tmcmatchBusiness travel expenses and HMRC: what counts, and the £5, £10 and £25 meal rates
Whether a journey is business travel for tax purposes is decided by three sections of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, and what an employer can pay for meals on it is decided by a statutory instrument. This page quotes all four. It also flags a table on HMRC’s own website that is still live and no longer current.
Key points
- Meal allowance maximums, from 2016–17 onwards: £5 for 5 hours, £10 for 10 hours, £25 for 15 hours and ongoing at 8pm, plus a £10 supplement — Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015, reg 2.
- These are ceilings, not entitlements. Pay more without a bespoke agreement and the excess is taxable.
- Commuting to a permanent workplace is never business travel (s.338). Almost every dispute is about whether a place is permanent.
- A place stops being temporary when continuous work there is expected to pass 24 months — or when it makes up all or almost all of a fixed-term employment (s.339(5)).
- HMRC’s manual page EIM05231 still shows the pre-2016 rates. It says so in its first line, and it is easy to miss.
The words people use, and what the legislation actually says
Fourteen terms, in the order a question usually runs. The middle column is the provision; the third is what it actually decides.
| What people say | What the legislation says | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| Business travel | Two separate tests: travel “in the performance of the duties” (s.337) and travel attributable to “necessary attendance” at a place (s.338). | Whether the cost is deductible at all. Most real journeys are s.338, not s.337. |
| Travel expenses | Expenses the employee is “obliged to incur and pay” as holder of the employment — the first limb of both s.337 and s.338. | Whether the employee, rather than the employer, is the one the relief attaches to. |
| Commuting | “Ordinary commuting”: home, or a place that is not a workplace, to a permanent workplace (s.338(3)). | The main exclusion. It turns entirely on whether the destination is permanent. |
| Personal travel | “Private travel”: home to a place that is not a workplace, or between two places neither of which is (s.338(5)). | The second exclusion. A leisure leg tacked onto a business trip sits here. |
| Workplace | “A place at which the employee’s attendance is necessary in the performance of the duties” (s.339(1)). | Whether a place can be permanent or temporary at all. |
| Head office / normal base | A permanent workplace: regularly attended and not temporary (s.339(2)); also any place that is the base, or where tasks are allocated (s.339(4)). | The fixed point every commuting question is measured against. |
| Client site / project site | Potentially a temporary workplace — attended for a task of limited duration or some other temporary purpose (s.339(3)). | Whether travel there is business travel or commuting. |
| The 24 month rule | Continuous work at a place lasting, or reasonably expected to last, more than 24 months stops it being temporary (s.339(5)(a)(i) and (b)). | The date travel to a long assignment turns into commuting. The expectation counts, not only the elapsed time. |
| Fixed-term contract at one site | Continuous work comprising “all or almost all of the period for which the employee is likely to hold the employment” (s.339(5)(a)(ii)). | A permanent workplace even if the contract is well under 24 months. The limb almost nobody mentions. |
| Working there most of the time | Statute: duties performed “to a significant extent” at the place (s.339(6)). HMRC’s manual reads that as 40% or more of working time. | Whether a part-time pattern still counts as continuous work at that place. |
| Meal allowance / per diem | A sum paid for meals bought in the course of qualifying travel, calculated in an approved way (SI 2015/1948 reg 2(1)). | Whether it can be paid free of tax and NICs without receipts being checked. |
| HMRC subsistence rates | The benchmark amounts in reg 2(2) and (3) of the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015. | The ceiling. Pay more without a bespoke agreement and the excess is taxable. |
| Bespoke rate | A rate other than the benchmark, approved by HMRC on application (s.289B ITEPA 2003, per EIM30250). | Whether an employer can pay above the benchmark tax-free. It needs approval first. |
| Hotel and overnight costs | The 2015 Regulations set rates for meal allowances only; they set none for accommodation. | Accommodation is reimbursed at cost, which is why it belongs in the booking channel rather than in an allowance. |
The two sections that decide whether a journey is business travel
Section 337: travel in the performance of the duties
A deduction from earnings is allowed for travel expenses if—(a) the employee is obliged to incur and pay them as holder of the employment, and (b) the expenses are necessarily incurred on travelling in the performance of the duties of the employment.Read it on legislation.gov.uk
This is the narrow one. It covers travel that is the work — the engineer driving between faults, the auditor moving between a client’s sites during the day. Most ordinary business trips are not this; they are travel to the place where the work is done, which is the next section.
