Will French aid to buy a zero emission car drop in 2025?

A financial aid bonus from the French government to help people buy a new electric car is set to drop by €1,000 in 2025.

The ‘bonus écologique’ aid is expected to drop from January 1, 2025, reported specialist website L'Argus on October 2. This would mean the total amount available through this particular bonus would be capped at €3,000.

(The current cap of €4,000 is for households in the highest five income deciles (brackets). For eligible households in the lower brackets, the total amount available in aid is €7,000.)

No official government announcement has yet been made, but L’Argus received the notice from a car manufacturer, which had reportedly received an official government circular informing them of this change. The aid is set to drop to €3,000 from January 1, 2025, the circular stated.

Expected change

The change is not a big surprise; the aid typically reduces every year, having dropped from €5,000 in 2023 to €4,000 in 2024. Similarly, before he left office, former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said he was considering a reduction in his 2025 budget. Michel Barnier appears to be continuing this policy.

The exact conditions for receiving the €3,000 aid in 2025 have not yet been confirmed, but at the end of August, Mr Attal suggested that they would be more stringent than in previous years, as part of wider governmental budget cuts.

Only the households with the most financial need would be likely to qualify, he suggested.

Read also: Explained: Electric vehicle grants, maintenance and charging in France 
Read also: How electric car grants are changing in France 

Electric vehicle criteria

So far, the bonus écologique aid is available to help drivers with the purchase of a new electric vehicle weighing less than 2.4 tonnes, with a selling price of less than €47,000. 

The vehicle must also meet environmental criteria, as laid out by the French agency for the ecological transition, Ademe. These not only relate to the CO₂ emissions of the vehicle, but also the materials used in its manufacture and assembly, and the eco-friendliness of its transport between the vehicle's production line, and its distribution location.

In 2023, the bonus had cost the state more than €1.7 billion, which has prompted the government to consider ways to reduce this. By 2025, the budget for electric vehicle aid is set to drop from €1.5 billion to €1 billion, including social leasing plans, per information relayed by Les Echos.

Read also: Here is the list of electric cars eligible for aid in France in 2024 

It comes after the government’s social leasing scheme was oversubscribed almost as soon as it launched in 2024. More than 50,000 applications were received, instead of the 20,000 planned. 

This prompted the government to close the scheme to applications early, and re-evaluate its capacity for 2025.

Read also: €100-a-month electric car scheme closed for 2024 due to demand