What can I expense? The 25 most common business claims

How to read this list

"Usually allowable" means the cost is normally deductible for the business and can be reimbursed to an employee without tax, provided the condition is met. "Not allowable" means it is either blocked for the business, taxable for the employee, or both. Anything given through a salary sacrifice arrangement generally loses its exemption and has to be reported.

Travel (1 to 8)

• 1. Business mileage in your own car or van: usually allowable. HMRC's approved rate for 2026/27 is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p a mile after that. Commuting miles do not count.
• 2. Business mileage by motorcycle or bicycle: usually allowable. The approved rates are 24p a mile for motorcycles and 20p a mile for bicycles.
• 3. Carrying a colleague on a business trip: usually allowable. You can pay up to 5p a mile per passenger tax-free, if the journey is also a work journey for them.
• 4. Trains, flights and taxis on business trips: usually allowable. The journey must be part of the job or to a temporary workplace, not ordinary commuting.
• 5. Your daily commute to your normal workplace: not allowable. HMRC says you cannot claim for travelling to and from work unless you are going to a temporary place of work.
• 6. Parking, tolls and congestion charges on business journeys: usually allowable. They count as part of the cost of the business trip.
• 7. Parking at or near your normal workplace: usually allowable. Employer-provided or employer-paid workplace parking is exempt, unless it is through salary sacrifice.
• 8. Taxi home after working late: usually allowable if the late working is occasional and irregular. A regular late shift does not qualify.

Overnight stays and meals (9 to 11)

• 9. Hotel on an overnight business trip: usually allowable. HMRC has no benchmark rate for accommodation, so reimburse actual, reasonable costs and keep the receipt.
• 10. Meals while travelling on business in the UK: usually allowable. HMRC's benchmark rates are £5 for a journey of at least 5 hours, £10 for 10 hours, and £25 for 15 hours if still travelling at 8pm. You must actually have bought a meal, and the trip must not be ordinary commuting.
• 11. Late evening supplement: usually allowable. Where a £5 or £10 rate is paid and the qualifying journey carries on past 8pm, you can pay a further £10.

Entertaining and gifts (12 to 16)

• 12. Taking a client out for lunch or dinner: not allowable for corporation tax, and the VAT is blocked. HMRC treats it as business entertainment even when it wins work.
• 13. Entertaining an overseas customer: not allowable for corporation tax. The VAT may be recoverable if it is for business purposes and reasonable in scale, but a private benefit to the guest usually triggers an output tax charge that cancels the reclaim.
• 14. Gifts to clients: allowable only if each recipient gets no more than £50 of gifts in the year, the gift carries a conspicuous advert for your business, and it is not food, drink, tobacco or a voucher.
• 15. The annual staff party: usually allowable. It is deductible for the company and tax-free for staff if it is open to all employees and costs £150 a head or less, including VAT, transport and accommodation.
• 16. Small gifts to staff (trivial benefits): usually allowable if each costs £50 or less, is not cash or a cash voucher, and is not a reward for work. Directors of close companies are capped at £300 a tax year.

Working from home and equipment (17 to 20)

• 17. Homeworking allowance: usually allowable. An employer can pay up to £6 a week (£26 a month) tax-free towards extra household costs if the employee regularly works at home under an agreed arrangement. Since 6 April 2026, employees can no longer claim this relief from HMRC themselves if the employer does not pay it.
• 18. Laptop, desk or chair for home working: usually allowable if it is used only for work or any private use is insignificant.
• 19. A work mobile phone: usually allowable. One phone or SIM per employee is exempt if the contract is between the employer and the supplier. Reimbursing a personal contract is treated differently.
• 20. Office supplies, software and subscriptions to business tools: usually allowable, provided they are bought wholly and exclusively for the business.

People and welfare (21 to 23)

• 21. Eye tests and screen-use glasses: usually allowable for employees who use a computer screen as part of the job. Glasses are exempt only if the test shows they are needed solely for screen work. Since 6 April 2026, the exemption also covers the employer reimbursing these costs.
• 22. Professional body subscriptions: usually allowable. For the employee, tax relief applies only to bodies on HMRC's approved list where membership is relevant to the job.
• 23. Work-related training: usually allowable. Employer-paid or reimbursed work-related training is covered by a specific statutory exemption.

Common no-gos (24 to 25)

• 24. Everyday clothing you wear for work: not allowable, even if you must wear a certain design or colour. Uniforms and specialist clothing such as overalls or safety boots are different: employees can claim for cleaning, repairing or replacing them, though not for the initial cost of buying work clothing.
• 25. Fines: usually not allowable for the business. A parking ticket on a company-owned car is disallowed. If the company pays a fine that is the employee's own liability, the company can deduct it but the employee is taxed on it.

VAT on expenses

Whether you can reclaim VAT is a separate question from whether the cost is deductible. You need a valid VAT receipt, and the cost must be for the business. Employee subsistence while working away is not business entertainment, so the entertaining block does not apply to it. Client entertaining VAT is blocked, with the narrow overseas-customer exception described above.

What goes on a P11D

Expenses paid at or under HMRC's approved and benchmark rates, and benefits covered by an exemption, do not need to be reported. Anything above the rates, or a benefit that is not exempt, is usually reported on form P11D by 6 July after the tax year ends, with Class 1A National Insurance paid by 22 July. From April 2027 some benefits must be reported through payroll instead, starting with company cars, vans, fuel and medical benefits.

If you are self-employed: what changes

The list above is written for employees and directors. If you are a sole trader, GOV.UK's allowable expenses list covers the running costs of the business: office supplies and phone bills, fuel, parking and train fares, work uniforms, staff wages and subcontractors, stock and raw materials, insurance and bank charges, heating, lighting and business rates, website and advertising costs, trade journals and business-related training.

Two rules matter before you start adding things up. First, if you use the £1,000 tax-free trading allowance, you cannot also claim expenses, so it only makes sense if your costs are low. Second, you can use simplified expenses: flat rates instead of working out actual costs for vehicles, working from home and living at your business premises.

• Working from home, simplified: £10 a month for 25 to 50 hours of business use, £18 for 51 to 100 hours, and £26 for 101 hours or more.
• You can only use the working-from-home flat rate if you work at least 25 hours a month from home.

Equipment and vehicles: capital allowances

Larger items you keep and use in the business, such as machinery, computers and vans, are usually claimed through capital allowances rather than as everyday expenses if you use traditional accounting. The Annual Investment Allowance lets a business deduct the full cost of qualifying equipment up to £1 million a year. Cars are the main exception: you cannot claim the Annual Investment Allowance on a car and claim writing down allowances instead.

If you use cash basis accounting, GOV.UK says you claim capital allowances only on a car, and most other business items are claimed as expenses.

How long to keep receipts

HMRC can ask to see the evidence behind a claim years later, so keep receipts and invoices for the full period.

• Self-employed: at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline for the tax year.
• Limited companies: 6 years from the end of the last company financial year the records relate to, and longer in some cases, such as an asset expected to last more than six years.
• VAT records: generally at least 6 years.
• Scanned copies: HMRC's Notice 700/21 says a scanned image can replace a paper invoice if it shows all the detail needed for VAT. Typing the figures into software is not enough on its own.