Whether you’re self-employed, a company director, or an employee working from home, understanding which expenses can be claimed is crucial for maximising tax savings.
This guide outlines eight key household costs that HMRC recognises as allowable expenses. We’ll also explore alternative methods like simplified expenses for remote work claims based on your monthly hours worked at home.
Key takeaways
- Allowable expenses are essential business costs that self-employed individuals, company directors, and some employees can claim, even when working from home.
- You can claim working-from-home expenses on various costs, such as a proportion of your rent, utility bills, or mortgage interest.
- There are three ways to claim these expenses: as a flat rate, using simplified expenses, or by claiming the exact amount spent.
What are allowable working-from-home expenses for UK taxpayers?
Allowable expenses are the essential costs of keeping your business running, including any expenses related to working from home.
Allowable expenses are tax deductions: you can take them off your turnover before you calculate the amount of profit you’ll pay tax on.
Are you eligible to claim work-from-home tax deductions?
Both self-employed individuals and, in certain cases, employees can claim working-from-home expenses. Here’s how eligibility works for different groups.
Self-employed expenses
If you’re self-employed, you can list your allowable expenses on your Self Assessment tax return. The sum of your expenses is subtracted from your annual revenue to calculate taxable profit. HMRC will only tax you on your profit.
For example, a sole trader with £60,000 in revenue and £15,000 in expenses would be taxed only on the £45,000 profit.
“Never underestimate the importance of a clear paper trail. Every invoice, receipt, and bank statement tells part of your financial story. If you can’t evidence a transaction, you may struggle to claim it and that’s money left on the table.”
When can employees claim expenses?
Employees, including limited company directors, can claim working-from-home expenses if they cannot work in an office setting. Eligible costs may include heating, electricity, water, and business calls.
However, if remote or hybrid working is optional due to office space availability, you cannot claim working-from-home expenses.
How to claim working-from-home expenses
There are three methods for claiming allowable expenses:
- Claim a flat rate of £6.00 a week without keeping evidence of your costs
- Claim simplified expenses based on the number of hours you work from home each month
- Claim the exact amount of working-from-home costs. To do so, keep evidence of your expenses, such as receipts and invoices.
Step-by-step guide to filing HMRC claims
To claim expenses, take the following steps:
1. Gather the necessary documents and other items:
-
- A recent payslip or P60. A P60 shows tax paid on your salary in a tax year.
- Your National Insurance number
- Your mobile phone
2. For employees, provide:
-
- Employer’s name
- Pay As You Earn (PAYE) reference
- Job title
- Confirmation that your home is used as an office
- A list of working-from-home expenses to be claimed
3. Submit the claim form. HMRC will review it and adjust your tax code if necessary.
4. Meet the deadline – claim expenses within four years post the tax year of spending.
What working-from-home expenses can I claim?
If you’re eligible, these are eight costs you can claim as working-from-home expenses.
Mortgage interest or rent
If you’re self-employed and you rent your home or pay a mortgage, you can claim a portion of that cost as an allowable business expense. You’ll need to work out how much of your mortgage or rent you can claim. To do this, you’ll need to work out how much of the house you use for your business.
For example, you work from home in a five-room house (excluding the bathroom or kitchen) and you use one room exclusively for work purposes. You’re using 20% of your rooms for your business.
This means you can claim 20% of your annual mortgage interest (but not capital repayments) or rental costs on your Self Assessment tax return.
You can’t claim this expense if you’re a company director or employee working from home.
If you are claiming for working-from-home expenses for previous years, bear in mind that you must claim within 4 years of the end of the tax year in which you spent the money.
Heating and electricity bills
You can claim a portion of your heating and electricity bills as working-from-home expenses.
To work out how much of your utilities bills you can claim as a working-from-home expense, calculate as a percentage how much of what you use supports your work environment.
For example, if you spend £150 a month to heat and power your home and use one of your five rooms for work-only purposes, you can claim £30 a month as an allowable expense.
