Travel and Subsistence: The Temporary Workplace Rule for Freelancers

Travel is one of the areas where freelancers most often claim more than the rules allow. The principle sounds simple, that you can deduct the cost of travelling for work, but the detail turns on whether the place you are travelling to counts as a temporary or a permanent workplace. Travel to a temporary workplace is allowable; travel to a permanent one is ordinary commuting and is not. This piece sits alongside the companion guides on [the home office deduction](/blog/use-of-home-office-flat-rate-vs-actual/) and [claiming tech and software](/blog/claiming-tech-laptops-software-subscriptions/).

The wholly and exclusively starting point

For a self-employed freelancer, a cost is only deductible if it is incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade, the test set out in section 34 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005. Travel that has a genuine business purpose passes that test in principle, but it still has to clear the separate question of whether the destination is a temporary or permanent workplace. A journey can be wholly for business and still be disallowed because it is travel to a base of operations rather than to a temporary site.

Your home as a base, and what travel that allows

Many freelancers run the business from home, which is the base where the work is organised, quotes are written and admin is done. Where the home is a genuine base of operations for the trade, travel from home to a client site to carry out the work is business travel, not commuting. This is the position that lets a freelance consultant, photographer or developer deduct the cost of getting to client locations, provided each location is a temporary workplace rather than somewhere they effectively work from regularly.

The 24-month rule and the 40% test

A workplace stops being temporary, and becomes permanent, when both parts of HMRC's test are met. The detail is set out in HMRC's [Employment Income Manual at EIM32080](https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32080), and the same reasoning is applied to the self-employed.

• The 40% test: you spend, or expect to spend, 40% or more of your working time at that one workplace.
• The 24-month test: you attend, or expect to attend, that workplace over a period lasting more than 24 months.

Both parts have to be satisfied for the workplace to be permanent. A two-day-a-week engagement that runs for three years fails the 40% test and stays temporary. A five-day-a-week engagement that is only ever going to last four months fails the 24-month test and also stays temporary. It is the engagement that meets both, full-time work at one client site expected to run beyond two years, that turns into a permanent workplace, at which point travel to it becomes ordinary commuting and is no longer deductible.

The expectation rule catches you early

The rule bites from the point the expectation changes, not from the 24-month mark itself. If a six-month contract is extended so that it is now expected to run beyond two years, the workplace becomes permanent from the date of that expectation, not from month 24. A freelancer who keeps claiming travel after it becomes clear the engagement will exceed two years is over-claiming from that earlier date, which is exactly the position HMRC reverses on review.

Subsistence follows the travel

Subsistence, meaning the reasonable cost of meals and any necessary overnight accommodation, is allowable only where the underlying travel is allowable. If you are travelling to a genuine temporary workplace and the trip requires you to buy a meal away from base or stay overnight, those costs follow the travel and are deductible. Where the travel is disallowed because the destination is a permanent workplace, the subsistence falls away with it. There is no separate route to claim lunch near a site you commute to regularly.

Mileage: the simplified rate versus actual costs

For travel in your own vehicle, you can either claim the simplified flat mileage rate or work out the actual running costs and apportion them to business use. The simplified rate is 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in the tax year and 25p per mile after that, which keeps the record-keeping to a mileage log rather than every fuel and repair receipt. Once you choose the mileage basis for a particular vehicle you must keep using it for that vehicle, so the choice is worth making deliberately rather than switching year to year.

Records that hold up

1. 1Keep a mileage log with date, destination, purpose and miles for every business journey.
2. 2For each engagement, note the expected duration and the share of your working time spent there, so you can show why a workplace is temporary.
3. 3Record the date any expectation changes, for example when a contract is extended past two years.
4. 4Keep subsistence receipts and tie each one to a qualifying business trip.

Common questions about freelancer travel

Can I claim travel to a client I visit every week for years?

Probably not. If you spend 40% or more of your working time there and have done or expect to do so for more than 24 months, it is a permanent workplace and the journeys are ordinary commuting. If your time there is below 40% of your working time, it can remain temporary even over a long period.

Does the 24-month rule apply to the self-employed or just employees?

The detailed 24-month rule is written for employees, but HMRC applies the same temporary-versus-permanent workplace reasoning to the self-employed. A self-employed person who effectively works from one client base most of the time is travelling to a permanent workplace, and that travel is not deductible.

Can I claim the cost of travelling to my own office?

Travel between home and a fixed office you rent as your regular base is commuting and is not allowable. Travel from that base to temporary client sites is business travel. The deductible journeys are the ones to temporary workplaces, not the daily trip to your own regular place of work.

Is mileage or actual cost better?

For most freelancers with moderate mileage and an ordinary car, the 45p and 25p simplified rate is both simpler and competitive. Actual-cost claims can win for high-mileage drivers or expensive vehicles, but they need full records of every running cost and a defensible business-use percentage.

Travel is worth getting right because it is both a real deduction and a common trigger for HMRC to ask questions. A freelance accountant can review your engagements against the temporary-workplace test, set up a clean mileage record, and make sure you claim what you are entitled to without straying into the over-claim that gets reversed.