If you are a courier driver running your own business, whether that is as a sole trader with one vehicle or a larger business running a fleet of delivery vans, you will have many business expenses. One of those expenses is almost certainly going to be the cost of putting either diesel or petrol in your delivery vehicles. In fact, bearing in mind you probably drive a huge number of miles delivering parcels every year, your fuel costs may be the biggest of all your expenses.

You may, like a lot of courier drivers, have been concerned that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to possibly increase fuel duty. Well, you can take a breather for a little while as she did not make any change in fuel duty. In fact, she has decided to keep fuel duty at its current level throughout 2025. This should come as welcome news to all courier divers who run their own delivery businesses. In fact it should also be welcome news to employed courier drivers as this news makes it possibly less likely that your employer could dispense with your services.

Back in 2022, the then Conservative Government announced that it was reducing fuel duty temporarily by 5p per litre. That temporary reduction has been extended to include 2025.

Of course, it would have been even better if the Government had announced it was going to reduce fuel duty even further in this month’s Autumn Budget but considering there were so many rumors that the Government was going to increase some taxes to raise additional monies it is pleasing that fuel duty was not one of them.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the Autumn Budget in 2025. Will the Government feel that it needs to make some changes to fuel duty to raise additional funds? We will of course try to keep our readers updated with any relevant information.