Travel Expenses: What You Can and Can't Claim

The Golden Rule of Travel Expenses

The single most important rule for travel expenses is this: business travel is allowable, commuting is not. Understanding the difference between these two will save you from both under-claiming and over-claiming.

Business travel is a journey you make in the performance of your duties — visiting a client, going to a supplier, attending a meeting at a temporary workplace, or travelling to a location where you're working for a limited period.

Commuting is travel between your home and your regular, permanent place of work. Even if it's a long and expensive commute, it's a personal expense.

What Counts as Your "Regular Place of Work"?

For sole traders, this is where things get interesting. If you work from home and have no other fixed place of work, your home is your base. Any business journey from home to a client site, meeting, or temporary workplace is business travel — and it's allowable.

If you rent an office or workshop and go there every day, that's your regular place of work, and travel to and from it is commuting.

If you work from multiple locations — say, home three days a week and a co-working space two days — HMRC will look at where your "base" is. Generally, the place where you spend most of your working time or where your business is substantively managed is your regular place of work.

Transport Costs You Can Claim

Train, Bus, and Coach Fares

Fares for business journeys are fully allowable. Keep your tickets or booking confirmations as evidence. If you use a railcard that saves you money on business fares, the cost of the railcard itself is also allowable (or the business proportion if you also use it personally).

Taxis and Ride-Hailing Services

Taxi fares for business journeys are allowable. This includes Uber, Bolt, and similar services. Keep receipts — most ride-hailing apps provide digital receipts which are perfectly acceptable.

Air Fares

Flights for business purposes are allowable, including domestic and international flights. Book economy class to avoid any questions from HMRC — business or first class may be queried, though there's no specific rule against it if you have a genuine business reason.

Driving Costs

If you drive to business appointments, you can claim either:

• Mileage at HMRC rates: 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, 25p thereafter
• Actual vehicle costs: Fuel, insurance, and other running costs apportioned by business mileage

See our detailed guide to vehicle expenses for a full comparison of these methods.

Parking

Parking charges at business destinations are allowable. This includes pay-and-display, car park fees, and parking meter charges. Keep your tickets or payment confirmations.

Parking at your regular place of work is not allowable — that's part of your commuting costs.

Congestion and Toll Charges

The London Congestion Charge, ULEZ charges, Clean Air Zone charges, and road tolls are all allowable for business journeys.

Accommodation and Subsistence

Hotels and Overnight Stays

If your business travel requires an overnight stay, hotel costs are allowable. This includes:

• Room charges
• Reasonable breakfast charges (if included or charged separately)
• Laundry costs during the stay
• Wi-Fi charges at the hotel

HMRC doesn't set a maximum hotel rate, but your choice should be reasonable. A sole trader staying at a luxury five-star hotel for a routine business trip might face questions. A comfortable, mid-range hotel is unlikely to be challenged.

Meals While Travelling

You can claim the cost of food and drink when you're travelling away from your normal place of work on business. This is called subsistence and includes:

• Breakfast, lunch, and dinner while travelling
• Coffee, tea, and soft drinks
• Snacks

The meals should be reasonable in cost. HMRC doesn't set a specific daily limit, but extravagant dining will attract attention.

Critical distinction: Subsistence is food you buy for yourself while travelling. If you take a client to lunch, that's entertainment — and it's not allowable. See our guide on entertainment expenses for more on this.

Your Regular Lunch

You cannot claim for lunch on a normal working day at your regular workplace. The sandwich you buy near your office is a personal expense, not business subsistence. The expense becomes allowable only when you're away from your normal base on business.

International Travel

Business travel abroad follows the same principles:

• Flights, trains, and taxis at the destination are allowable
• Hotel costs are allowable
• Subsistence is allowable
• Currency exchange fees are allowable

If your trip has a mixed business and personal purpose (e.g., a five-day trip where three days are business meetings and two days are holiday), you need to apportion the costs. The flight might be primarily business, but hotel costs for the personal days are not allowable.

HMRC will look at the primary purpose of the trip. If it's mainly business with a brief personal extension, the travel costs may be fully allowable with only the accommodation and subsistence for personal days excluded.

What You Cannot Claim

• Daily commuting costs (home to regular workplace and back)
• Travel that's mainly personal with incidental business
• Fines and penalties (parking fines, speeding tickets)
• Travel costs for someone accompanying you who has no business reason to be there
• First-class upgrades without a genuine business justification

Record-Keeping for Travel Expenses

Keep receipts and records for all travel expenses. For each journey, record:

• The date
• The destination and departure point
• The business purpose
• The cost

With Accounted, you can forward booking confirmations to Penny or snap photos of receipts and send them via WhatsApp. She'll categorise everything correctly and maintain the records you need for your tax return.

Practical Examples

Freelance consultant, works from home: Sarah travels from her home in Leeds to a client's office in Manchester for a meeting. Train fare: £25. Lunch at the station: £8. Both are allowable — she's travelling from her base (home) to a temporary business location.

Electrician with a workshop: Tom drives from his rented workshop to a customer's house to do a job. The mileage is a business expense. But his daily drive from home to the workshop is commuting.

Photographer with no fixed base: Lisa works at different locations every day — weddings, events, studio shoots. She has no regular workplace, so almost all her travel is business travel. Her home is her base for tax purposes.

Stop missing travel expense claims. Sign up for Accounted today and let Penny track every business journey automatically.