Section 338: travel for necessary attendance
The second limb of s.338(1) allows expenses “the expenses are attributable to the employee’s necessary attendance at any place in the performance of the duties of the employment”. It is the section that carries most business travel, and it immediately takes two things out:
“ordinary commuting” means travel between—(a) the employee’s home and a permanent workplace, or (b) a place that is not a workplace and a permanent workplace.Read it on legislation.gov.uk
“private travel” means travel between—(a) the employee’s home and a place that is not a workplace, or (b) two places neither of which is a workplace.Read it on legislation.gov.uk
And it closes the obvious workaround: s.338(2) also excludes travel that is “does not apply to the expenses of ordinary commuting or travel between any two places that is for practical purposes substantially ordinary commuting”. Routing a commute through a nominal stop does not turn it into business travel.
Temporary or permanent: the question that moves most of the money
Everything in s.338 turns on whether the destination is a permanent workplace, and that is defined in s.339. Four parts of it matter.
What a temporary workplace is
a place which the employee attends in the performance of the duties of the employment—(a) for the purpose of performing a task of limited duration, or (b) for some other temporary purposeRead it on legislation.gov.uk
A client site you attend for a project is the standard example. So is a conference venue, a supplier’s factory, or an office in another city you visit for a fortnight.
The base rule
A place you regularly attend is permanent, not temporary, if “(a) it forms the base from which those duties are performed, or (b) the tasks to be carried out in the performance of those duties are allocated there” (s.339(4)). Being told to report somewhere each morning for your allocations makes it your base whatever the job title says.
The 24 month limb, and the limb nobody mentions
A place is not regarded as a temporary workplace if the employee’s attendance is—(a) in the course of a period of continuous work at that place—(i) lasting more than 24 months, or (ii) comprising all or almost all of the period for which the employee is likely to hold the employment, or (b) at a time when it is reasonable to assume that it will be in the course of such a period.Read it on legislation.gov.uk
Two things in that sentence are routinely missed.
First, (b): the expectation counts. A secondment that is expected from the outset to run more than 24 months is not temporary from day one. It does not become permanent in month 25; it never was temporary. HMRC’s manual puts it the same way: “a workplace from being a temporary workplace where an employee attends it in the course of a period of continuous work that lasts, or is likely to last, more than 24 months”.
Second, (a)(ii): all or almost all of the employment. An employee hired on a fixed term and placed at one site for the whole of it can have a permanent workplace there even if the term is a fraction of 24 months. The two-year figure is the one everybody quotes. It is not the only way out of temporary.
“Significant extent” and HMRC’s 40%
Continuous work is defined in s.339(6): “a period is a period of continuous work at a place if over the period the duties of the employment are performed to a significant extent at the place”. The statute stops at “significant extent”. HMRC’s manual turns that into a working line — a place is treated as permanent where the employee “has spent, or is likely to spend, 40% or more of his or her working time at that particular workplace over a period that lasts, or is likely to last, more than 24 months”.
That distinction is worth keeping straight. The 40% is how HMRC reads the statute, not a number in it, and a pattern just under it is a judgement on the facts rather than a guaranteed safe harbour.
