12-Month Van Lease Deals: Smart, Flexible & Built Around Your Business

A van for a year, without signing for four

Most van finance assumes you know what your business looks like in 2030. A 12 month van lease doesn’t. You take the van, you use it for a year, you hand it back or you carry on — and you decide that with a year’s more information than you have today.

That suits a lot of businesses better than they realise. Work that runs in projects. Trade that peaks and drops. A second van you need now and might not need next winter. A fleet decision you’d rather not make until the electric numbers stack up.

Here’s what it costs, what’s in the price, how the upfront money works, and where a one year van lease is genuinely the wrong call. If you’re new to short term van leasing, start at the top and it’ll make sense by the end.

See every van we currently have — or browse the full van range.

What it costs

Monthly from £519.95 excluding VAT, depending on the van and the term. That is the lowest figure on the current van listing — a Caddy Cargo — with Transporters and Crafters above it.

Prices and available terms checked against the live van listing on 15 September 2026. Van stock moves, so re-check before publishing.

That figure isn’t a headline with the running costs stripped out of it. It covers:

The van — new or near-new, under manufacturer’s warranty

Servicing and maintenance.

Road tax for the full term

MOT where the term reaches it

Breakdown cover

Delivery to you, and collection at the end

Insurance and fuel are yours. Insurance isn’t bundled and that’s deliberate — a one-size policy priced across every customer would cost you more than arranging your own. We’ll tell you exactly what cover you need.

The upfront money, explained properly

Search “12 month van lease no deposit” and you’ll get a lot of pages promising one. It’s worth being clear about what’s actually being offered, because two different things get called a deposit.

The refundable damage deposit. Every agreement carries one. It sits alongside your first month, covers early cancellation, missed payments or damage beyond ordinary wear, and it comes back to you at the end. No reputable provider waives it. If a deal appears to, the cost has usually been folded into the monthly instead.

The initial rental. This is the one people actually mean, and here you have a real choice. On a 12 or 18 month agreement you pick a payment profile — how much lands at the start against how much spreads across the term.

The total is the same either way. A smaller initial rental keeps working capital in the business and costs a little more each month. A larger one does the reverse. So a low-upfront 12 month van lease is straightforwardly available — it moves where the money sits, not how much of it there is.

On our shorter subscription terms it’s simpler again: refundable deposit plus first month, nothing else.

The VAT difference between a van and a car

This one is worth a minute, because it changes the real cost more than most people expect.

For VAT, a van isn’t a car. On a car available for private use, recovery on the hire charges is normally restricted to 50%. On a van used for business, it’s generally 100%.

Same provider, same length of agreement, entirely different position. For a VAT-registered business that gap is often larger than the difference between two vans you’re choosing between.

There’s nothing to itemise on our side. Maintenance is inside the monthly payment rather than invoiced separately the way a long term lease does it, so one figure covers the van and keeping it working.

Our guide to VAT on lease cars goes through both sides in detail. We’re not accountants, so check your own position with yours before you sign.

Twelve months against three or four years

Most van finance is written over three or four years, so it’s the comparison people arrive with. The long contract is cheaper per month — that’s its whole case, and it’s a fair one. What it asks in return is that you’re confident about the next four years.

We don’t write four year contracts. Our terms run from one month to eighteen, because the businesses we deal with mostly can’t forecast that far — work that runs in projects, trade that peaks, a second van needed now and possibly not next winter. If that’s you, a year is a sensible unit of decision.

Shorter, or a little longer? Van agreements are most often written over six or twelve months — that is where the fleet usually sits — with three and nine month agreements possible but far less common, and twelve to eighteen available when the work is settled. Cars run across the full range from one month up.

When twelve months isn’t the right length

We’d rather sort this out now than after you’ve signed.

You need a van for a few days. Our shortest term is one month. Below that you’re looking at hire rather than leasing, and we don’t pretend to compete for it.

You want to own the van at the end. Nothing you pay on a lease buys equity. If ownership is the point, you want purchase finance instead — a lease is renting with the running costs built in.

You want to be in the same van in 2030. We lease from one month to eighteen. If you can forecast the work that far ahead and you want the lower monthly a long contract brings, we’re not the right fit — and we’d rather say so.

Your mileage is genuinely unpredictable and very high. We can set a higher allowance, but if you honestly can’t tell whether it’s 8,000 miles or 40,000, excess charges will make it an expensive year. Talk to us before you commit and we’ll work out whether the numbers hold.

