Today’s article is written by a friend of moneystepper, Justin Januszewski. With plentiful experience in the cycling arena, including cycle to work scheme purchases with two separate employers, he is perfectly placed to share his knowledge on whether the cycle to work scheme is worth it, and what potential savings are possible. Enjoy.
What Is The Cycle To Work Scheme?
Here in the UK, forward thinking businesses with an eye on employee wellbeing have long been extolling the virtues of the Cycle to Work Scheme. The scheme was introduced by the government in 1999 and allows businesses to loan cycles and equipment to employees as a tax free benefit via salary sacrifice.
But what does this mean in practice and how does it actually save you money? Let’s walk through the elements of the scheme and the pros and cons to answer if the cycle to work scheme is worth it.
How Does The Cycle To Work Scheme Operate?
The scheme allows you to choose a bike from a participating shop. Which shops will depend on your employer and the scheme provider they’ve partnered with. For instance, some schemes include a number of different shops including small independents whilst with others you’re limited to just one large retailer.
You can choose a bike and any equipment associated with your cycle to work. This could be lights, bags, clothes and the all important helmet (Ed, feel free to add personal comment!). In fact, pretty much anything other than food. The total value of both bike and equipment is usually capped at £1,000, as beyond this amount businesses have to apply for an additional credit licence.
Select the bike and equipment you want from the participating bike shop and request a cycle to work quotation. When you get back to work, you can then request a certificate for the total value via the process your employer will have in place. Once your certificate comes through, simply head back to the shop, hand the certificate over as payment and walk out with your new ride.
Now, over the next 12 months, your employer will deduct the amount of the certificate from your pay over 12 monthly instalments – before Income Tax and National Insurance.
Sounds simple enough, but what happens at the end of the 12 months and how do you save money?
Is Cycle To Work Scheme Worth It?
First off, you’ll have a nice, shiny new bike (and any equipment) right away without having to initially spend a penny or save your pocket money. You’ll be paying for it in monthly instalments which will help your cashflow.
But the main benefit is that you’ll be making your monthly payments through a pre-tax salary sacrifice arrangement. This means you won’t pay tax and NI on these amounts and will therefore save this money. Compare this to a situation where you are paid a monthly salary from which tax and NI is deducted and then paying this over to finance company or saving it for a bike.
Bike Ownership
Technically speaking, your employer is leasing the cycle to you for the duration of the agreement (usually 12 months). In order to protect the tax benefits of the scheme your employer can’t guarantee or commit to transferring the cycle to you at the end of the agreement. So in theory your boss may ask you to hand back the bike at the end of the year. This may sound like an immediate turn off, however employers generally choose to transfer ownership at the end of the hire period and there’s no real incentive for them not to.
The flip side of this is that you do have the option to hand the bike back if you don’t want it at the end of the year.
End Of Loan Period
Things get a little complicated at the end of the hire period, and your options are dictated by the following table of final market values issued by the HMRC in 2010:
Age of bike | Final market value | |
Bikes under £500 | Bikes over £500 | |
1 Year | 18% | 25% |
18 Months | 16% | 21% |
2 Years | 13% | 17% |
3 Years | 8% | 12% |
4 Years | 3% | 7% |
5 Years | Negligible | 2% |
6 Years & Over | Negligible | Negligible |
Based on these values, you have the following options after the initial 12 month hire period:
- Hand the bike back.
- Keep the cycle and pay your employer a fair market value payment for the value of the bike and equipment, being 18% or 25% of the value of the bike, per the table above.
- Sign an ‘Extended Use Agreement’ to keep using the bike for another 36 months and pay a much smaller fee of 3% or 7% of the certificate value based per the table above. This means greater savings, but it also means that you won’t technically own the bike for another 3 years.
- Receive the bike as a benefit in kind – your employer may choose to “gift” the bike to you at the end of the 12 months (or later if you extend the agreement), especially if they want to maximise employee savings and ensure ownership is transferred in the least possible timeframe (your employer probably doesn’t particularly want bicycles on their balance sheet). The cost to you here will be the tax on the benefit.
- Extend the agreement even further, to 5 or 6 years. This means a nil or 2% final payment is due per the table.
Other than the ownership implications, the main difference in each of these options lies in the savings you’ll receive through the scheme.
