Cycle to Work
The same money, one model up.
Cycle to Work is not a way to spend less on a bike. It is a way to spend the same and ride more bike, because the money leaves your salary before tax and National Insurance are taken. At higher rate that moves you a full rung up the range: the £6,350 you had set aside for a RaceVox Evo reaches the £9,700 Factory. Swift has been a registered retailer since 2019, with Green Commute Initiative and with Cyclescheme.
Tax year 2026/27
What your money actually reaches.
Pre-tax pounds go further than post-tax ones, and the higher your rate the further they go. Tell it what you were going to spend and it will tell you the build that money reaches instead. The maths runs band by band, so where you live and what you earn both move the answer.
The same money reaches
£9,769
of bike, for the £6,350 you were going to spend out of taxed pay.
- Out of your salary, before tax
- £9,769
- Tax and National Insurance you never pay
- −£4,103
- Ownership fee at the end of the hire
- +£684
- Off your take home pay
- £472 a month for 12 months
2026/27 rates · illustrative · not tax advice
Illustrative figures for the 2026/27tax year, including the ownership fee at the end of the hire. Your own saving depends on your salary, your tax residence and how your employer’s scheme is set up. This page is not tax advice.
How it works.
01
Your employer runs the scheme
Cycle to Work is salary sacrifice, so it goes through payroll and starts with your employer, never with us. If they are signed up with Green Commute Initiative or Cyclescheme, you are already most of the way there.
02
You request the full amount
Ask for the value of the build you actually want, not the value you assume you are allowed. If the policy still stops at £1,000, the note further down this page is written to be forwarded to whoever owns that policy.
03
The provider issues your certificate
Once your employer approves it you sign the hire and salary sacrifice agreements, and the provider sends you a certificate or voucher code.
04
You order from Swift
Send us the code along with the model, size and colourway. We validate it with the provider, take the order and build the bike. The provider settles with us directly, so nothing is charged to your card.
05
It comes off your salary monthly
Between 12 and 60 months depending on the provider and the value. At the end of the hire there is a small ownership fee, which the examples above already include.
Registered with both
The two schemes you can ride a Swift home on.
Green Commute Initiative
GCI lists Swift on its buy direct from a manufacturer page, beside Canyon, Ribble and Giant. Terms run up to 60 months, which is what lets a higher value build sit comfortably above the minimum wage floor.
Visit Green Commute Initiative→Cyclescheme
The scheme most widely adopted by UK employers. Swift's retailer profile is live at the Silverstone address and takes applications directly.
Visit Cyclescheme→
If your employer uses a different provider, get in touch before you apply and we will tell you where we stand with them.
The part that stops most orders
If HR says £1,000, they are quoting a rule that no longer applies.
The £1,000 figure was never a tax limit. It was a consumer credit exemption that applied where the employer itself owned the equipment, and since 2019 the Department for Transport has been explicit that higher values are fine through an FCA authorised provider. Most company policies simply never got updated. Here is a note written to be forwarded to whoever owns yours.
The £1,000 figure often quoted for Cycle to Work has never been a tax limit. It comes from a consumer credit exemption under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Exemption) Order 2001, which applies where the employer itself owns the equipment.
The Department for Transport's Cycle to Work guidance, updated in June 2019, states that schemes where the total value of the goods hired exceeds £1,000 are acceptable, provided the requisite Financial Conduct Authority authorisation is obtained. Providers including Green Commute Initiative and Cyclescheme hold that authorisation, so where a scheme runs through one of them there is no upper limit on the value of the bike.
Raising an internal cap does not change the tax treatment of the scheme and does not create new liability for the employer. The employer's National Insurance saving on the sacrificed salary rises with the value.
Source: Cycle to Work Scheme: guidance for employers, Department for Transport, June 2019. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5dc9475440f0b64251080457/cycle-to-work-guidance.pdf
Worth knowing
The parts nobody puts on a poster.
You cannot top up with your own money
The rules do not allow you to add your own cash to a certificate. The full value of the bike has to go through the scheme, so if your employer's cap sits below the build you want, the answer is to raise the cap rather than to pay the difference.
Ownership is an option, not a promise
You are hiring the bike, and nobody is allowed to promise you ownership at the start. A guarantee would turn the agreement into hire purchase and remove the tax treatment altogether. In practice every provider offers an ownership route at the end, and the cost of it is already inside the figures above.
It is a commuting scheme
The bike is meant to be used mainly for qualifying journeys, which means getting to and from work. There is no mileage log to keep and the responsibility sits with your employer, but that is what the scheme is for.
The term is set by the minimum wage
Salary sacrifice cannot take your pay below the National Minimum Wage, which is what decides how long the term runs. Longer terms, up to 60 months with Green Commute Initiative, are how a higher value bike fits without touching that floor.
Check what else moves with your gross pay
Lower gross pay can affect pension contributions, student loan repayments, statutory maternity pay and what you owe if you leave your job part way through the term. Your payroll team can tell you exactly how your scheme treats each of these.
One quiet upside
If you earn between £60,000 and £80,000 and someone in your household claims Child Benefit, reducing your gross pay also reduces the High Income Child Benefit Charge on it.
Already approved
Send us the code and pick the bike.
Certificates and voucher codes are redeemed with us directly rather than at checkout. Send the code with the model, size and colourway you want, and we will confirm the build and settle the rest with your provider.