NHS travel expenses: the Agenda for Change hotel, meal and fare rules

NHS staff who travel for work are covered by two sections of the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook. Section 17 deals with getting there — mileage, fares, courses. Section 18, with the amounts in Annex 14, deals with being away: hotel nights, meals, staying with friends. The mileage rates have their own page; this one covers everything else, quotes the handbook as published by NHS Employers and read on 2026-10-09, and sets the meal allowances beside HMRC’s tax-free benchmark rates, which are not the same.

What Section 18 is for

“The purpose of this section is to confirm the allowances available to staff who are required to travel from their usual place of work and in doing so, incur additional out of pocket expenses in the performance of their duties.” It is a national default: “Where locally, staff and employer representatives agree arrangements which are more appropriate to local operational circumstances, or which provide benefits to staff beyond those provided by this section, or are agreed as operationally preferable, those local arrangements will apply.” So the first check for any NHS employee or payroll team is whether the employer has a local travel and subsistence policy that departs from it. Small business costs are covered too: “Business expenses which may arise in the course of work, such as wi-fi, photocopying, business phone calls, may be reimbursed with proof of expenditure e.g. receipts.”

The allowances in Annex 14

Hotel stays

For an overnight stay in commercial accommodation agreed by the employer, Section 18.4 pays “the actual, receipted cost of bed and breakfast, up to the normal maximum limit set out in Annex 14; plus a meals allowance, to support the cost of a main evening meal and one other day-time meal”. The £55 is not absolute: “Where the maximum limit is exceeded for genuine business reasons (e.g. the choice of hotel was not within the employee's control or cheaper hotels were fully booked) additional assistance may be granted at the discretion of the employer.” Travel at the destination is separate: “Travel costs between the hotel and temporary place of work will be separately reimbursed on an actual cost basis.”

Staying with friends or relatives

Section 18.6 pays a flat £25 per 24 hours instead. “This allowance includes an amount for meals. No receipts will be required.” It cannot be combined with the other meals allowances.

Long stays

“After the first 30 nights’ stay in the same location the entitlement to night subsistence shall be reduced to the maximum rates set out in point 4 of Annex 14.” — £35 — and meals allowances stop. This matters for staff on long secondments or placements, where the first month and the rest are paid differently.

Day meal allowances

The starting condition: “A meal allowance is payable when an employee is required to be absent from their home on official business and more than five miles from their base or usual place of work”, measured by the shortest practicable route. Then two tests apply. “A day meals allowance is payable only when an employee necessarily spends more on a meal/meals than would have been spent at their place of work.” And the claim is self-certified: “An employee shall certify accordingly, on each occasion for which day meals allowance is claimed, but a receipt is not required.”

• Lunch: “Lunch allowance (more than five hours away from base, including the lunchtime period between 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm) £5.00”
• Evening meal: “Evening meal allowance (more than ten hours away from base and return after 7:00 pm) £15.00”

Section 18.17 adds that employees may qualify for both the lunch and the evening meal allowance in some circumstances.

NHS meal allowances against HMRC’s benchmark rates

HMRC lets employers pay flat meal amounts tax-free, without receipts, up to benchmark rates set in the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015. HMRC’s manual: “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.” The NHS bands are drawn differently:

The evening meal is the visible difference: the NHS pays £15 after 10 hours and a return after 7pm, while the HMRC benchmark for 10 hours is £10, with a further £10 only if travel is still going on at 8pm. HMRC’s position on paying above the benchmark is: “If a higher amount is paid without agreeing a bespoke scale rate with HMRC, the excess should be subject to tax and NICs.” How an NHS employer handles that in payroll — a bespoke agreement, receipts, or taxing the excess — is its own decision; Section 18 itself states “All payments of this section are subject to the deductions of appropriate tax and National Insurance contributions via the payroll system.” The HMRC rates and their history are on business travel expenses and HMRC and per diem in the UK.

Fares and courses (Section 17)

• Public transport: “If an employee uses public transport for business purposes, the cost of bus fares and standard rail fares should be reimbursed.”
• Change of base: “Where there is a compulsory change of base, either permanent or temporary, resulting in extra public transport costs for the employee, these extra costs will be reimbursed, subject to a maximum period of four years from the date of transfer.”
• Courses and conferences: “Additional travel costs incurred when attending courses, conferences or events at the employer’s instigation will be reimbursed at the standard rates in table 7” when the employer agrees travel costs should be reimbursed.

Car mileage — 59p a mile to 4,500 miles, then 36p, from 1 July 2026 — is on NHS mileage rates, and lease cars on NHS lease cars.

For NHS payroll and travel teams

• Check for a local agreement that replaces Section 18.
• Book hotels within the £55 B&B limit where possible, and record the business reason where not.
• Track nights in the same location; the rates change after 30.
• Decide how evening meal payments above the HMRC benchmark are treated for tax, and document it.
• Reimburse fares at standard class unless policy says otherwise.

This page quotes the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook and HMRC as read on 2026-10-09. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own arrangements, which the handbook links to separately; they are not covered here.

Common questions