What a limited company can actually claim
Test one, for the company
Is it wholly and exclusively for the business? Every £100 claimed keeps £19 to £25 in the company.
Test two, for you
Does the company paying count as pay in your hands? Where it does, the line says so.
130 lines: 120 that apply to any UK limited company, plus 10 for specific trades. Every one links to its HMRC source. Rates are 2026/27, checked 12 August 2026.
Our highlights
Tick what applies to you - the list runs top to bottom and your ticks stay in view. Every tick goes into your pack.
Home and workspace
The company pays you £6 a week, £26 a month or £312 a year towards household costs. No receipts and no questions asked.
Catch: From 6 April 2026 you can no longer claim this yourself on a tax return, so it has to come from the company.Employees used to claim homeworking costs personally where the employer did not pay them. That relief was removed from 6 April 2026.
Catch: The employer reimbursement route above is untouched. If you were claiming it personally, move it into the company.More than £6 a week is allowed where you can evidence the extra gas, electricity and metered water the work actually causes.
Catch: Rent, mortgage interest and council tax do not count. They do not go up because you work at home.A written licence at a market rent, which the company deducts in full.
Catch: The rent is income on your own tax return, so you only gain the margin above your real costs, and it needs a genuine agreement.Rent, business rates, service charge, buildings insurance and utilities on any space the company rents.
Monthly memberships and day passes.
Any space rented to work or meet in, by the hour, the day or the term.
Off-site storage for stock, equipment and records.
On a business premises.
Phone, internet and software
Put the contract in the company name and the entire bill is claimable with no tax on you, personal calls included.
Catch: One phone per person, and it must be the company's own contract. Reimbursing your personal contract does not work.Itemised business calls only. Line rental is not claimable.
Claimable only where you had no connection and put one in because the work needed it.
Catch: If you already had broadband, working from home costs you nothing extra, so there is nothing to claim and reimbursing it is taxable pay. This is the most commonly overclaimed item on the list.Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, cloud storage, password manager, antivirus, VPN, note taking, design tools, AI subscriptions.
Xero, FreeAgent, receipt capture and expense tools.
Calendly, Acuity, your booking system and payment links.
Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, project management and shared whiteboards.
Domain, hosting, builder subscription, design, copywriting, search optimisation and ongoing maintenance.
Paper, printer ink, folders, pens, postage and couriers.
Tea, coffee, milk and water, in reasonable amounts. Free or subsidised meals on the premises available to all staff are exempt.
Tutoring and teaching
The platforms you actually teach on, interactive whiteboards and lesson delivery tools.
Tutoring and teaching
Textbooks, revision guides, past papers, specifications, subject journals and resource site subscriptions.
Equipment and one-off purchases
Laptop, desktop, monitor, tablet, phone handset. The full cost comes off in the year you buy it.
Desk, chair, shelving, filing and task lighting.
The Annual Investment Allowance gives 100% of the cost in year one, up to £1m a year. Almost everything a small company buys sits inside it.
Qualifies for the Annual Investment Allowance, so you still get the full deduction.
No tax charge on you where the company provides it for work and private use is not significant.
Monthly payments on leased or financed equipment.
Fixing or replacing equipment.
Catch: An upgrade that genuinely improves the asset is capital, not a repair, so it is treated differently.Treated as equipment and covered by the same allowance.
Goes into the writing down pool, now 14% a year from April 2026, reduced from 18%.
A 40% first year allowance from 1 January 2026 covers assets that fall outside full expensing and the Annual Investment Allowance.
Tutoring and teaching
Webcam, microphone, headset, graphics tablet and stylus, ring light, second screen and document camera.
Travel
55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, then 25p.
Catch: The rate rose from 45p on 6 April 2026, the first rise in 15 years, and it is backdated to the start of the tax year, so anything already paid at 45p can be topped up.24p a mile on a motorcycle and 20p on a bicycle.
An extra 5p a mile for each passenger who is also an employee on the same business trip.
Journeys to a temporary workplace, to clients, and between workplaces.
Catch: Getting to a place you work at regularly is commuting and is never claimable. A site stops being temporary once you expect to be there beyond 24 months.Trains, buses, coaches, flights and taxis on business journeys.
Including the congestion charge on a business trip.
Catch: Parking fines and penalties are never allowable, wherever you got them.Hotels and rentals on business trips.
