÷ 365 ≈ 7.9 kWh, against roughly 18.4 kWh a three-pin lead delivers over eight hours, so the tool says a lead would keep up.

  6. Payback is the €800 net cost divided by the annual saving against public charging.

What the tool returns

Charger cost after any grant
€800
Charging at home
€3.57/100 km
Charging in public
€10/100 km
The same distance on petrol
€11/100 km

Common questions

Questions about this tool

Do I need to own an EV before applying?

No. SEAI states that homeowners can apply whether or not they already own an electric vehicle.

Can I install first and claim later?

No. Work completed before the grant offer is issued is ineligible.

Maintenance

What has changed in this tool

  1. 24 August 2026

    Version 2026-08-24.1

    No off-street parking is no longer answered as a flat refusal. SEAI funds a charger-arm or similar solution where a property has none, provided the local authority declares the work exempted development under section 5 or grants permission for it, and the tool was unaware of that route. The €300 maximum, the Safe Electric contractor requirement and the approval-before-installation rule were checked against SEAI's published wording in the same pass and are unchanged; the scheme documents themselves could not be opened from the working environment.

    Source for this change

  2. 25 July 2026

    Version 2026-07-25.1

    A three-pin lead is now costed alongside the wallbox. “Do I need a charger at all?” is a real question with a real answer for a low-mileage driver, and the tool only ever compared a wallbox against public charging.

    Source for this change