Savings Through The Cycle To Work Scheme
In the calculations below, I’m going to consider a bike and equipment to the value of £700. The rationale for this is that I would want to spend over £500 on a “good” bike, and use at least £100 on a lock, helmet and lights as a minimum.
Tax and NI
The savings you’ll make will mainly be through the tax and NI you’ll save through making your monthly payments before these deductions.
An analysis of all the options for tax and NI savings finds that:
- Higher rate taxpayers are better off, with an average saving of 36% compared to 26% for a basic rate taxpayer.
- Regardless of tax rate, you generally make the most savings for certificates up to, but crucially not including, £500. So the sweet spot is £499.
- The best option for all taxpayers is if you can extend the arrangement for as long as possible (six years or greater) and avoid paying any kind of balance at the end of the agreement. This amounts to a whopping 42% for a higher rate tax payer.
- For lower rate taxpayers required to pay the full HMRC balance at the end of 12 months, savings made based on tax will only be 7%.
So on a £700 bike and equipment package a basic rate tax payer could save up to £224 with options one and five, or as little as £49 on option two. For a higher rate tax payer this is £294 and £119 respectively.
Interest
How else could you buy a bike today without putting the money down first? Well, you could take out a loan to pay for a bike over 12 months in the same way. However, following this option, you’ll have to pay interest on your loan. Just as with car loans, take out finance on a bicycle if there is an interest rate to pay is usually not a good idea.
A quick search of major cycle shops finds the following finance rates:
- Evans Cycles – 9.9% APR (only on cycles valued at £499 or more, promotional 0% also available frequently)
- Halfords – Store by store basis
- Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative – 0%
A search on moneysupermarket for an unsecured £1,000 loan over 12 months brings back a lowest rate of 16.1% for a new customer.
To take an average of these options for comparative purposes, we’ll assume a rate of 10% APR on the loan. Assuming a four year loan period, interest at this rate will amount to £231.70 on a £700 bike.
Commute Costs
Lastly, cycling to work instead of using a car or public transport will save you big bucks. As demonstrated previously by the MoneyStepper, annual commuting costs for a car can cost up to £4,400 whilst public transport may be £958.
Other Things To Watch Out For
One thing to consider is that there are two ways in which your employer can obtain the bike on your behalf in the first place: they can either buy the bike outright themselves or they can obtain it from a third party leasing company. In the latter situation there will be some additional costs involved which your employer may choose pass onto you. These are the finance costs owed to the leasing company and a “transfer of ownership fee” if you choose options three or five above, which is £25 or 7% of the value of the bike, whichever the greater. These costs may reduce the amount of savings you’ll make. For example, for a basic rate payer on a bike valued at over £500 where the employee is required to pay the full HMRC fair value payment at the end of 12 months, that 7% saving will be completely wiped out by the transfer of ownership fee.
In addition, I’ve had personal experience of a scheme which left a bit of room for improvement in terms of practicality. Firstly, my scheme was limited to one well known bike shop which meant I couldn’t really shop around. As it happened, I got a great deal on a new bike so this wasn’t a big problem. However, other schemes I’m aware of are much more flexible.
Secondly, my scheme meant that I could only receive my certificate on January 1st, but I had to actually request the certificate as part of my employer’s flexible benefits package by the end of October the previous year. As I said, I got a good deal on my bike as it was in the sale. But this meant there was limited stock. So I found myself in a position where I had to gamble on there being the bike I wanted in stock two months later and request a certificate accordingly. Had there not been the bike in stock I would have had to settle for a far inferior bike (in my opinion!) for the same money. All ended happily in my case but potentially worth considering.
Lastly, when choosing a bike for my better half in another well known bike shop we found out that you could only use the scheme on full-price bikes, and not ones in the sale. This issue seems to be isolated to this one outlet but it certainly made a difference to the savings to be made.
Is Cycle To Work Scheme Worth It – Conclusion
Is cycle to work scheme worth it? Well, bringing everything together, let’s say I am a basic rate taxpayer living in Tynemouth and I usually commute to work in Newcastle by car, which is a good example to use because it is true! Assume also that I opt to spend £700 on a bike and equipment which I estimate I will need to replace in four years, and my employer gives me the option to extend the initial 12 month loan period for an additional three years after which time they will gift the bike to me as a benefit in kind. Costs over 4 years will add up as follows:
Cost of bike and equipment | |
Less: tax savings over 12 months | |
Less: NI savings over 12 months | |
Total cost of bike over 12 months | |
Benefit in kind payment on residual value after four years | |
Total cost of bike over four years |
Now let’s say I purchased the bike through a finance agreement based on 10% APR:
Cost of bike and equipment | |
Credit charge | |
Total cost of bike over four years |
So by going with the scheme I will have saved £539, which is 77% of the value of the bike!
