Business travel meals

Conditions

1. For a self-employed sole trader the starting point is a refusal, not a relief. HMRC's general statement of the rule is at BIM37660: 'The cost of food or drink consumed for the human requirement of sustenance is not allowable', and 'The whole cost is disallowed' — the bar is s34 ITTOIA 2005, the 'wholly and exclusively' test. The exception is a separate statutory provision, s57A ITTOIA 2005, set out at BIM47705: a deduction is allowed for reasonable food and drink costs at a place the trader travels to in the course of the trade, or while travelling there, only where two conditions are both met. Condition A — 'a deduction is allowed for the expenses incurred by the trader in travelling to the place', or 'a deduction would be allowed for them if they were' incurred. Condition B — either 'the trade is by its nature itinerant' at the time (BIM37670 gives commercial travellers as HMRC's example), or 'the trader does not travel to the place more than occasionally in the course of carrying on the trade' and either that travel is 'undertaken otherwise than as part of the trader's normal pattern of travel' or 'the trader does not have such a normal pattern of travel'.
2. For a sole trader, overnight trips are handled separately from the occasional-journey test above, under their own heading in both BIM37670 and BIM47705. Employees and directors have their own overnight route, below. Where a business trip 'necessitates one or more nights away from home, the hotel accommodation and reasonable costs of overnight subsistence are deductible', and 'The reasonable costs of meals taken in conjunction with overnight accommodation are allowable, whether or not paid on the same bill' (BIM37670). It does not extend to accommodation and subsistence at the base of business operations, even where there is a contractual requirement to reside in a particular place.
3. There is no flat-rate meal allowance for the self-employed. HMRC's simplified expenses rules cover exactly three categories — expenditure on motor vehicles, use of home for business purposes, and private use of business premises (BIM75001) — so a trader relying on the exceptions above claims actual reasonable costs and keeps the records for them. BIM75001 also confirms that 'Limited companies and partnerships with one or more corporate partners cannot use the rules.'
4. For an employee or a limited company director, meals have no rule of their own: they ride on the travel rules. EIM31815 confirms that travel expenses for sections 337 to 339 ITEPA 2003 include 'any necessary subsistence costs incurred in the course of the journey' and 'the cost of meals necessarily purchased whilst an employee is at a temporary workplace'. There are two separate routes, and they are not interchangeable: 'Section 337 allows a deduction for expenses necessarily incurred in the performance of the duties and sections 338 and 339 allow a deduction for expenses attributable to the employee's necessary attendance at a place in the performance of the duties except where they are expenses of ordinary commuting or private travel.' An overnight stay is covered on this side too: the same EIM31815 list includes 'the cost of the accommodation and any necessary meals where an overnight stay is needed - this will be the case even where the employee stays away for some time'. The sole-trader exception above is no help here — BIM47705 states 'This guidance applies for Income Tax only.'
5. On the employee side only the extra cost counts, and only costs incurred on the journey itself: 'A deduction is only allowed for subsistence costs which are attributable to the business travel i.e. costs incurred in the course of the journey which are additional to any costs that the employee would ordinarily incur if they were not travelling on business' (EIM31815). HMRC's own illustration is a sandwich bought at a station while travelling on business, against 'the cost of a sandwich prepared at home and consumed whilst travelling', which is not a cost incurred in the course of the journey. Once an allowable cost is established, though, HMRC does not net off what you saved by not eating at home: 'you do not need to take into account the costs saved as a result of the business travel.'
6. The 24-month rule can end an employee's or director's claim, and it is one of two limbs, not the whole test. s339(5) ITEPA 2003 says a place is not regarded as a temporary workplace if the employee's attendance is 'in the course of a period of continuous work at that place' either 'lasting more than 24 months' or 'comprising all or almost all of the period for which the employee is likely to hold the employment', or 'at a time when it is reasonable to assume that it will be in the course of such a period'. Continuous work is measured by working time: 'you should treat duties as performed to a significant extent at any workplace if the employee spends 40% or more of his or her working time at that place' (EIM32080) — so exactly 40% counts, not only more than 40%. Once the workplace is permanent, 'Travel between that place and home will be ordinary commuting and so is not deductible', and the meals go with it. This is an ITEPA rule for employees and directors; a sole trader's test is Condition B of s57A ITTOIA 2005, not the 24-month rule.
7. The second limb bites on engagements far shorter than 24 months. Where the period of continuous work 'can be expected to last for all, or almost all, of the period for which he or she is likely to hold, or continue to hold, that employment', EIM32125 states that 'the 24 month rule (see EIM32080) is overridden and the workplace is a permanent workplace' — so the journey is ordinary commuting and the meals are not deductible at all, however short the engagement. HMRC does not define 'almost all' in the legislation and sets an administrative line instead: 'You should not normally challenge relief under this paragraph where the likely duration of work at a workplace is less than 80% of the likely duration of the employment.' Where a contractor or a one-person company holds an employment that is substantially the single engagement, it is this limb rather than the 24-month clock that decides the answer.
