The Department for Transport's vehicle statistics team has kindly released to me a dataset of counts for licensed vehicles in the UK at the end of 2025, for:
- Census 2021 Output Areas in England and Wales,
- Census 2022 Output Areas in Scotland, and
- Census 2021 Data Zones in Northern Ireland
The data was released with permission to re-use it as open data under the Open Government Licence.
You can download the CSV file containing the data, along with the DfT correpondence:
OA21_VEH_2025Q4 data and docs [20260517].zip (8.37 MB zipped)
This is the most granular dataset available to the public for mapping and analysis of where vehicles are registered in the UK.
DfT provided the data in response to information requests I made under the Freedom of Information Act and the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations. This was a repeat of requests I made in previous years for the same dataset as at the end of 2022, as at the end of 2023, and as at the end of 2024. Those earlier releases were all based on Census 2011 geography.
The vehicle counts are broken down by body type, keepership, and licence status.
The data is compatible with DfT's published table df_VEH0125, which is at LSOA level.
However, this OA dataset is not an official statistical output.
Following from an ICO decision in 2022, there is no suppression of small numbers in the dataset.
The data is in the following format:
| OA21 | BodyType | Keepership | LicenceStatus | VehicleCount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E00000001 | Cars | COMPANY | Licensed | 4 |
| E00000001 | Cars | PRIVATE | Licensed | 44 |
| E00000001 | Cars | PRIVATE | SORN | 4 |
| E00000003 | Light goods vehicles | PRIVATE | Licensed | 2 |
| E00000003 | Motorcycles | PRIVATE | Licensed | 7 |
| E00000003 | Motorcycles | PRIVATE | SORN | 2 |
Please note that the location of the vehicle is based on the DVLA Registered Keeper Address, which is not necessarily that of the owner or driver of the vehicle.
DfT would like the following noted:
"Vehicles are allocated to an output area according to the postcode of the registered keeper. This is the keeper's address for privately owned vehicles or the company's registered address for company owned vehicles. The address does not necessarily reflect where the vehicle is located. This is especially true for large fleets kept by companies involved with vehicle management, leasing or rentals. Significant changes in the number of vehicles from year to year can often occur when these companies change their registered address."
If you want to map or analyse this data in GIS, 2021 Output Area boundaries for England and Wales are available from ONS. 2022 OA boundaries for Scotland are available from NRS and 2021 Data Zone boundaries for Northern Ireland are available from Nisra.
Thanks to DfT's vehicle statistics team for supplying this data on behalf of DVLA.