Actual cost, or flat rates of £5 over 5 hours away, £10 over 10 hours and £25 over 15 hours, plus £10 more if you are still travelling after 8pm.
£5 a night in the UK and £10 abroad, for personal odds and ends while away.
Catch: A penny over and the whole payment becomes taxable, not just the excess.Business trips abroad, visas and travel insurance. HMRC publishes country by country scale rates for meals and accommodation.
Up to 60 journeys home a year where you work past 9pm and public transport has stopped or is unreasonable.
Free or paid parking at or near the workplace is tax free, for cars, motorcycles and bicycles.
Vehicles through the company
100% of the cost deducted in year one on a new zero emission car, available until 31 March 2027.
First year allowances for zero emission cars and chargepoints
The benefit charge is 4% of list price in 2026/27, against 25% or more for an equivalent petrol car.
100% of the cost of installing a chargepoint, also until 31 March 2027.
First year allowances for zero emission cars and chargepoints
Free electricity for a company car at the workplace is tax free. Electricity is not fuel, so no fuel benefit charge arises.
7p a mile for charging at home and 15p using public chargers.
Rarely worth putting through the company. The write off is slow and the benefit charge is heavy. Mileage on your own car usually beats it.
A flat benefit charge rather than a share of list price, and no charge at all where private use is only the commute.
A company bike mainly used for commuting is tax free on you and deductible for the company.
Paying yourself and other people
Deductible in full, and it keeps your state pension record intact.
15% on pay above £5,000 a year, and it is deductible too.
£10,500 off the employer National Insurance bill.
Catch: Not available while you are a director and the only employee paid above the secondary threshold. Taking on one other person on a real salary unlocks it.Entirely fine, at a commercial rate, for work actually done and actually paid.
Catch: HMRC challenges salaries that do not match the work performed.Fees to self employed people who deliver work for you.
Wages, or fees to a virtual assistant or bookkeeper.
Advertising a role and agency fees.
Sick, maternity, paternity and holiday pay.
Payroll software and bureau fees.
Tutoring and teaching
Fees to self employed tutors who deliver lessons for you.
Pensions and protection
The company pays straight into your pension. No income tax, no National Insurance, and it reduces corporation tax. Up to £60,000 a year, plus unused allowance carried forward from the last three years. The most efficient way to get money out of a company.
Catch: The allowance tapers once threshold income passes £200,000 and adjusted income passes £260,000.Up to £500 a year per employee for regulated pensions advice, tax free.
Company paid life insurance on you. Deductible, no benefit charge, and the payout is tax free to your family and sits outside your estate.
Company paid cover replacing your income if you cannot work.
Deductible for the company.
Catch: It is a taxable benefit on you, so weigh the corporation tax saving against the personal tax cost.Legally required as soon as you have staff.
Tax free benefits people miss
£150 a head a year including guests, fully deductible and tax free. It has to be a genuinely annual event and open to everyone employed.
Catch: It is a cliff edge, not an allowance. £151 makes the whole amount taxable. The £150 also has to cover every annual event, so a summer party and a Christmas one share it.Divide the total cost by everyone who attends, including non-employee guests. With two events, the one that best uses the £150 stays exempt.
Catch: A one-off celebration, such as a 25th anniversary, is not an annual function and does not qualify at all.£50 a time, as often as you like, for gifts and small treats. No tax and no reporting.
Catch: Capped at £300 a year for a director of a close company, never cash or a cash voucher, and never a reward for work done.One health assessment and one medical check up a year, tax free.
An eye test required for screen work, and corrective glasses where the test shows you need them solely for screen use.
Catch: Everyday glasses are a taxable benefit even if the prescription includes a screen element.Up to £10,000 outstanding at any point in the tax year, with no tax on you as a benefit.
Catch: Repay it within 9 months of the company year end, or the company hands HMRC 35.75% of whatever is still outstanding, refunded only after the loan comes back. Repaying then redrawing within 30 days does not count as repaying.£50 for each year of service, once an employee passes 20 years.
Up to £5,000 for an idea that saves the business money, and £25 encouragement awards.
Catch: The idea has to fall outside your normal duties. In a one-person company HMRC treats improving the business as exactly your job, so this one only works once you have staff.Tax free where it is made available to all employees.
