If you’re a PAYE employee who travels between different job sites, you can claim a mobile worker tax refund from HMRC on mileage, public transport, meals, accommodation, and certain work-clothing costs — provided the places you travel to count as temporary workplaces. The relief works by reducing the tax you owe on income you spent doing your job, so you either get money back or pay less tax going forward. For 2026–27, the approved mileage rate rose to 55p for the first 10,000 business miles, which makes claims more valuable than they used to be.
Who Counts as a Mobile Worker
Everything turns on whether your travel is to a temporary workplace. Under ITEPA 2003, a workplace is temporary if you go there to carry out a task of limited duration or for a temporary purpose.1Legislation.gov.uk. Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 – Section 339 Travel to a temporary workplace qualifies for relief. Travel to a permanent one is ordinary commuting, and commuting gets nothing.
The 24-month rule is where most claims come unstuck. A workplace stops being temporary once you spend 40% or more of your working time there over a period that lasts, or is expected to last, longer than 24 months.2GOV.UK. Employment Income Manual – EIM32080 – Travel Expenses: Definitions: Temporary Workplace: Limited Duration, the 24 Month Rule Both conditions have to be met. A client site you visit one day a week for three years stays temporary because you’re only there 20% of the time. A site you’re at three or four days a week on an open-ended contract becomes permanent as soon as it’s reasonable to expect you’ll still be there past two years.3GOV.UK. Ordinary Commuting and Private Travel (490: Chapter 3)
You need to be a PAYE employee to claim this way. Self-employed contractors handle travel through self-assessment under different rules. Itinerant workers with no fixed base — think construction workers moving between sites or engineers rotating through client offices — usually qualify most easily, because every site is temporary by nature. An employment contract that reflects a mobile pattern strengthens the position if HMRC ever queries the claim.
What You Can Claim
Mileage in Your Own Vehicle
If you drive your own car or van for work, you claim using Approved Mileage Allowance Payments rather than tracking actual fuel and running costs. For 2026–27 the rate is 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles, then 25p per mile after that.4GOV.UK. Issue 143 of Agent Update The 55p rate was increased from the longstanding 45p in May 2026 and backdated to 6 April 2026. If your employer already pays a mileage allowance, you can only claim relief on the difference between what they pay and the approved rate.
Transport, Meals, and Accommodation
Train tickets, bus fares, and other transport costs for business journeys qualify.5GOV.UK. Claim Tax Relief for Your Job Expenses – Travel and Overnight Expenses So do meals and drinks bought while travelling to a temporary workplace, parking charges, and tolls.6GOV.UK. Expenses and Benefits: Travel and Subsistence If the job requires you to stay away from home overnight, accommodation counts too. You can only claim for costs your employer hasn’t already reimbursed.
Uniforms and Tools
Workers in certain trades can claim a flat rate deduction for maintaining uniforms or specialist clothing without tracking actual spending. The amount depends on the industry, with a default flat rate of £60 where a specific trade isn’t listed.7GOV.UK. Check How Much Tax Relief You Can Claim for Uniforms, Work Clothing and Tools Tools you had to buy and maintain for the job can also be claimed if your employer required them and didn’t pay.
How Much You Actually Get Back
This is where people miscalculate. Tax relief isn’t a refund of what you spent. HMRC reduces the income on which you pay tax, so the money back equals your marginal tax rate times the expenses claimed. Claim £1,000 as a 20% taxpayer and you get £200. At 40%, the same claim returns £400. The relief refunds the tax you shouldn’t have paid on money spent for work, not the money itself.
Records You Need to Keep
HMRC can ask for evidence at any point, and claims without records behind them tend to fall apart. Keep the following:
- A mileage log recording every business journey: date, start and end locations, purpose, and total miles. A spreadsheet is fine, but keep it current. Reconstructing a year’s driving from memory won’t hold up.
- Receipts for public transport, meals, accommodation, parking, tools, and equipment. Photos of paper receipts are acceptable.
- Your P60 (issued by your employer after the tax year ends) or P45 (when you leave a job), which show earnings and tax paid.
- Your employer’s name and PAYE reference, both on your payslip or P60.
The mileage log matters most for mobile workers and is the record most often missing. If HMRC queries a claim and you can’t produce journey records, the mileage portion will be rejected.
How to Submit the Claim
Since late 2024, HMRC has run an online digital claim service where you submit expenses and upload evidence directly. It replaced the old print-and-post routine. The service walks you through identity verification, expense categories, and bank details for any refund. Paper is still available: download the P87 form and post it, which is also the route if a tax agent is submitting on your behalf.8GOV.UK. Claim Tax Relief for Your Job Expenses by Post
The P87 form, whether online or on paper, only covers claims up to £2,500 per tax year. Above that, you have to register for self-assessment and put the expenses on your tax return. Mobile workers with heavy mileage cross that line easily: 5,000 miles at 55p is already £2,750. Add up your total before choosing the route.
When the Money Arrives
HMRC typically takes 10 to 12 weeks to process a claim, sometimes faster for straightforward ones. How you receive the relief depends on the year claimed for:
- For the current tax year, HMRC usually adjusts your tax code so you pay less tax each month going forward. You’ll see slightly higher net pay on your payslips rather than a lump sum.
- For previous tax years, HMRC either pays a refund into your bank account (or by cheque) or adjusts your tax code, depending on the amount.9GOV.UK. Claim Tax Relief for Your Job Expenses: Overview
If HMRC adjusts your code for an ongoing expense like mileage, that adjustment carries forward into future years automatically. When your circumstances change — you stop travelling, switch jobs, or your mileage drops — tell HMRC so they can correct the code. Leaving it means you’ll underpay tax and face a bill later.
Claiming for Previous Years
You can backdate a claim for up to four years after the end of the relevant tax year. In 2026, that reaches back to 2022–23. Many mobile workers only realise they were eligible after being in the job a while, so a backdated claim often produces a larger one-off refund than any single year would. Gather records for each year separately, because HMRC treats each tax year as a distinct claim.