Claim tax relief for your job expenses

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Vehicles you use for work

You may be able to claim tax relief if you use cars, vans, motorcycles or bicycles for work.

This does not include travelling to and from your work, unless it’s a temporary place of work.

How much you can claim depends on whether you’re using:

  • a vehicle that you’ve bought or leased with your own money
  • a vehicle owned or leased by your employer (a company vehicle)

You can claim for this tax year and the 4 previous tax years, if you’re eligible.

Using your own vehicle for work

If you use your own vehicle or vehicles for work, you may be able to claim tax relief on the approved mileage rate. This covers the cost of owning and running your vehicle. You cannot claim separately for things like:

  • fuel
  • electricity
  • vehicle tax
  • MOTs
  • repairs

To work out how much you can claim for each tax year you’ll need to:

  • keep records of the dates and mileage of your work journeys
  • add up the mileage for each vehicle type you’ve used for work
  • take away any amount your employer pays you towards your costs, (sometimes called a ‘mileage allowance’)

Approved mileage rates

First 10,000 business miles in the tax year Each business mile over 10,000 in the tax year
Cars and vans 45p 25p
Motorcycles 24p 24p
Bicycles 20p 20p

Using a company car for business

You can claim tax relief on the money you’ve spent on fuel and electricity, for business trips in your company car. Keep records to show the actual cost of the fuel.

If your employer reimburses some of the money, you can claim relief on the difference.

How to claim

If you can claim these expenses, you must complete a P87 form and send it to HMRC by post with copies of your mileage logs. These logs must include:

  • the reason for every journey
  • the postcode for the start point of every journey
  • the postcode for the end point of every journey

If you are claiming for more than one employment, you must send a copy of your mileage log for each.

Before making a claim you should use this service to check:

  • if you can claim
  • how to claim

If you complete a Self Assessment tax return, you must claim through your tax return instead.

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