Tax free where available to all your staff, not open to the public, and not in a private home. An equipped gym room at your business premises qualifies, as does a facility several employers run jointly for their teams.
Catch: A normal gym membership never qualifies, because the gym is open to the public, and a home gym does not either. If the company pays for your membership it is a taxable benefit on you.Up to £8,000 of qualifying moving costs where a job move requires it.
Tax free childcare where the company is genuinely involved in running and financing the provision.
Catch: Childcare vouchers closed to new entrants in October 2018, so the nursery route is what remains.Up to £250 a year from someone who is not your employer.
The cost of necessary treatment where you fall ill while working outside the UK.
Equipment or services provided so someone can take up or stay in work.
Training and professional standing
Far more generous through a company than most people assume. Work related training is tax free and deductible, and that includes the course fee, the materials, and the travel and meals to get there.
Training for your current duties or duties you are likely to take on. Internal and external courses both qualify, with no territorial limit.
Catch: Training that is really a reward or an inducement rather than genuine development does not qualify.Attendance, travel and accommodation, in the UK or abroad.
Bodies on HMRC approved List 3 are tax free. Others are deductible where directly relevant to the trade.
HMRC publishes the full approved list. If your body is on it, the subscription is clean.
Where the work requires them.
Subscriptions and reference material relevant to the trade.
Courses of up to two years for an employee leaving the business.
Tutoring and teaching
Your check, every renewal and the DBS update service subscription.
Tutoring and teaching
Certification and the refreshers that keep it current.
Tutoring and teaching
Subject associations and teaching bodies, tax free where they appear on HMRC List 3.
Insurance, fees and finance
Fully deductible and very often forgotten.
Particularly where you work on site or hire a venue.
Worth having wherever you hold client data.
Directors and officers insurance, and employee liabilities and indemnity cover, which has its own exemption.
Expenses and benefits: employee liabilities and indemnity insurance
Accountancy fees and bookkeeping support.
Catch: The slice covering your personal tax return is technically a benefit on you rather than a company cost.Contracts, terms of business, employment advice and chasing unpaid invoices.
Catch: Fees on buying property or shares are capital and are not deductible.Account fees, transfer charges and foreign exchange costs.
Stripe, PayPal, GoCardless and platform payment charges. Routinely missed, and often the largest of these.
Business loans, overdrafts and the company credit card.
The confirmation statement and other statutory filing fees.
An invoice a customer never pays, once you have written it off in the accounts.
Anything bought to get going, reaching back 7 years before you started trading, treated as incurred on day one.
Qualifying donations are taken off profits before corporation tax is worked out.
Deductible where it is genuinely advertising.
Catch: HMRC looks hard at sponsorship of something the director personally enjoys, such as a family member team.Profits under £50,000 are taxed at 19% and over £250,000 at 25%, so every £100 claimed keeps £19 to £25 in the company.
Between £50,000 and £250,000 marginal relief applies, and the effective rate on that slice is 26.5%. Claims are worth most here.
Tutoring and teaching
Registration is triggered by rolling 12 month turnover passing £90,000, not by your accounting year.
Marketing and clients
Google and Meta ads, local print, flyers and leaflets.
Fees and commission charged by the marketplaces that send you work.
Including banners and vehicle livery.
For the website and social channels.
Business group membership and event fees.
Allowable only with a permanent, conspicuous logo, along with genuine protective clothing.
Catch: Plain clothes never qualify, however strict the dress code and however much you only wear them for work.Up to £50 per recipient a year, and the gift itself must carry a conspicuous advert for the business.
Catch: Food, drink, tobacco and vouchers never qualify however small, and going a pound over £50 disallows the whole gift, not just the excess.Allowable as advertising.
Tutoring and teaching
Commission taken by Tutorful, Superprof, MyTutor and similar marketplaces.
What you cannot claim
Meals, drinks and hospitality for clients and prospects. Never deductible, for any business, at any level.
Catch: Staff entertaining is different and is deductible, though outside the £150 annual event it is taxable on the employee.Not deductible even if bought purely for work and never worn otherwise.
Travel to a place you work at regularly is private travel, not business travel.
Parking tickets, speeding fines and regulatory penalties are all disallowed.
What HMRC charges you for paying late is not a deductible cost.
No additional cost means nothing to claim, and reimbursing it is taxable pay.
