Vans Up 22%, Trucks Down 14.7%, Finance Up 26%
Three numbers published this month describe the same fleet, and they do not agree.
Commercial vehicle finance new business rose 26% in June against the same month last year, inside a 15% rise for asset finance overall, according to figures the Finance and Leasing Association published on 27 August. Van registrations rose 22% in July to 28,578 units, a fourth consecutive month of growth, per the SMMT. And HGV registrations fell 14.7% in Q2 to 8,687 units, leaving the first half down 8.9%.
The money is available. The vans are moving. The trucks are not.
What the split is actually telling you
An operator deferring a tractor unit while replacing a van is not short of finance. They are managing a capital commitment they are not ready to make.
A new artic is a six-figure decision with a five to seven year shadow. A van is a smaller number over a shorter term, and it can be justified by a single contract. When the outlook is uncertain, the rational move is to keep the light fleet current and stretch the heavy fleet, because stretching a truck by twelve months costs maintenance and downtime, while committing to one costs capital you may want elsewhere.
The FLA's own read supports this. Geraldine Kilkelly, its director of research and chief economist, called June's results "encouraging because they point to continued business investment across the economy, mirroring the broader economic picture in Q2 2026, when business investment grew by 1.7%."
Investment is happening. It is being pointed at the assets with the shortest payback.
Within the van numbers the same caution shows up again. Large vans grew 29.9% and medium vans 20.7%, while pickups fell 53.2% in their tenth consecutive monthly decline. Battery electric vans, meanwhile, hit a record 14.7% share on a 74.1% rise. Operators are buying what the work requires and skipping what it does not.
The pressure is real but it is not a collapse
Road freight and removal businesses entering insolvency rose from 35 in June to 42 in July. Set against the year, though, the picture is better than the month suggests: 226 insolvencies between January and July against 260 in the same period of 2025, a fall of just over 13%, reported on 19 August. Across the EU the transport bankruptcy index hit a record high in Q2, up 21% year on year.
So UK haulage is under strain and doing better than its European equivalents and better than it did last year. That is a sector holding on, not one falling over. It is also a sector where the difference between holding on and falling over is frequently working capital rather than profitability.
Why the capital decision is being deferred until at least 28 October
There is a specific date behind a lot of this hesitation.
The Autumn Budget is confirmed for Wednesday 28 October. Two of the reliefs currently holding operating costs down are time-limited and run to the end of 2026: the HGV vehicle excise duty holiday, worth around £600 per truck over twelve months, and the extended freeze in fuel duty. Whether either survives into 2027 is a Budget decision.
Add the cost of money. The Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% on 30 July, but three of the nine committee members voted to raise it, and July CPI came in at 2.9%. Borrowing is not about to get cheaper on its own.
If you are weighing a truck order, the honest position is that two of your biggest cost lines are unresolved until late October and the third is not falling. Waiting is a defensible answer.
The move most operators are not pricing
Deferring the purchase is one decision. Leaving capital locked in the trucks you already own is a different one, and it is the one that tends to go unexamined.
Refinancing an owned asset releases cash against equipment that is already earning. It does not add a vehicle to the fleet, it does not commit you to a replacement cycle, and it does not depend on the Budget. What it does is convert a static asset into working capital at a point in the year when working capital is the constraint, with fuel and driver costs falling due weekly against payment terms that typically run to 42 days.
This is exactly the gap we wrote about when truck buying fell 14.7% while truck finance grew: the funding is not the blocker, the commitment is.
Two other developments this month make that easier rather than harder. Non-bank lenders provided £34.4bn of the £84.3bn FLA members wrote in the first half, so appetite outside the high street is deep. And the sector is consolidating into larger platforms, with Bentley Park agreeing a £55m takeover of Time Finance on 17 August to create a roughly £650m combined SME lender.
It is worth saying that lender selection still matters. Blue Motor Finance entered administration on 30 July before being sold days later, which is a reminder that the funder behind your agreement is part of the decision, not a detail.
Three questions worth answering before the Budget
What is actually owned outright, and what is it worth today? Most operators know the fleet list. Fewer have a current view of unencumbered value, which is the number that determines what refinancing could release.
Which vehicles are being stretched, and what is the stretch costing? Deferred replacement shows up as maintenance, downtime and MOT risk long before it shows up as a capital decision. If that figure is approaching the cost of finance on a replacement, the deferral has stopped saving money.
Would a decision be easier with the cash in the business? If the answer is yes, the funding question is separable from the buying question, and it does not need to wait for 28 October.
If you are weighing a fleet decision, or you would rather free up capital from vehicles you already own before committing to new ones, talk to The Finance Brokers. Tell us what is on the fleet and what is owned outright, and we will come back with what it could release.