Broadband bills
You can claim broadband costs directly related to your work as a working-from-home expense. You’ll need to calculate the proportion of your usage that’s for work purposes and then use that percentage to work out what portion of your monthly bill can be claimed as an allowable expense.
Council Tax
If you’re self-employed, you can claim Council Tax as an allowable working-from-home expense. Identify how many rooms you’re using exclusively for work and then apply that number to your Council Tax bill.
For example, if your monthly Council Tax bill is £100 and you use one of your four rooms exclusively as an office, you can claim 25% of your Council Tax bill as a working-from-home expense.
Mobile phone bill
You can claim part of your mobile phone bill as an allowable business expense. There are two ways to claim mobile phone use as a working-from-home expense:
- Claim only for the percentage of use that is work-related; or,
- Set up a work-only mobile contract and claim that bill
As with broadband costs, you can calculate the proportion of your mobile phone bill that’s an allowable expense by looking at your usage. For example, if 40% of your mobile phone usage is business-related, you can claim 40% of the costs. Let’s say your monthly phone bill is £100. In this case, £40 of the bill would be an allowable business expense.
Car mileage/fuel
If you work from home and travel frequently for work, you can claim mileage and fuel costs as allowable expenses. This doesn’t include commuting to or from your office.
For each work-related journey, you should record the date and how many miles you travelled. Use this information to calculate the total mileage travelled in a tax year.
When you make a claim, send HMRC a copy of your mileage log, covering why each trip was taken, and the postcode at the start and end of each journey.
Calculate how much you can claim by multiplying your travel mileage by the approved rates below. Note there are different rates for the first 10,000 miles and for each business mile over 10,000.
| First 10,000 business miles in the tax year | Each business mile over 10,000 in the tax year | |
| Cars and vans | 55p | 25p |
| Motorcycles | 24p | 24p |
| Bicycles | 20p | 20p |
Magazine subscriptions
If you choose to subscribe to a work-related magazine, you can claim the cost of that subscription as a working-from-home expense. You must have paid for the subscription yourself.
Contents insurance
You can claim the proportion of your contents insurance that relates to your work or your business as an allowable business expense.
You can use the number of rooms method to calculate how much of your contents insurance you can claim as an allowable expense. For example, if your monthly contents insurance bill is £100 for a four-bedroom house, and you use one of those rooms as an office, you can claim 25% of your bill as a working-from-home expense.
Understanding and using simplified expenses
Simplified expenses is a flat rate for calculating working-from-home business expenses based on the number of hours you work from home each month.
You can use simplified expenses if you work at home for 25 hours or more a month. You can’t use simplified expenses for phone or internet expenses.
If you use simplified expenses, you don’t need to work out what proportion of a bill relates to business expenses. This can be useful when it’s hard to clearly separate business use from personal use.
Use HMRC’s flat rates to calculate the business expenses you can claim.
| Hours of business use per month | Flat rate per month |
| 25 to 50 | £10 |
| 51 to 100 | £18 |
| 101 and more | £26 |
Tips for successful expense claims
Don’t forget to keep records and receipts and keep up to date with the latest rules from HMRC. If in doubt, consult an accountant or contact HMRC directly to make sure the expenses you claim are allowable expenses when working from home.
For more guidance, explore 1st Formations‘ resources or our blog covering limited companies, tax obligations, and more.
Join The Discussion
Comments (60)
I am a home worker and I want to claim my expenses so can you guide me to where I go now
Thank you for your kind comment.
Unfortunately as we are not regulated to provide accountancy advice, we are unable to provide advice on specific scenarios. We would recommend contacting an accountant for further assistance.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Can you clarify the position on claiming a proportion on mortgage interest when working from home. If you are classed as a Contractor with Worker status, so not self employer but also not a full employee its very unclear if this is an allowable expense when also being home based. All just a hypothetical question
Thank you for your kind comment, George.