Six or nine months would do. Plenty of people take twelve out of habit when the job runs shorter. If the work has an end date, match the term to it — a six or nine month agreement costs less in total than paying for months you don’t need.

Getting the van right

Payload and load space. Overloading brings fines and downtime, and it’s easier to do than people think once tools, stock and a passenger are in. Tell us what you actually carry and we’ll match the GVW and load length to it.

Body style and access. Standard panel, high-roof, or Luton with a tail lift — the deciding factor is usually the height of the doors you load through and the bays you reverse into, not the volume figure.

Where the miles happen. City routes reward a compact van with sliding doors and parking sensors. Motorway miles reward an efficient diesel or an electric with cruise and driver assist.

Mileage allowance. Terms under a year start at 1,000 miles a month. Twelve months and above start at 833 a month — 10,000 across the year — and higher bands are available. Set it honestly; excess runs at 65p per mile plus VAT on one and three month hires, and 40p plus VAT on the longer terms.

Specification. From plain workhorses to cabs with Apple CarPlay, heated seats and the full safety suite. Tell us what matters and we’ll source it.

From enquiry to keys

Everything we lease is already on our fleet. Stock changes week to week, so tell us you want twelve months and we will match a van to it — the listing shows what is on the fleet today rather than the limit of what we do. That’s the reason the timeline reads in days rather than months.

Tell us the job. Duration, mileage, what you carry. We shortlist vans that fit.

Apply. A short online application. Every agreement is credit checked — that’s how it gets underwritten.

Delivery in 10–14 days. Free across mainland Britain, excluding the Highlands. The van arrives valeted and ready to work.

Because it’s stock rather than a factory order, the van you’re quoted on is the van that turns up — specification, colour and all. No build slot to wait on and nothing to slip.

Prefer it month to month?

If a year still feels like more than you want to commit to, van subscription runs the same vans on shorter terms with the same inclusions — fixed monthly, small upfront, road tax and breakdown cover in, free delivery. People search for this as 12 month van hire; it’s the same idea with the paperwork of a lease rather than a rental desk.

Going electric, or thinking about it? The same terms apply to our electric van subscription deals — Clean Air Zone compliant, lower running costs, and no four year bet on a technology that’s still moving. Our guide to the best electric van leasing deals works through the arithmetic.

Questions we get asked

Can I lease a van for 12 months with no credit check?

Not with us, and be careful with anyone offering it. The credit check is how the agreement is underwritten. A provider skipping it recovers the risk somewhere else — usually a bigger deposit or a higher monthly — so you pay for it either way. Compare total cost, not the advertised monthly.

What happens when the twelve months are up?

Three ways it can go: hand the van back and walk away, start a new agreement on a newer van, or extend the current one if the work carried on. Nothing renews automatically and there’s no penalty for simply letting it finish.

Can I change the mileage part-way through?

You can increase it, and it’s worth doing as soon as you know — raising the allowance mid-term costs less than settling excess mileage at the end. You can’t reduce it once the contract is live, so it’s better to start at a realistic figure and go up if the work demands it than to over-estimate and be stuck with it.

What counts as fair wear and tear?

The van should come back in reasonable condition for its age and the miles on it. Scuffs and stone chips are expected; damage isn’t. We’ll give you the standard we work to at the start, not at collection.

Can I put my livery on it?

Usually yes, with vinyl that removes cleanly. Check with us before it goes on — the cost of putting a panel right afterwards falls to you, and some wraps are harder to lift than others.

Do I need to be a limited company?

No. Sole traders, partnerships, limited companies, PLCs and private individuals all lease from us. What differs is the paperwork behind the application, not the deal.

Is insurance included?

No, and that’s on purpose — you’ll insure the van more cheaply than a blanket policy could. Comprehensive cover needs to be in place before delivery, and we’ll tell you precisely what’s required.

Ready to get one on the road?

Tell us what the van has to do and we’ll build a 12 month lease around it — the right size, a mileage allowance that matches the work, and a payment profile that suits your cash flow.

Call 0333 772 1886 or complete a finance application.

And if you're wondering who's behind all this: Drive Subscribe is an ACL Automotive brand — the team that runs short-term leasing for some of the biggest names in the business. The car's short-term. We're not.