Business travel and subsistence rules for directors

A temporary workplace is one you attend for a limited duration or for a temporary purpose. Contractor site work usually qualifies at the start of an engagement.

The 24-month rule cuts it off. Once you expect to spend more than 40% of your time at one site for more than 24 months, it is a permanent workplace and travel to it is commuting. Crucially, relief ends when the expectation forms — signing a contract extension that takes you past 24 months stops the claim immediately.

Train, air and taxi fares, mileage at the approved rates in your own car, parking and tolls, and congestion charges on business journeys.

Subsistence on a qualifying business journey: meals while travelling, and reasonable refreshment. HMRC's benchmark scale rates can be used instead of receipts where the qualifying conditions and a checking system are in place.

Hotel costs on business trips are allowable, along with a personal incidental expenses allowance of £5 a night in the UK and £10 overseas to cover things like phone calls and laundry.

For overseas trips, HMRC publishes country-by-country rates. Where a trip mixes business and leisure, apportion, and keep the itinerary.

Keep the purpose, date, destination and who was met for each journey. Mileage needs a log; a monthly round figure invites a challenge.

Reimbursed qualifying business expenses are covered by an exemption and do not go on a P11D. Anything not qualifying does, or must be payrolled.

Rates, thresholds and deadlines quoted here reflect the 2026/27 UK tax year. Check current GOV.UK guidance, or ask us, before relying on them for your own company.