Unfortunately as we are not regulated to provide accountancy advice, we are unable to provide advice on specific scenarios. We would recommend contacting an accountant for further assistance.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
I work from home on average 2 days out of 5 per week. I am employed but we are told to work from home where possible. Am I able to claim any expenses?
Thank you for your kind comment.
Unfortunately as we are not regulated to provide accountancy advice, we are unable to provide advice on specific scenarios. We would recommend contacting an accountant for further assistance.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hello, what are the rooms of a house used as office for a self employed person that count for apportioning percentage in the self assessment claim? – eg. bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom, of which a bedroom is used as office full time, full year – all of these or only the bedrooms?
Also, if we are two people working at home as a office with two different business, how do we apportioning the claim for claiming house expenses.
Many thanks.
Thank you for your kind comment.
Unfortunately as we are not regulated to provide legal advice, we are unable to provide advice on specific scenarios. We would recommend contacting a solicitor for further assistance.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
If you do this, when you come to sell your home, does it affect your capital gains tax principle private residents relief?
Thank you for your kind comment.
Unfortunately as we are not regulated to provide accountancy advice, we are unable to provide advice on specific scenarios. We would recommend contacting an accountant for further assistance.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
hello there and thank you for the video and further detail
As of today (7/1/25) do they all stand?
Also i am self employed working from home
I have no rent or mortgage to pay and I work in my sitting room (only one room in the house!)
Excluding kitchen and bathroom its 3 room house
Can i claim back against all the other items listed and at what % of the outgoings?
many thanks
Thank you for your kind comment.
Unfortunately as we are not regulated to provide accountancy advice, we are unable to provide advice on specific scenarios. We would recommend contacting an accountant for further assistance.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hi, my situation is a bit unique, I hope you can help with some advice. I work full time remotely for a Canadian based company and I rent a house in the UK. I receive foreign income from this company and I am liable to pay tax in the UK via self assessment. I don’t have an option to go to an office therefore I need to use space in my home for work. Can I claim any tax back on a portion of my rent? There’s is no information on this I can find on HMRC’s website but this article says it’s possible. Do you have an official source? Thank you
Hi Elena,
Thank you for your kind comment.
Unfortunately as we are not regulated to provide accountancy advice, we are unable to provide advice on specific scenarios. We would recommend contacting an accountant for further assistance.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hi I was forced to work from home and to have Internet as I didn’t have previously as I didn’t want. Office closed and contract changed to home. I want to claim for the Internet can I? I work for nhs and they won’t provide anything if they can avoid. Can I backdate if I can claim?
Hi Jayne,
Yes you should be able to claim and backdate for 4 years; however, you may have to prove they didn’t have it and that they were forced (in writing).
We hope this helps!
The 1st Formations Team
I worked from home for the whole of the covid period and since return to work I’ve done 1 day working from home, increased the last year to 2 days. I work for the NHS as a medical secretary, 38 hours a week, have a mortgage, council tax etc, would I be entitled to claim anything back or potentially going forwards?
Hi Marie,
Since 6th April 2022, the eligibility rules for employed (as opposed to self-employed) people who work from home became stricter. An employee’s eligibility to claim since that date will depend on whether they choose to work from home. For more details, please see: https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home.
You can make a back-claim up to four years so have until 5th April 2025 to make a claim for the tax year ended 5th April 2021. If you wish to check your eligibility for making such a claim, clicking on “Start now” in the above link should guide you through the steps.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
What if I rent a room in a house which costs me £600 a month. I assume that precludes me from deducting council tax, electric etc as it’s not my home so how much can I deduct for tax?
I am a video creator so most of my time is spent in the room. Thanks in advance.
Dear Keith,
Providing the room is used solely for the purposes of your trade (i.e. rather than sleeping etc), a signed business tenancy agreement exists and your trade is invoiced by whoever the room is rented from then you should be able to deduct the £600 rent. If the situation is not so clear, we encourage you to seek advice from an accountant. Furthermore, we also recommend that you ensure whoever you are renting the room from is aware that it is being used for your trade as it may impact them in terms of business rates and insurance.