Five patterns, run through the section
| Pattern | Under s.339 | So the journey is |
|---|---|---|
| A three-week project at a client office, then back to base | Temporary (s.339(3)) — a task of limited duration | Business travel. Journeys to the client site are deductible. |
| A secondment to one site expected from the outset to run 30 months, full-time | Not temporary (s.339(5)(b)) — it is reasonable to assume continuous work over 24 months | Ordinary commuting from day one, not from month 25. The expectation decides it. |
| An 18-month fixed-term hire spent entirely at one site | Not temporary (s.339(5)(a)(ii)) — all or almost all of the employment | Ordinary commuting, despite being well under 24 months. |
| A 30-month assignment where the employee spends one day a week at the site | Likely temporary on HMRC’s reading — duties not performed to a significant extent there (s.339(6); EIM32080) | Business travel on those days, subject to the facts. |
| A planned 20-month assignment that is extended at month 14 to run 36 months | Temporary until the extension; not temporary once it becomes reasonable to assume more than 24 months (s.339(5)(b)) | Business travel up to the point of the extension decision, commuting after it. |
Why this lands on the travel programmeEvery one of those patterns can be booked through a travel management company without anyone in the booking chain knowing the assignment length. The supplier sees trips; payroll sees pay; nobody sees the expectation that decides the tax. That is the reason the long-assignment check belongs in your travel policy rather than in a payroll review two years later.
The meal allowance rates, from the Regulations themselves
These come from regulation 2 of the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015, and the Regulations are explicit about when they start: “These Regulations have effect in relation to payments made in the tax year 2016-17 and subsequent tax years.”
| Qualifying travel in the day | Maximum tax- and NIC-free amount | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| 5 hours or more | £5 | reg 2(2)(a) |
| 10 hours or more | £10 | reg 2(2)(b) |
| 15 hours or more, and ongoing at 8pm | £25 | reg 2(2)(c) |
| Supplement: a 5- or 10-hour allowance is paid and travel is ongoing at 8pm | £10 | reg 2(3) |
HMRC’s current manual page, EIM30240, sets out the same four figures. We checked both, because of the next section.
They are ceilings, not entitlements
“These rates are the maximum tax and NICs free amounts that can be paid by employers who choose to use the system. An employer can pay less than these rates if it wants to do so.” And the other direction: “If a higher amount is paid without agreeing a bespoke scale rate with HMRC, the excess should be subject to tax and NICs.”
The three conditions
- the travel must be in the performance of an employee’s duties or to a temporary place of work, on a journey that is not substantially ordinary commuting
- the employee should be absent from his normal place of work or home for a continuous period in excess of five hours or ten hours
- the employee should have incurred a cost on a meal (food and drink) after starting the journey and retained appropriate evidence of their expenditure
The first condition is s.338 again. A meal allowance on a journey that is really commuting is not a qualifying payment, whatever the hours.
A meal is paid for once
“An employee can only be reimbursed for a meal once. If the cost of an evening meal or breakfast is reimbursed on an actual basis, because it is included in the cost of an overnight stay, the employee would not also be entitled to a benchmark rate in respect of those meals.” If your hotel rate includes breakfast and your travellers also claim the breakfast allowance, one of those payments is not qualifying.
What changed in 2019
“From 6 April 2019, employers will no longer be required to operate a system for checking an employee’s expenditure in order to make payments free of tax in relation to expenses paid or reimbursed using benchmark scale rates.” The employee still has to be on qualifying travel. What went was the employer’s obligation to run a checking system over their spending.
The table on HMRC’s website that is no longer current
HMRC’s Employment Income Manual page EIM05231 is still published, is titled “table of benchmark scale rates”, and shows a breakfast rate, a one-meal rate, a two-meal rate and a late evening rate that do not match the current Regulations. Its first line says why:
The guidance on this page applies for the tax years up to and including 2015 to 2016.Read EIM05231 on GOV.UK
It is an archived page doing exactly what archived pages should do, and it says so. It is also the page a search for “HMRC benchmark scale rates” can land on, and a policy or an expenses system configured from it would be using a pre-2016 table. If yours was set up some years ago, it is worth checking which of the two it was built from.
We are paid a fixed fee per enquiry, agreed in advance, identical whichever supplier receives it. Nothing on this page depends on which supplier you use — the tax follows the employment, not the booking. It is here because a travel programme is where these rules usually get broken without anyone noticing.
Need a supplier that can flag long assignments?
Describe the requirement once. It goes to no more than three suppliers, once each.
