UK’s cheapest new cars for 2025
Taking the cheapest route to a new car no longer means accepting mediocre performance or quality — if anything, many of the most affordable cars you can buy in 2025 are also the best-suited to driving in modern Britain.
Car manufacturers spent years encouraging consumers that bigger and more expensive equalled better. In the 20th century it was easy to justify buying an upmarket secondhand car for the same price as the cheapest new models — today you're more likely to find the material and practical differences between a high-spec premium car and models from the most affordable brands are smaller than the extra status you’re paying for.
Equipment, safety and refinement are often surprisingly close between the cheapest cars and the usual mid-price range choices. Less expensive cars also bring additional benefits by using smaller wheels — invariably made of steel instead of pricier alloys — shod with chunkier tyres, all connected to the car with softer suspension. Combined with their low purchase prices, they can reduce stress just as effectively as double-glazing and adaptive cruise control can on a pricier choice — not least helping you to unclench your jaw on the motorway after miles of dodging potholes and wincing with every jolting surface change.
List price is everything even when you’re financing a new car. You’ll pay less interest, have a smaller deposit, and much lower final payment on your credit file. You could even consider buying your next car outright on hire puchase (HP) for similar monthly payments as renting a more expensive model for a few years on a PCP.
With big changes coming and the cost of motoring likely to rise, escaping monthly payments by 2030 seems like a very appealing outcome.
Here are the 10 cheapest cars you can buy in Britain today:
Dacia Sandero — from £14,715
When the first Dacia Sandero arrived in 2013 it instantly became the cheapest new car in Britain. Simple and rugged, the Romanian-built small hatch shared much with its Renault parent, though the technology was less lavish.
Today's Sandero is more mature and finished to a higher standard, although in the cheapest and most basic Essential spec there's no infotainment screen — just a DAB radio, Bluetooth connectivity and a clamp to hold your smartphone. You do get cruise control, air conditioning plus automatic lights and wipers — it's hardly spartan if you're upgrading from a decade-old runaround. Its five-door body is bigger than most similarly priced cars, providing plenty of room inside, while it's also been engineered to be surprisingly fun to drive. For just £10 more you can upgrade from the TCe 90 to the TCe 100 Bi-Fuel, allowing the use of LPG in addition to petrol for an impressive 700-mile range.
Dacia Spring — from £14,995
We missed out on the original Dacia Spring but the refreshed and improved version that arrived in the UK in 2024 is a better bet anyway. When it went on sale many of the cheapest electric cars were typically around £25,000 — and yes, we're discounting the Citroen Ami from the list on the basis that technically it isn't a car, but more on that later. With the Dacia Spring you can get a four-seater practical EV for less than many of the cheapest petrol models.
So what's the catch? Well, its range is restrictive — the Spring is best-suited for short trips and daily commutes thanks to its 26.8kWh battery. When paired with the entry-level 45PS motor it also feels uncomfortably slow, as evidenced by the 19.7 seconds needed for it to reach 62mph from a standstill. You can upgrade to a 65PS motor and shave six seconds off that time but the range remains relatively tight at 140 miles. The Leapmotor T03 also highlights how cheaply constructed and lacking in equipment the Dacia is. With 0% finance deals and up to six years/75,000 miles of warranty cover, the Spring is nevertheless well-placed for fixed-price, low-cost commuting.
Leapmotor T03 — from £15,995
One of the new Chinese brands that's already arrived in the UK, Leapmotor may sound unfamiliar but it's backed by the automotive giant Stellantis. A strategic partnership that doesn't yet share technology with any Citroen, Fiat, Peugeot or Vauxhall models means the T03 has a unique character typical of Chinese models, with lots of technology included for the price — standard equipment includes a panoramic sunroof and adaptive cruise control. The T03 has been produced since 2020, so while the brand is new here, the car is proven in China.
Joining the scrum for the cheapest electric cars seems like a risky move but Leapmotor has given the T03 enough power to entertain with a 95PS motor and enough battery capacity to provide a 165-mile WLTP Combined cycle range. That puts it ahead of the entry-level Dacia Spring for overall value, albeit in a smaller package with less boot space.
Dacia Sandero Stepway — from £16,015
There’s a ruggedly stylish appeal to the Dacia Sandero Stepway thanks to its beefy and purposeful front end styling and chunky, robust interior. Depending on your perspective, it’s a bargain SUV that offers the style, practicality and purposefulness of more expensive small SUVs with none of the pumped-up cost. How come? Well, the Stepway's essentially the regular Dacia Sandero that's been given a makeover to make it appear more like an off-roader — 'appear' is the key word, here.