8. Employers can reimburse employees and directors at HMRC's benchmark scale rates instead of actual costs. The rates are set by the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/1948) and listed in EIM30240 against a minimum journey time: £5 at 5 hours, £10 at 10 hours, and £25 at 15 hours where the journey is ongoing at 8pm. Where a £5 or £10 rate is paid and that qualifying journey is ongoing at 8pm, 'a supplementary rate of £10 can be paid to cover the additional expenses necessarily incurred as a result of working late'. These are not re-set each tax year: the regulations 'have effect in relation to payments made in the tax year 2016-17 and subsequent tax years', and the amounts were unchanged when checked for 2026/27. 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.'
9. The rates do not stack. The regulations allow 'One meal allowance per day paid in respect of one instance of qualifying travel', capped by that day's journey duration, so a long journey produces one allowance at the highest applicable rate rather than one for each threshold it passes; the £10 supplementary rate for a journey ongoing at 8pm is the only addition. EIM30240 puts it the same way — 'An employee can only be reimbursed for a meal once' — and where 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'. On an overnight stay EIM30240 adds that 'The over 15 hour rate for subsistence will generally apply where an employee is required to stay away overnight, provided the cost of any meals is not also included in an accommodation payment.'
10. Benchmark scale rates 'must only be used where all the qualifying conditions are met'. EIM30240 lists three: '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'; and 'the employee should have incurred a cost on a meal (food and drink) after starting the journey and retained appropriate evidence of their expenditure'.
11. Those hour thresholds are stated two different ways, and the two differ at exactly 5 and exactly 10 hours. The regulations set the amount by duration — £5 'where the duration of the qualifying travel in that day is 5 hours or more' and £10 'where the duration of the qualifying travel in that day is 10 hours or more' — and they are what the statutory exemption runs on, defining when 'a sum is calculated and paid or reimbursed in an approved way'. EIM30240's qualifying-conditions bullet above instead measures absence from the normal place of work or home for a continuous period 'in excess of' five or ten hours, while the same page heads its rate table 'Minimum journey time'. These are not two wordings of one test: 'or more' includes a journey of exactly 5 or 10 hours where 'in excess of' excludes it, and the two measure different things — the duration of the qualifying travel against absence from the normal workplace or home. A journey of exactly 5 or exactly 10 hours is where that gap decides the answer, and HMRC's guidance does not read the same way as the regulation it describes, so agree the point with HMRC or an accountant rather than relying on the boundary.
12. What the employer has to check changed on 6 April 2019, and this is the point most often stated out of date. Up to 5 April 2019 an employer using the benchmark rates needed a system for checking employees' expenditure (EIM30270). From 6 April 2019, 'Employers will no longer be required to check receipts or other forms of documentary evidence of the amounts spent by employees when using the HMRC benchmark scale rates' (EIM30225); what remains is a duty to 'operate a system for checking that employees were engaged in qualifying travel'. EIM30240 still lists retained evidence of expenditure among its qualifying conditions, so the condition that a meal was actually bought has not gone away — what changed is the employer's obligation to collect proof of the amount. For a bespoke rate agreed with HMRC a checking system is still required (EIM30270).
13. Employers can pay less than the published rates, and 'If an employer pays less than the published rates, employees cannot claim tax relief on the difference' — although an employee who spends more than they are reimbursed 'can still claim a deduction from HMRC for the difference between what they actually spent on the expense and the amount reimbursed by their employer in the normal manner, subject to their having retained appropriate evidence'. Pay above the published rate without agreeing a bespoke scale rate with HMRC (EIM30250) and 'the excess should be subject to tax and NICs'.
14. 'Reasonable' is a sole-trader condition, and the employee test is not the same. s57A allows a deduction for 'any reasonable expenses', and BIM37670 stresses that only reasonable expenses may be allowed and that 'the expenses claimed must be supported by adequate contemporaneous records'. For employees, EIM31835 says the amount is not the test at all: 'The tests that apply to travel expenses relate to the nature of the expense and not to the amount', and 'you should not refuse a deduction for the actually incurred cost of a journey, hotel room or meal simply because a less expensive alternative is available'. What does invite a question is the lavish case — 'Where the travel arrangements are unusually lavish you should consider whether, on the facts of the case, the expenditure is genuinely attributable to business travel or is, for example, some sort of reward.'

