The position is clear for employee travel costs for commuting to a usual place of work. No tax relief is available. But what is the position for “hybrid” workers? HMRC have recently issued updated guidance on employee travel. So, what can and can’t you claim?
As with most rules, the guidance on travel expenses is complex, so HMRC have published guidance with 58 examples of different scenarios. The general rule is that no tax relief is available for a journey which is ordinary commuting or private travel. Ordinary commuting means travelling to and from a permanent workplace.
For hybrid workers, we need to establish where the permanent workplace is, home or office. Where workers have flexibility to work either at home or in the office the guidance now puts beyond any doubt that journeys from home to an office base will be ordinary commuting, meaning tax relief is not available for those journeys.
However, the situation is different where homeworking arrangements are not voluntary. Where an employee must work from home as a requirement of their job, he or she should be able to claim tax relief for expenses incurred travelling to their employer’s premises.
Further reading Ordinary commuting and private travel