We hope this answer helps.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Can I claim cleaning bills, eg a cleaner?
We hope you enjoyed the blog.
If you run your business from dedicated premises separate to your home (e.g. a rented office), there should be no issue claiming cleaning costs relating to that premises. If you run your business from your home, HMRC may challenge whether such expenditure has a dual purpose i.e. that it is not “wholly” and “exclusively” for the purpose of the business. Using a method of apportionment (e.g. based on the number of rooms in your house) may overcome this however, if you do consider using such a method, we suggest discussing with an accountant.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Most useful and most detailed article out there with examples how to calculate things. Much appreciated. 5 stars!
Thank you so much for your generous feedback and the 5-star rating!
We are thrilled to hear that you found the article detailed and helpful, especially with the examples provided.
If you have any other questions or need further clarification, feel free to reach out anytime!
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Thanks for the valuable video, I got a lot of good info from it.
I recently started working from home as the sole director of my private limited company. I live in a 1 bedroom flat (1 bedroom, 1 living room, 1 bathroom) – my bedroom has a desk in it with monitor setup etc. but I also obviosuly sleep in the bedroom. So the bedroom isn’t used exclusively for work purposes. What proportion of my rent can I claim as tax deductable? Thank you
Thank you for your comment, K. Unfortunately for you, no part of your rent could be recognised as a business expense in your limited company. You may however be interested in the below video which focuses on limited companies:
https://www.1stformations.co.uk/blog/13-allowable-expenses-your-limited-company-isnt-claiming/
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hello
My daughter has moved back to Australia and started a new job. Per her verbal agreement with her new employer, after three months of orientation, she will relocate interstate. In the meantime, she is renting an AirBnb flat and expenses are included in the daily charge. She is working from home 2 days a week. what, if anything can she claim for WFH?
Hi Rosemary,
Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, we cannot advise on tax claims for Australian residents.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hello!
I am just looking at allowable expenses as an employee, working from home – my employer requires me to work from home as they do not offer space to work within the support office (global company with all bar support teams working remote).
I use a room in my house as an office, which outside of normal working hours is a guest bedroom. I recently moved from a rental flat where my ‘office’ was part of the combine living/dining/kitchen area (proportioning costs based upon use of 33% of total space), and into a house that I own that has 4 rooms (proportioning costs based upon use of 25% of total space). I also do some sole-trader work outside of my employed role – but as this work is not done from my house allowances I am considering separately.
Am I correct that I can claim employed expenses as follows?
– Proportioned energy / broadband / telephone reflecting use for employed purposes.
– Proportioned council tax according to space used in each property
– Potentially proportioned rent previously and now mortgage interest but not capital (assume as room has dual purpose this would not affect CGT??).
– Potentially proportioned contents insurance.
I’m just a little confused as your post suggests these are allowable as ’employed working from home’ but other sources (including HMRC) suggest that the allowable expenses are more limited if employed regardless of if you have to work from home (ie they don’t mention council tax, mortgage interest or insurance).
Any advice appreciated!
Hi Mel,
Thank you so much for getting in touch. Please accept our sincerest apologies for not replying to your comment sooner.
If your employer does not reimburse you for the additional household expenses you incur as a direct result of regularly working from home, you can claim tax relief on these extra costs.
To be eligible to do this, you must be required to work from home under a homeworking arrangement in your employment contract, rather than choosing to work from home. From what you’ve said, it sounds like you are eligible because there is no option for you to work from your employer’s office.
As an employee, you are not entitled to the same extent of homeworking expenses as a self-employed person. Unfortunately, you cannot claim tax relief against your rent/mortgage, council tax, existing broadband access, fixed water rates, and home insurance.
You can only claim for additional costs of gas, electricity, metered water, and business phone calls.
