When you can get tax relief for travel and subsistence costs
If you’ve got to make journeys for business purposes you can deduct your travelling expenses from your taxable income – so you’ll pay less tax.
What are business journeys
You can only get tax relief on the cost of business journeys. These are when, as part of your job:
- you have to travel from one workplace to another – this includes travelling between your main ‘permanent workplace’ and a temporary workplace
- you’ve got to travel to or from a certain workplace because your job requires you to
But business journeys don’t include:
- ordinary commuting – when you travel between your home (or anywhere that is not a workplace) and a place which counts as a permanent workplace
- private journeys – which have nothing to do with your job
If you’re not sure if a place you travel to counts as a permanent workplace telephone your Tax Office for advice.
Travel expenses that qualify for relief
You can get tax relief on the necessary costs of business travel like:
- public transport fares
- hotel accommodation
- meals
- tolls
- congestion charges
- parking fees
- business phone calls, fax or photocopying costs
But you can’t get tax relief for things that aren’t directly related to the business journey – like your newspaper or private phone calls.