I personally got my cycle to work scheme bike through Evans Cycles, as I had a wide choice of providers and Evans offers a fantastic range of good quality bikes. In my opinion, it is worth paying a little extra to get a bike that will serve you for longer, and Evans’ personal service and support is highly recommended.
If you want to check out their range of bikes, especially through their cycle to work scheme, and make the most of their seasonal discounts, then click the banner below:
“Cycle to work” is a great way to get out there on a bike for less: saving you money, improving your health and cutting CO2 emissions into the bargain. In conclusion, the cycle to work scheme is definitely worth it.
However, as you can see, the scheme can get a little bit complex. Just make sure you understand the scheme thoroughly before you enter into an agreement to make sure it will benefit you.
Mike Goodman says
I agree with this cycle to work scheme especially if bike lanes are available and your workplace is not that far. Just imagine how much you can save financially and at the same time stay in tip-top shape and protect the environment.
MrsFinancialFreedom says
A few people at my work have got bikes from this scheme and they seem happy with it. I’m lucky that my work is only a 20 minute walk away.
Hayley @ Debt Therapy Scotland says
Bikes can be an expensive outlay so I think a cycle to work scheme is a great idea for saving money and for the environment of course. My brother is taking advantage of a cycle to work scheme at the moment with his employer and has got one of the those electric bikes because the journey is quite far.
Little House says
This is a little confusing to me. In a 12-month period, hasn’t the employee paid for the bike through their monthly contributions? Wouldn’t the employer at that point give the bike to the person who has paid for it? And who in their right mind would finance a bike!? I ride my bike to work (that I paid for myself) and the health benefits definitely are the number one reason I ride. Maybe I’m missing something here, but the bike scheme sounds like an incentive to get employees to ride bikes by making them think they’re saving a bunch of money upfront on the bike.
Justin Januszewski says
Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work like that. Over 12 months the employee will have paid the price tag of the bike, but they won’t have paid tax and NI. The exemption from tax and NI only works when the ownership lies with the employer, hence the need for a balancing charge when ownership is transferred to the employee.
So although it might feel like you have paid for the bike after a year (and you will see the deductions coming out of your gross pay), you effectively received tax-free pay for duration of the agreement. Your employee may give you the bike but you’ll have to pay some tax on the residual value as this is a benefit in kind.
Personally, I might finance a bike if it made economic sense to do so. It would also depend on how impatient I was!
As discussed above in the article, in some cases you may not save loads of money gettting a bike on the scheme but you certainly save something.
Little House says
I think I originally missed the part about tax-free pay in the article. That makes a difference and is an interesting concept. Well, either way, it’s better to ride a bike to work than drive if you live close enough.
Hannah @ Wise Dollar says
Cycle to work scheme is a great idea! Aside from being able to save, you are going to be physically fit because cycling is a good exercise.
Derek at MoneyAhoy says
This sounds like a really great scheme to keep people healthy, reduce congestion, and save money. What’s not to love?
Reena O'keefe says
I really hope the rest of the world adopts this scheme, but not only that — I hope the rest of the world could be as bike-friendly e.g. more bike racks and wider bike lanes! I have tried travelling and I must say some places make it a hazard to get around on just a bike.
But this UK cycle to work scheme is the bomb! <3
Dan says
Can i ask how much roughly was deducted from your wage per month?
Simon says
The end of term repayment is a relatively new thing that no one had mentioned to me until I applied to my employer! My local bike shop was prepared to make significant discounts on a bike (£125 + a years servicing, + a good pump on a £750 bike) until I mentioned the CTWS…Then it became a matter of full price or forget it. He would also do 0% interest for a year (as would Halfords too), so for me it’s very questionable as to whether it’s worth it or not, in fact working it out, I save about £3! If my company gift me the bike it would be worth it, if they don’t they will save themselves a lot of paperwork…