We hope this answers your questions and provides clarity. Please do get back in touch if we can help with anything else.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
I have just read a previous post saying ”HMRC allowable use of home as office figure ” is better to use as otherwise HMRC will deem your home as a business and can apply CGT to the proportion used as an office when you sell. Are you able to shed any light – is this only if you deduct a proportion of expenses such as council tax, rates such as fuel bills and mortage interest and if so is this if done over years ? To avoid this as I am newly self employed as a sole trader is it better to stick to the £6 per week – £26 per month rule for allowable use of home office figure? I am right that this would only apply to mortgage interest, rates, fuel bills and council Tax? Am I missing anything here?
Thanks for any clarity
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Neeta.
In general terms, there is a possibility that HMRC will classify your home as a business and apply CGT to the proportion used as an office when you sell. We would recommend seeking advice from a tax advisor/accountant as we are unable to provide financial advice as we are unregulated to do so.
We are sorry we are unable to be of further assistance.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hi,
I work full time from home as a rabbit boarding establishment. I have outbuildings in the garden and use two rooms inside my house. One room houses small animals and my bathroom is used for grooming rabbits. In this instance can I include the bathroom as a work space?
Thanks
Thank you for your kind enquiry. It is unlikely HMRC would allow a bathroom to be considered as a workspace, as in almost all cases a bathroom would be used solely for personal (non-work) related reasons. We would recommend you contact HMRC on 0300 200 3300 for further information.
We trust this information is of use to you.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hi,
This is a great article, thanks for sharing.
I am in a similar situation to Phil. I am an IT contractor (security tester) and work on an ad-hoc basis. These contracts are outside IR35 and have a limited company.
I also work part time for another firm (similar job) and receive renumeration for this job via PAYE.
I work from home (a flat with two bedrooms and a living room; one of the bedrooms is used exclusively by me for work). Although I live with a partner, the property is in my name and I pay all bills and mortgage.
Does this mean I can claim 1/3 of mortgage interest and bills?
Thanks,
J
Thank you for your kind enquiry, J.
The answer will depend on how often you use the rooms for work – i.e. how often you work from home and not ‘on location.’ Can you please advise this?
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hi, I am working as a umbrella company, can I still claim back all the covered items in this article?
Kind regards
Paul
Thanks for your kind enquiry, Paul.
Do you mean you are working under an umbrella company?
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hello, I am a sole trader delivering consulting services working from home. I share a flat with my partner where one of our three main rooms is my office. Is it correct that I can claim a full 1/3 of our rent, electricity & gas, water and broadband costs as expenses in my tax return?
I also had a 1 day a week part-time regular employment contract (i.e. covered by PAYE) during the year, which I report in the tax return. This work was also completed from home. In my capacity as a sole trader, I did average five days a week working for myself out of my office though as I often worked weekends.
I’d be really grateful for any advice. Many thanks.
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Phil.
What you could claim regarding your flat would be dependent on who the bills are issued to, who they are paid by, and whether your partner also uses the flat as an office. Based on what you have described, you may only be able to claim back 1/6 of the rent etc, if you split your bill payments with your partner.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
I have a personal service company with a PO box address as I’m renting and I cannot have my home address as the company address. Can I still claim allowable expenses for rent, heating and electricity bills, broadband bills, and content insurance?
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Santiago. Your working from home expenses should not be affected by using a personal service company with a PO Box address – what is pertinent is where you actually work from and that you are able to prove it by way of utility bills, etc. Therefore you should still be able to claim allowable expenses for what you have listed.
We trust this information is of use to you.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
My son is living with us and works from home and is obviously using more energy etc, However it is me that pays the bills. Can I claim tax relief because of this, or does he claim it and pay me the equivalent.
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Brian.
In general terms, if your son is not paying bills in his name, no one in your house will be able to claim tax relief based on him working at home, as the bills need to be in the name of the person claiming the relief.
