Business mileage vs commuting: what counts

If you’re an employee

Ordinary commuting gets no relief

HMRC’s employee travel guide (490, chapter 3) says ordinary commuting is any travel between a permanent workplace and your home, or any other place that isn’t a workplace. For most employees that’s the journey they make most days between home and their normal place of work (GOV.UK: 490 chapter 3). It makes no difference that the journey is outside normal hours or that your employer asked you to come in.

You also can’t turn a commute into a business journey by arranging an appointment on the way, or by stopping to make work phone calls. GOV.UK’s vehicle guidance puts it simply: relief doesn’t include travelling to and from your work, unless it’s a temporary place of work (GOV.UK: vehicles you use for work).

Temporary workplaces can qualify

HMRC says a temporary workplace is somewhere you go only to do a task of limited duration or for a temporary purpose, even if you go there regularly. Travel from home to a temporary workplace can get tax relief (GOV.UK: travel and overnight expenses).

The 24-month rule (and the 40% test)

A workplace stops counting as temporary if you go there during a period of continuous work that lasts, or is likely to last, more than 24 months. HMRC treats work there as “continuous” if you spend 40% or more of your working time at that place (HMRC manual EIM32080; 490 paragraphs 3.18 to 3.22). Both parts have to apply. If a posting is expected to last less than 24 months it’s temporary from the start, but if the expectation changes so it will run past 24 months, it stops being temporary from the date that changed.

Working from home

HMRC says working at home doesn’t by itself make the trip to your employer’s office a business journey. For hybrid workers, journeys from home to the base office are ordinary commuting. Relief is only possible where working at home is an objective requirement of the job, and then only on days when home is a workplace (490, paragraphs 3.36 to 3.39).

Passing the office on the way

If you stop at your permanent workplace and do real work there on the way to a temporary workplace, HMRC treats it as 2 journeys: the first is commuting, the second is business. If the stop is only incidental, such as picking up papers, the whole trip is business travel (490, paragraphs 3.48 and 3.49).

If you’re a sole trader

GOV.UK says you can claim allowable business travel costs, but not non-business driving or travel between home and work (GOV.UK: car, van and travel expenses). HMRC’s business manual explains that travel from home to your place of business, such as a shop, office or surgery, is generally disallowed. That still applies if you sometimes work at home or keep your records or tools there (HMRC manual BIM37605).

It’s different for itinerant trades. Where you have no fixed place of business but move from one site to the next on a temporary basis, HMRC’s manual says travel between home and those sites will normally be allowable (BIM37620). A detour to a supplier on the way to your usual base doesn’t make the commute a business journey (BIM37630).

The 24-month rule is part of the employee rules. It isn’t the test for sole traders, whose travel turns on whether it’s wholly and exclusively for the business.

Examples (illustrations only)

• Office employee, client visit. An employee drives from home to a client’s premises for a one-off meeting, then back home. The client’s premises are a temporary workplace, so this is likely to be business travel. Driving to the usual office the next day is ordinary commuting.
• Employee seconded for 18 months. HMRC’s own example (490, example 11) is an employee sent to a branch for 18 months who then returns. As it’s expected to last less than 24 months, relief is available for travel between home and that branch.
• Employee posted for 28 months. HMRC’s example 12 is a posting known from the start to last 28 months, with more than 40% of working time there. It’s a permanent workplace, so the travel is ordinary commuting.
• Sole trader with a shop. Driving from home to the shop each morning is home-to-work travel and isn’t claimable. Driving from the shop to deliver to a customer is a business journey.
• Itinerant sole trader. A tradesperson who works at customers’ homes, moving from job to job, is the kind of itinerant trade HMRC describes, so travel from home to each job will normally be allowable.

Keep a log either way

Whichever applies to you, record each journey as you go: the date, where you started and finished, why it was for business, and the miles. Employees claiming tax relief on their own vehicle must send HMRC mileage logs showing the reason for every journey and the start and end postcodes (GOV.UK). An app like Quidometer lets you mark each trip Business or Personal as you go.

Read next

• Mileage Allowance Relief guide, for employees using their own vehicle
• How to claim mileage from HMRC
• Mileage tracker for UK sole traders