Self–Employed Travel Expenses
Are you Self-Employed? Not sure of what you can claim as an expense whilst working away?
As a self-employed individual there are a range of expenses that you can claim for if you work away from home, to help offset your taxable income.
If you travel to your workplace by either a car/van or motorbike you have the choice of either claiming using the simplified expense scheme or by claiming for the actual costs incurred.
For the simplified expense scheme, you would charge a flat rate per business mile travelled. The current rates which increased from April 2026 and can be backdated until this date are as follows:
Cars and goods vehicles for the first 10,000 miles - 55p per mile
Cars and goods vehicles after the first 10,000 miles - 25p per mile
Motorcycles - 24p per mile
As an example, if you were to travel 12,500 business miles over the year you would receive:
10,000 x 55p = £5,500
2,500 x 25p = £625
Total claimable = £6,125
The simplified expense scheme is something that you can choose to use for any individual vehicle that you use for business purposes, however, once it has been used you must continue to use the flat rate scheme for as long as the vehicle is used for business purposes.
Additionally, you can claim for parking charges incurred for business purposes on top of the above flat rate per mile.
The second option that can be used for travel by car/van or motorbike is to claim for all actual costs incurred through use of then vehicle. This would include the following costs:
- Fuel
- Vehicle Insurance
- Repairs and Servicing
- Parking
- Hire charges
- Vehicle tax license fees
- Breakdown cover
You are however unable to claim for any non-business driving, travel between home and your usual place of work (for example the office that you frequent as your usual workplace), or for any fines or penalty charges that are incurred.
If you do not use your own vehicle for travelling for work, you would be eligible to claim for the costs of this transport.
This could include; Train tickets, Tram tickets, Bus tickets, Taxi fares, Plane tickets or other modes of transport that are necessary for your trip.
If you need to work away for an extended period, you would also be eligible to claim for the cost of hotel accommodation during your stay.
This would also entitle you to claim for some elements of meals that were incurred during your working stay. From an expense perspective it is deemed to be acceptable to claim for a reasonable amount for breakfast and evening meals on overnight trips. This is because in the normal course of work if you were not working away, it would be seen to be that you would not pay for these meals under normal circumstances.
Lunch expenses are viewed to generally not be claimable from a business expense perspective as you would normally require this in your day-to-day work regardless as to whether you were working away or not. The exception to this rule is for if this is specifically related to the work involvement, like meeting a client or prospective client in a café purely for business discussions and the expenditure is part of the meeting.
Remember the most important thing when claiming an expense as a business expense, is that for it to be acceptable it needs to be deemed to be an expense that is wholly and exclusively for your business. If this is not the case there is a good chance that it is not acceptable to be claimed as a business expense.