We trust this information is of use.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hi, I’ve been working from home since the pandemic started and we subsequently outgrew our office space so I’m now employed to permanently work from home. I had previously claimed the WFH tax allowance of £312 but what you have outlined as allowable expenses in the article would be much more than that allowance.
How can I make a claim for expenses incurred since March 2020 being an employed person that works from home?
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Jamie.
Unfortunately, once you submit a Self Assessment Tax Return, you only have 3 days to make any amendments to it. After this time period, you will be unable to submit further tax claims for that period.
We trust this information is of use to you.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
I didn’t submit a self assessment, I claimed tax relief for working from home which I was able to do without submitting a self assessment.
Thank you for clarifying Jamie.
We are unsure if you will be able to claim additional amounts of tax relief once you have claimed once – we would recommend you contact HMRC to clarify this, on 0300 200 3300
We are sorry we cannot be more help regarding the question you have raised.
Kind regards,
The 1st Formations Team
I’d like to understand as a sole trader, now working from home, if part of my rent and bills can be claimed on the room used for work even though I do not have the luxury of a sperate work only space? My living room has become my office on a daily basis.
Thanks for taking the time to message. Yes, absolutely, from what you’ve said, you should be able to make a claim. You may find the below helpful:
https://www.gov.uk/expenses-if-youre-self-employed
https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-simplified-expenses/working-from-home
Please do let us know if you have any further questions.
Regards,
The 1st Formations Team
I live and work from my (eight useable rooms) home. It has a commercial mortgage on it which we pay monthly. Can I still claim 1/8 for my sole use office even though it is not a normal mortgage? Many thanks
Thanks for your kind enquiry, Kate.
In the first instance, can you please let us know if the property you are residing in which has a commercial mortgage on it is technically allowed to have people reside in it? Is it zoned as solely commercial and you should not really be living there, or is there an allowance?
Regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hi, you state that you can claim a portion of mortgage payment and also mortgage interest. However another website says you can NOT Claim portion of capital mortgage payments, only a portion of the interest. Which is correct please??
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Georgina.
You can claim a portion of mortgage interest as an allowable expense, not capital mortgage payments. It states that capital repayments are not included in our blog article, but we will take it under advisement that we may need to edit this wording to make it clearer.
We trust this information is of use to you.
Regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Not the best advice.
Pity you did not mention the Capital Gains Tax that will fall due on that proportion of your home that you deem to be your office, if you claim for a proportion of your rent, rates , water , property insurance and mortgage interest costs, as being for business purposes. If you claim one sixth of your home as for business purposes, on the basis that 1 rom is your office and 5 other rooms are your private residence then depending on the number of years that you make this expense claim, when you sell your home HMRC will expect you apply capital gains tax to the one sixth area you have claimed for as an office.
You would be better considering the HMRC allowable use of home as office figure that they allow without it affecting the sale of your private residence.
Thank you for your valuable input John. We will now consider adding a caveat relating to homeowners, to make your point clear to our readers.
Regards,
The 1st Formations Team
Hello, loved the article and thanks for sharing all this information.
If I have a short form for SA Tax due to having a private pension (the only reason I do a self assessment tax) under what heading or where would I claim the items you mentioned above, please.
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Jennifer.
Allowable expenses can be claimed in section 2.5 of a short form Self Assessment (SA200).
We trust this information is of use to you.
Regards,
The 1st Formations Team
My son lives at home and works at home for his employers as his position is a home based job and so subsequently our bills have risen.
I have been told by the HMRC that he cannot claim for working from home because the bills are in my name. Is there any way round this ?
Many thanks
Thank you for your kind enquiry, Debra.
In general terms, the only way to resolve this situation would be to switch the accounts to your son’s name going forward, so he is the account holder. This would enable you to claim for working from home expenses going forward. However, you would not be able to make a retrospective claim as HMRC have already ruled against this due to the fact that he is not presently paying for bills, and therefore cannot claim against those bills.
I trust this information is of use to you.
Regards,
The 1st Formations Team