The UK new car market hit 1.95M in 2025 versus Germany at 2.78M and France at ~1.7M. The UK is now the third-largest European new car market, behind Germany and France, and roughly even with Italy. As recently as 2016 the UK was Europe's #2 market behind Germany - its relative decline reflects both Brexit-era supply disruptions and fleet/leasing market changes.
Three Post-Brexit Effects
First, customs friction added cost and delay to imports from the EU through 2021-2023, depressing supply. Second, the loss of EU-wide registration data sharing made cross-border purchase comparison harder. Third, the divergence of the UK ZEV mandate from EU CO2 fleet rules created two parallel regulatory regimes for OEMs.
What's Different About the UK Now
UK fleet and leasing share is higher than ever (~58% of new sales). UK BEV share at 19.7% is ahead of the EU average of ~15.5%. But the UK lost relative volume to Italy and is roughly even with Spain on a percentage growth basis since 2016.
Compare UK with Germany side-by-side on the cross-market dashboard.