Common mistakes

• Self-employed traders claiming daily meals near their normal base as 'business travel' subsistence. Unless the trade is itinerant by nature, s57A requires both that the trader does not travel to the place more than occasionally and that the travel falls outside their normal pattern of travel.
• Reading the 24-month rule across to a sole trader. A trader's test is Condition B of s57A — itinerant trade, or travel outside the normal pattern — and a regular engagement at one client's site fails it long before 24 months have passed.
• Treating the 24-month rule as a 'more than 40%' test. HMRC applies it at '40% or more' of working time, so a workplace at exactly 40% over a period expected to last more than 24 months is a permanent workplace, not a temporary one.
• Assuming the employer must still hold receipts for the amount spent when paying a benchmark scale rate. Since 6 April 2019 it is no longer required to check documentary evidence of the amounts (EIM30225) — but the employee must still have bought a meal after starting the journey, and the employer must still check that the travel qualified.
• Assuming the £25 rate applies to any journey that happens to end after 8pm — it applies only where the journey is 15 hours or more and is ongoing at 8pm. A shorter qualifying journey ongoing at 8pm gets the £10 supplementary rate on top of its own rate instead.
• Adding the rates together — claiming £5 and £10 for the same 12-hour day. The regulations allow one meal allowance per day for one instance of qualifying travel, plus the supplementary rate where it applies.
• Applying the sole trader's 'reasonable costs' cap to an employee's claim. For employees EIM31835 says the tests 'relate to the nature of the expense and not to the amount', so a more expensive meal is not disallowed merely because a cheaper one was available.

What to keep

• Receipts for actual meal costs. Where benchmark scale rates are used, EIM30240 still lists retained evidence of expenditure among the qualifying conditions, while EIM30225 removed the employer's duty to check documentary evidence of the amounts from 6 April 2019 — so the receipt is the simplest way to show the employee actually bought a meal after starting the journey.
• A record of the journey — date, destination and business purpose — so each claimed meal can be tied to a specific qualifying journey. For the self-employed BIM37670 is explicit that 'the expenses claimed must be supported by adequate contemporaneous records', so make the record at the time rather than reconstructing it at year end.
• For the self-employed: a note of how the journey meets Condition A of s57A (the cost of travelling to the place is itself deductible) and Condition B (the trade is itinerant, or the travel is occasional and outside your normal pattern).

Real-world example

A self-employed management consultant works from a home office and takes a train to a one-off strategy day at a new client's site in Birmingham. She buys lunch at the station and dinner on the return journey. Both can be deductible under s57A: the train fare is itself an allowable travel cost, which satisfies Condition A, and a single trip to a city she does not otherwise visit is travel outside her normal pattern, which satisfies Condition B. If she then takes on a three-day-a-week engagement at the same site for 18 months, the position reverses rather than continuing: she now travels there more than occasionally and as part of her normal pattern, Condition B fails, and the meals stop being deductible. The 24-month rule people reach for at this point does not extend her claim, because it was never her test — it is an ITEPA rule for employees. A director doing the same 18-month engagement through their own company is on the employee side of the line, where the 24-month clock is not the only thing to check: if that engagement is all or almost all of the employment they are likely to hold, s339(5) makes the site a permanent workplace from the start and the meals are not deductible at all. Only where the employment is wider than the one engagement does the site stay a temporary workplace, and the 24-month limb becomes the one to watch.

Frequently asked

Related allowances