The entry-level Essential trim is fairly sparse but you do get DAB radio, Bluetooth connectivity, air-conditioning and cruise control. There's a also trio of engines to choose between — the petrol-powered TCe 90, LPG-slurping Bi-Fuel TCe 100 and the peppy TCe 110, although that's only available in the pricier Extreme trim and costs £19,365.
Kia Picanto — from £16,065
Facelifted in 2024 to bring its styling into line with larger and more expensive models in the range, the Kia Picanto remains Britain's cheapest new car with a standard seven-year warranty. If you buy it, run it for seven years and throw it away, it could still have cost you less than £200 per month. Not that you'll need to throw it away as Kia's positive reputation means resale values are strong, while cheap insurance means it's an easy car to move on to a novice driver.
If that doesn’t make the Picanto good enough value then remember its impressively economical and generously equipped, now the old stripped-out '1' trim level has been discontinued. Less costly Picantos have a 63PS 1.0-litre engine that's fine for urban use, yet holds its own at faster speeds provided you don’t spend too long on the motorway network.
Hyundai i10 — from £16,600
Hyundai's i10 is still one of our favourites among Britain’s top 10 cheapest new cars on sale today. Its appeal is simple — it doesn't feel cheap. Like its Kia Picanto sister car, the i10 is a mature, well made and practical small hatchback that still manages to offer elements of driver enjoyment, while also feeling extremely solid and well put-together.
It can seat four adults in relative comfort and will cruise happily at motorway speeds, while the entry-level Advance trim gets niceties such as alloy wheels, cruise control, a reversing camera and air-conditioning. All i10s also come with a five-year/unlimited mileage warranty.
Toyota Aygo X — from £16,845
The original Toyota Aygo was a created as a city car and derived from a joint-venture which also resulted in the Peugeot 107 and the Citroen C1. Now Toyota is on its own and its latest inexpensive hero has morphed into a funky quasi-SUV, smaller than a Yaris, but with more sense of purpose.
Options such as a full-length opening canvas roof are available on higher-spec models but the most affordable Pure specification is quite generous, with alloy wheels, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone mirroring as well as Toyota’s Advanced Safety Sense package, cruise control and air-con. The 1.0-litre 72PS is well-proven, reliable and free-revving, as well as being impressively fuel-efficient, while the smaller 17-inch wheels of the Pure model mean less stress and slightly more comfort.
MG 3 — from £16,995
The MG 3 is still among the cheapest cars in Britain, despite the brand’s gradual move away from budget motoring towards the mainstream. 2013's original MG 3 offered great value with a rather old-school approach — in a good way — that appealed to drivers who liked revvy, simple small cars despite a lack of finesse.
This latest-generation of MG 3 was released in 2024, representing a significant redesign echoing the MG ZS SUV's looks and pushing quality levels further upmarket. Initially only available as a hybrid, reflecting MG's success with affordable electric cars, for 2025 a purely petrol SE model joined the range at a lower price point. Its 115PS 1.5-litre engine is flexible, plus its seven-year warranty should alleviate any worries for those who remember MG from the dark days of British Leyland.
Citroen C3 — from £18,305
With the latest iteration of its Toyota cousin still on sale, Citroen dealers must lament the demise of the C1 city car. Why? Because the French brand barely squeaks into Britain's 10 most affordable cars list now, despite once being a leader on value that many buyers repetitively chose on reflex. As the range moves towards electric optimisation and registration limits make selling combustion-powered cars less profitable, the petrol and mild hybrid versions of the latest Citroen C3 risk being missed with the spotlight shone on the EV version.
It's further upmarket compared with the previous Citroen C3, as well as being more SUV-like in appearance. Equipment on the cheapest Plus trim is generous and includes automatic wipers and LED lights, cruise control, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto plus Citroen's Advanced Comfort seats and suspension. Note that opting for a colour scheme beyond the standard two-tone Monte Carlo Blue and white would exclude the C3 from this list in favour of the Suzuki Swift.
Dacia Jogger — from £18,970
Few cars have ever offered as much space for as little money as the Dacia Jogger — a three-row estate that offers either seven-seat family flexibility or 2050 litres of cargo capacity with an impressive 1.9 metre load length behind the front seats. Combined with simple, economical but capable petrol engines — or an impressive hybrid if you spend more — the Jogger's long wheelbase and soft suspension mask a lot of the potholes and neglect on British roads and carparks.
Being cheap doesn’t mean it’s flimsy or rattly, either. Sure, its the interior may lack colour-changing ambient lights or multi-way electrically adjustable seats, but you get air conditioning, a DAB radio and 110PS of power to play with in robust and well-assembled package. There are even optional packs to turn your Jogger into camper with a tent extension for around £2000.