Not expenses at all. Only salary run through payroll reduces company profit.
Added back in the tax computation. Capital allowances replace it.
Where something is used partly privately, only the business share is claimable.
Tutoring and teaching
Private tuition is VAT exempt only when an individual teaches independently. A limited company cannot use that exemption, so once turnover passes £90,000 the company must register and charge VAT on lessons.
Catch: The upside is that registering lets the company reclaim VAT on most of the costs on this page. Plan for it well before you reach the threshold.Nothing matches that search. Try a shorter word.
Frequently asked questions
What expenses can a UK limited company claim?
Any cost incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade reduces the company's taxable profit. That covers premises, equipment, travel, software, insurance, professional fees, salaries and pension contributions. A limited company also has a second question to answer that a sole trader does not: whether the company paying for something counts as taxable pay in the director's hands.
What is the mileage rate for 2026-27?
55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p thereafter. The rate rose from 45p on 6 April 2026, the first increase in 15 years, and applies to the whole of the 2026-27 tax year.
Can a director claim home broadband as a company expense?
Usually not. HMRC's position is that where a director already pays for broadband at home, working from home creates no additional expense, so there is nothing for the company to reimburse tax free. Only a connection installed specifically because there was none qualifies. This is the most commonly overclaimed item.
How much can a company spend on a Christmas party?
£150 per head per tax year, including guests, is exempt from tax. It must be an annual event and open to all employees. It is a cliff edge rather than an allowance: at £151 per head the whole amount becomes taxable, not just the excess, and the £150 has to cover every annual function in the year combined.
Claiming everything on this list is the easy half. Knowing which of them your company should actually be doing, and in what order, is the other half.
Book a callThe working
The two tests, and why a company is different
A sole trader asks one question of every cost: was it incurred wholly and exclusively for the trade? A limited company has to answer two, and the second one is where most of the money is lost.
| Question | Who it is about | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Is it wholly and exclusively for the business? | The company | Under-claiming. Costs that qualify never get put through. |
| Does the company paying for it count as your pay? | You, personally | Over-claiming. A benefit in kind arises and the saving reverses. |
Almost every expensive mistake we see is a sole trader rule applied to a company. Apportioning household bills, splitting the broadband, treating training as "a new skill so it does not count" - all of those are the wrong test for a director, and two of the three cost you money in the wrong direction.
The three that cost people the most
Broadband. The single most overclaimed item on the list. HMRC's position is that if you already pay for broadband at home, working from home creates no additional expense. There is nothing to reimburse, and reimbursing it anyway is taxable pay. Only a connection put in because there genuinely was none qualifies.
The annual party. £150 a head is a cliff edge, not an allowance. Spend £151 and the entire amount becomes taxable, not the £1 over. It also has to cover every annual event in the year combined, so a summer party and a Christmas one share the same £150.
Gifts to clients. Same cliff edge at £50 per recipient per year, and the gift has to carry a conspicuous advert for the business. Food, drink, tobacco and vouchers are excluded outright, however small. A £30 bottle of wine with your logo on it is not deductible; a £30 diary with your logo on it is.
What changed for 2026/27
Three changes matter enough to revisit what you are already claiming.
| What | Was | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Mileage, first 10,000 miles | 45p | 55p from 6 April 2026 |
| Employee claim for homeworking | Available | Removed from 6 April 2026 |
| Main rate writing down allowance | 18% | 14% from April 2026 |
The mileage rise is the first in 15 years and is backdated to the start of the tax year, so anything already paid at 45p can be topped up to 55p without tax or National Insurance arising.
The homeworking change only removes the employee's own claim. A company paying its director £6 a week is unaffected, which for most one-person companies means moving the claim rather than losing it.
How this list is sourced
Working from memory produces a long list with holes you cannot see. This one is built by walking HMRC's own two enumerations end to end: the Expenses and benefits A to Z, which covers what an employer can provide, and booklet 480 chapter 5, which lists every payment and benefit that is not taxable.
Every line carries a link to the HMRC page it comes from, and every one of those links is machine checked before the page is published. A reference that has gone dead fails the build rather than sitting there quietly.
What this page cannot do is tell you which of these your company should be doing, or in what order. Several of them interact: the pension contribution, the salary level and the Employment Allowance are one decision, not three.