Is travel to work
tax deductible?

No, not if "work" is a permanent workplace. HMRC treats the journey between home and the place you normally work as commuting, and GOV.UK says you cannot claim "travel between home and work" (GOV.UK). If your business is based at home, journeys from home to clients and temporary sites are business travel, not commuting.

"Can I claim travel to work?" is really two questions. If you travel from home to your own shop, studio or unit every day, the answer is no: that is commuting. If you work from home and travel out to customers, the answer is usually yes: those trips are to business destinations. Most arguments with HMRC about travel come down to which of these describes your business.

Is travel to work tax deductible?

The HMRC rule

Vehicle insurance, repairs, fuel, parking, hire, road tax and breakdown cover, fares and hotel rooms for business trips are allowable. Travel between home and work, non-business journeys, and fines are not. The rule comes from Car, van and travel expenses, Self-employment (full) notes, SA103F.

GOV.UK is explicit that sole traders cannot claim travel between home and work (travel expenses), and the SA103F notes list "travel costs between home and business" as disallowable (SA103F notes). The test is where your business is based and whether the destination is a permanent place of work. For a sole trader genuinely based at home, with no other regular base, home is the base of operations and journeys from it to customers are business journeys. For a sole trader with premises, travel between home and the premises is ordinary commuting, even if you carry tools or paperwork with you.

When you can claim it

• Journeys from a home-based business to customers, suppliers and temporary sites.
• Travel between your premises and a customer, supplier or bank during the working day.
• Travel to a temporary workplace, such as a site you work at for a limited period.
• Travel between two separate places of business you run.

When you cannot

• The daily journey between home and your own shop, workshop, salon or office.
• Travel to a single client’s premises you attend every day as if it were your workplace.
• Commuting costs on days you only work at your permanent premises.
• The cost of moving house to be nearer your business.

What to claim instead

If you cannot claim the commute, look at the business journeys that start after it: the trip from your workshop to a customer, to a supplier or to the bank is business travel and allowable. If your business really is run from home, keep evidence that home is the base, such as where the business is registered, where you do the admin and store the tools, and where customers contact you.

How to decide if you can claim it

1. Was it for the business? A cost is only allowable if you incur it wholly and exclusively for the business. If it also serves a personal purpose that cannot be separated, such as clothing that keeps you warm or a meal that keeps you going, HMRC disallows it.
2. Is part of it personal? Where a cost has a business part you can identify, such as the business calls on a phone bill or the business miles in a car, you claim that part and leave the rest out, on a reasonable basis you can explain.
3. Is it a running cost or something you keep? It is a running cost, so on the cash basis it counts when you pay it and on traditional accounting when you incur it. Nothing about it needs spreading over later years.
4. Is there a specific rule? For travel to work, the deciding rule is business travel and vehicle running costs: vehicle insurance, repairs, fuel, parking, hire, road tax and breakdown cover, fares and hotel rooms for business trips are allowable. Travel between home and work, non-business journeys, and fines are not.

Worked example: an electrician with and without a unit

An electrician who works from home drives 6,000 business miles a year to customers. At 55p a mile in 2026/27 that is £3,300 of allowable mileage. If she instead rented a unit and drove there every morning before visiting customers, the 1,800 miles a year between home and the unit would be commuting, and only the 4,200 miles from the unit to customers would count: £2,310.

Temporary workplaces

A temporary workplace is somewhere you go to do a particular job for a limited time, such as a building site, a client's office for a project, or a venue for an event. Travel to it is business travel, even if you go there every day for a few weeks. It stops being temporary when it becomes where you normally work, for example if you spend most of your working time at one client for an indefinite period. Then the journey starts to look like commuting.

Working from home as your base

HMRC accepts that home can be the base of a business where the business is genuinely run from there: you keep the records, store the tools or stock, take bookings and do the admin at home, and have no other regular base. Many tradespeople, cleaners, mobile hairdressers and consultants are in this position. For them, the first journey of the day to a customer is a business journey. Someone who works mainly at their own premises cannot make the commute allowable by doing a little admin at home.

Employees are different

If you are employed as well as self-employed, the travel rules for your job are separate. An employee cannot claim ordinary commuting either, but can claim travel to a temporary workplace in the job, through the employer or a claim to HMRC. Do not mix the two: travel for your employment never goes on the self-employment pages.

Carrying tools does not change it

It is a common belief that carrying heavy tools or stock turns a commute into business travel. It does not. What matters is where you are travelling to and why, not what is in the van. A plumber who drives from home to his own workshop every morning is commuting, whatever he carries; the same plumber driving from home to a customer is making a business journey.

Where it goes on your return and in MTD

Because it is not allowable, a sole trader leaves it out of expenses altogether. If it went through your business account, record it as drawings or a non-business payment, and if your accounts include it, add the same amount back in the disallowable column of the full self-employment pages.

If your turnover was under £90,000, you can use the short self-employment pages (SA103S), which ask for a single figure for total allowable expenses rather than a box-by-box breakdown, and the full pages let you give just a total in box 31 too. The category still matters for your own records and for Making Tax Digital, where each quarterly update uses the same categories unless you choose to send one consolidated figure.

Most sole traders now use the cash basis, the default from the 2024/25 tax year, which counts a cost when you pay it. On traditional accounting you count it when you incur it, and equipment you keep goes through capital allowances rather than expenses.

How much an allowable cost saves

The value of a deduction is the tax it removes from your profit, not the cost itself. At the basic rate a sole trader saves 26p for every pound of allowable expense, at the higher rate 42p, and in the personal allowance taper between £100,000 and £125,140 as much as 62p. Landlords pay no Class 4 on rental profit, so they save 20p or 40p.

Records to keep

Keep a mileage log or travel record that shows the destination and purpose of each journey, and evidence of where your business is based. If you claim trips from home, be ready to show that home is the base of the business rather than a place you commute from.

From 6 April 2026, sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000 keep these records digitally and send quarterly updates under Making Tax Digital, falling to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. The MTD requirement checker shows when it applies to you.

Common mistakes

• Claiming the journey from home to your own premises as business mileage.
• Treating a long-term client site you attend every day as a temporary workplace.
• Believing that carrying tools makes a commute allowable.

Related expenses

This item sits in the car, van and travel expenses category, alongside buying a car, buying a van, car insurance, car leasing and PCP, car repairs and servicing, electric and hybrid cars, food and meals and fuel. The A to Z of expenses answers the same question for every other cost.

TapTax sorts each cost into the right category as you record it, applies the business share where you set one, and keeps the receipts with the figures, ready for your quarterly updates and final return.