Citroen Ami — from £7695: Not the cheapest new car in Britain
The Citroen Ami is the cheapest vehicle on sale in the UK today by quite some margin — and it’s electric, but it isn't a car. It falls into a legal classification known as a light quadricycle which imposes various restrictions upon it.
It uses a tiny 5.5kWh battery, much smaller than the Dacia Spring's 26.8kWh pack. Despite being Britain's cheapest proper electric car, the Spring still costs twice as much as the Ami, although it has a 78mph top speed and seats four. The Citroen can only carry one passenger and will struggle to keep up with tractors. This limits the Ami’s appeal city-only drivers where its 8PS electric motor and 28mph top speed are sufficient.
It’s tiny inside and out with little more than a smartphone cradle and various storage compartments on its equipment roster. It's built to a low price and is only available in left-hand drive form but there is a coolness about it nonetheless.
That £7695 price allows Citroen to offer a £99 per month PCP deal though the £2045 initial payment would cover a very capable cargo bike bought outright.
It sets a good benchmark for buying a used electric car if you don't want the Ami's unique size and lightness. Check out the best used electric cars to see what you can have for less than £8000.
What is the cheapest new car in the UK?
The days of genuinely cheap new cars are long gone and while the Citroen Ami may have become known as the cheapest new car on sale in the UK at £7695, strictly speaking it's classed as a light quadricycle. This means the Ami — and similarly categorised vehicles — are prohibited from dual carriageways and motorways, with a limited top speed of 28mph. In some parts of Europe 14-year-olds can drive light quadricycles but in Britain the advantage is smaller, as you need to be 16 with a provisional licence and CBT to use one. It's a lot of money when you're only a year away from a full car licence.
So the cheapest new car that you can use on the UK's full road network and reach the national speed limit is the Dacia Sandero Essential TCe 90, which costs £14,715, as of May 2025. Second place also goes to Dacia, while the cheapest non-Dacia is the Leapmotor T03, an electric car from China.
What's the cheapest new electric car in the UK?
Ignoring the Citroen Ami again, the Dacia Spring is the UK's cheapest electric car, at £14,995. That's for the 45PS model that takes almost 20 seconds to reach 62mph from a standing start making it one of the slowest new cars you can buy. Choose the 65PS model with a reasonable 13.7s 0-62mph ability and the price goes up to £15,995 — at which point the Leapmotor T03's 95PS and 37.3kWh battery is a significant advantage equating to much better value.
As always, the list price isn't the whole story — at the time of writing there are significant discounts on pre-registered 65PS Dacia Springs, meaning a cash buyer could get a new electric car for less than £12,000.
What is the most reliable cheap, small car?
If you're buying a new car, you'll expect a high level of reliability. Fortunately all of the models on offer are well made and backed by strong warranties as well as the advantage of being new. Kia includes a standard seven-year warranty, as does MG. Hyundai includes five years of cover, Leapmotor four, and Dacia three — the same as Toyota.
However, Toyota and Dacia have the best plan for long-term reliability as both firms have adopted a scheme of extending the warranty year-by-year with main dealer scheduled servicing. Dacia's stops at six years or 75,000 miles, whereas Toyota — which innovated the service-activated warranty scheme — goes to 10 years or 100,000 miles.
This means the Toyota Aygo X is likely to be the most reliable in the long run, combining the Japanese firm's reputation for durable, dependable cars with an incentive to have it serviced regularly and up to 10 years of manufacturer-backed assurance. This warranty even applies to used cars within the age and mileage limits, as long as they're serviced by a Toyota or Lexus dealer.
Where in UK are cars cheaper?
There's no hard and fast rule about the cheapest place to buy a car in the UK. It very much depends on the make and model you're after, plus the current levels of demand and supply. What we have seen in the past is that Scotland and the North East of England tend to be cheaper places to buy a car, due to their distance from the majority of the UK's population.
When is the best time to get a good deal on a cheap new car?
There are two things to watch out for. Quiet months approaching a new registration date and models approaching the end of their lifecycle. This is likely to be less frequent as the deadline for zero-emission new cars approaches and manufacturers just keep existing petrol and diesel models going. Good deals may not be a straight discount, either — look for manufacturer contributions to a finance deposit, 0% interest deals, or higher-than-trade part exchange allowances and scrappage schemes.
If you live in a ULEZ or clean air zone check for scrappage schemes applying locally as well if you're disposing of a car you've owned for a long time that doesn't meet the required standards.
As always, the best deals will be found on cars that are pre-registered or 'ex-demo', already in stock and unsold. As the shift towards electric car sales continues, together with tightening limits on registrations of combustion-engined models, you're unlikely to find discounts on spec or colours that have to be ordered from the factory.