Where this belongs in your documents
- Your travel policy should name the benchmark rates if you use them, and carry a long-assignment check that fires when an assignment is expected to pass 24 months or to make up almost all of a fixed term. The clauses.
- Your tender should ask whether the supplier can report trips by traveller and destination over time, which is the only way the booking data can show a pattern turning permanent. Section 7 of the template.
- Your cost model should keep allowances separate from booked travel, because one is capped by statute and the other is not. The wider cost picture.
Sector codes can sit on top of all this: the ABPI Code caps what a pharmaceutical company may provide to a health professional at £75 per person excluding VAT, which is a different rule for a different person and does not change the employee allowances above. Life sciences travel.
This page describes how the legislation is written. Whether a particular employee’s workplace is temporary is a question of fact for your payroll or tax adviser, and nothing here is tax advice.
Common questions
What are the HMRC meal allowance rates for business travel?
Under the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015 an employer can pay up to £5 where qualifying travel in the day lasts 5 hours or more, £10 where it lasts 10 hours or more, and £25 where it lasts 15 hours or more and is ongoing at 8pm, with an additional £10 where a 5- or 10-hour allowance is paid and the travel is still ongoing at 8pm. These have effect from 2016–17 onwards. They are maximums, not entitlements.
Are the rates on EIM05231 still current?
No. That page states that its guidance applies for the tax years up to and including 2015 to 2016, and the table on it is the pre-2016 one. The current benchmark amounts are in regulation 2 of the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015, and HMRC’s current manual page EIM30240 sets out the same figures.
Can an employer pay more than the benchmark rate?
It can, but without a bespoke rate agreed with HMRC the excess is taxable. HMRC’s manual is explicit that the rates are the maximum tax and NICs free amounts for employers who choose to use the system, and that an employer can pay less if it wants to.
What is the 24 month rule?
A place stops being a temporary workplace if the employee’s attendance is in the course of a period of continuous work there lasting more than 24 months, or at a time when it is reasonable to assume it will be. That is s.339(5) of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003. Once it is not temporary, travel between home and that place is ordinary commuting and is not deductible.
Does a short fixed-term contract at one site count as temporary?
Not necessarily, and this is the rule most often missed. Section 339(5)(a)(ii) also takes a place out of being temporary where the continuous work there comprises all or almost all of the period for which the employee is likely to hold the employment. An employee hired for a fixed term and placed at one site for all of it can have a permanent workplace there even if the term is well under 24 months.
Is commuting to the office ever business travel?
Not where the office is a permanent workplace. Section 338(3) defines ordinary commuting as travel between home, or a place that is not a workplace, and a permanent workplace, and s.338(2) excludes it along with any travel that is for practical purposes substantially ordinary commuting.
Does the employer need receipts to pay the benchmark rate?
The employee still has to be on qualifying travel and to have bought a meal after starting the journey. What changed is the employer side: HMRC’s manual records that from 6 April 2019 employers are no longer required to operate a system for checking an employee’s expenditure in order to make payments free of tax at benchmark rates.
Can a meal allowance be paid if the hotel bill already includes dinner?
No. HMRC’s manual says an employee can only be reimbursed for a meal once, and that where breakfast or an evening meal is reimbursed at actual cost because it is included in an overnight stay, the employee is not also entitled to a benchmark rate for those meals.
Does any of this apply to a travel management company?
Not directly — it is employment income tax, and it applies to what the employer pays or reimburses the employee. It matters to a managed programme for two reasons: a supplier can only report on bookings it made, and a long assignment booked through it can cross from business travel into commuting without anyone in the booking chain noticing.
Sources cited on this page
- Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, s.337
- Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, s.338
- Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, s.339
- Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/1948)
- HMRC Employment Income Manual EIM30240 — payments at a benchmark rate
- HMRC Employment Income Manual EIM32080 — the 24 month rule
- HMRC Employment Income Manual EIM05231 — the superseded pre-2016 table
Every figure above was read from the source it is attributed to on 20 September 2026. How we check this.
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