I keep getting the same question from readers eyeing up a big electric family car through work: does the Kia EV9 actually stack up on salary sacrifice, or is it just a heavy number that looks tempting until the deductions land? With the benefit-in-kind rate on electric company cars stepping up from 2% to 4% in April 2026, the timing matters more than usual, so I sat down with What Car?’s EV9 review and the live EZOO salary sacrifice figures and worked through whether I’d sign for one myself.
Short version: for the right person, this is one of the few seven-seat EVs where the maths is genuinely persuasive. But “the right person” does a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, and I’ll explain who I think it isn’t for.
What the EV9 costs before salary sacrifice gets involved
Outright, this is not a cheap car. What Car? lists the EV9 from £66,645 to £83,845 depending on trim, which puts even the entry model firmly in premium-German-SUV territory. Kia’s own business pricing tells the same story. If you were buying this with your own post-tax money, I’d struggle to wave you towards it over a used alternative.
That’s exactly why salary sacrifice changes the conversation. The whole point of the scheme is that you pay for the car out of gross salary, so the headline list price stops being the number that hurts. What you actually feel is the monthly net deduction and the company car tax on top.
The numbers that actually land on your payslip
Here’s where it gets interesting. EZOO’s published examples put the seven-seat EV9 Air RWD, on a list price of around £65,000, at roughly £802 a month net for a 40% taxpayer. Step up to the GT-Line S AWD at around £75,000 and you’re looking at about £944 a month net. Those are real seven-seat configurations, not stripped demo specs, and EZOO isn’t the only scheme that offers the seven-seat layout explicitly.
Treat those figures as what they are: EZOO’s own published illustrations as of the 2025/26 tax year, not a finance offer or a personal quote. Salary sacrifice isn’t a regulated consumer-credit agreement, but the net cost still hinges on your exact salary, your tax band, your employer’s scheme and the chosen term, so your own number will differ. Any arrangement is subject to status and your employer’s scheme rules, and remember the deduction comes out of gross pay.
On top of the lease cost sits the benefit-in-kind charge. What Car? pegs the company car tax for a 40% taxpayer at £260 to £332 a month, reflecting BIK at 2% for the 2025/26 tax year and rising to 4% from April 2026. Those are illustrative figures too: your actual charge depends on the car’s P11D value and your own tax band. Even doubled, that 4% rate is trivial next to what you’d pay running a petrol seven-seater as a company car, and that gap is the entire reason these schemes work for EVs.
So roughly £800 to £950 net, plus a modest BIK charge, for a £65k to £75k seven-seat SUV that you never have to find a deposit for. Put it against what a comparable petrol SUV would cost you in BIK alone and the EV9 starts to look less like an indulgence and more like the sensible option, provided you can carry the gross deduction comfortably.
What you’re getting for the money
This isn’t a compromised EV built down to a price. The EV9 runs a 99.8kWh battery (96kWh usable), and the range holds up: What Car? quotes 349 miles WLTP for the rear-wheel-drive Air, and 313 to 315 miles for the all-wheel-drive versions. For a car this size and weight, that’s a properly usable figure rather than a brochure fantasy.
You also get a genuine seven-seater, or a six-seat layout if you prefer captain’s chairs in the middle, which is the bit that matters for the families who keep emailing me. There aren’t many electric cars that seat seven without forcing the back row to be a token gesture, and that scarcity is precisely why the EV9 is worth the attention.
It’s also a mature product now, not a launch gamble. Orders opened in July 2023, the seven-seat GT-Line S began arriving in January 2024, the Air and GT-Line followed in April 2024, and the 502bhp EV9 GT joined in June 2025 with deliveries from that September. By the time your salary sacrifice order lands in 2026 you’re buying a known quantity with the early teething sorted.
The bit that would stop me
What makes me uneasy isn’t the car, it’s the commitment. Salary sacrifice ties you to a multi-year deal, and the deduction comes out of gross pay whether your circumstances change or not. If there’s any chance you’ll leave the employer, drop below the higher-rate band, or hit a period where you need the cash flow, an £800-plus monthly gross commitment is not something to take on lightly. The savings are real, but they’re contingent on you staying a 40% taxpayer in stable employment for the length of the term.
I’d also be honest with myself about whether I actually need seven seats. If you’re really buying a five-seater that occasionally carries two extra, there are cheaper EVs that will do the salary sacrifice job for a lot less per month. The EV9’s case rests almost entirely on that third row genuinely earning its keep.
Who I’d tell to sign, and who I’d send away
If you’re a higher-rate taxpayer with a stable job, a real need for seven seats, and a driveway charger to keep the running costs honest, this is about as good as the salary sacrifice maths gets for a large EV in 2026, and I’d put my name down before April’s BIK rise has time to make anyone hesitate. The combination of a 4% benefit-in-kind rate and a £65k car you pay for out of gross salary is exactly the kind of arrangement these schemes were designed to reward.
But if your higher-rate status is shaky, your seven-seat need is occasional, or the gross deduction would leave your monthly budget gasping, I’d walk past it and look at something smaller. The EV9 is a smart company-car choice, it just isn’t a universal one, and the difference between those two things is the whole decision.
Buyer action
Where to check next
Use this as the final check before paying a deposit, signing finance paperwork or relying on a headline monthly figure.
