What expenses can I claim as a self-employed tradesperson?

You can claim the business costs of your trade, such as materials, tools, van costs, protective clothing, insurance and training. For 2026-27, each £100 claimed saves £26 if your profit is between £12,570 and £50,270 (outside Scotland).

Allowable expenses come off your takings before tax, so you pay Income Tax and National Insurance only on what is left. The test is simple: the cost must be for your business. If something is part business and part personal, you claim only the business part. The rules below follow GOV.UK as checked on 16 October 2026.

What tradespeople can and cannot claim

Three rules that catch trades out

Part-business costs. Your phone, van and home office are often shared with personal use. GOV.UK's example is a £200 phone bill with £70 of business calls: you claim £70. The same applies to a van you also use at weekends.

Cash basis or traditional accounting. Since 2024-25 the cash basis is the default for sole traders. You record money when it comes in or goes out, and tools, equipment and vans are claimed as expenses when you buy them. Cars are the exception: they go through capital allowances. If you have opted out to traditional accounting, items you keep are claimed through capital allowances instead.

The £1,000 trading allowance. You can take a flat £1,000 off your trading income instead of claiming expenses. It suits a side job with almost no costs. Once your real costs are over £1,000, claiming them usually gives a bigger deduction. You cannot use both.

Flat rates instead of receipts

Simplified expenses let you use flat rates for some costs. For a van, that is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in 2026-27 and 25p after that. For working from home, it is £10 a month for 25 to 50 hours, £18 for 51 to 100 hours and £26 for 101 hours or more. The home rate does not cover phone or internet, which you claim separately. Our guide to claiming your van compares mileage with actual costs.

What this means for you

Missed expenses are money left on the table. A gas engineer with £52,000 of takings and £14,000 of genuine costs pays tax on £38,000, not £52,000. Under 2026-27 rates outside Scotland, Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance come to £6,611.80 instead of £10,528.60, a saving of £3,916.80, partly because some of the £14,000 would otherwise have been taxed at 40%. This is an example only.

Under Making Tax Digital (MTD), each cost becomes a digital record in your software, so it pays to record them as you go. HMRC does not receive your receipts, but you must keep them for at least 5 years after the 31 January deadline for the tax year.

Steps to claim your expenses

1. Run your trade through one bank account so business costs are easy to spot.
2. Keep every receipt: paper, photo or emailed invoice.
3. Work out the business share of anything you also use personally, and write down how you worked it out.
4. Decide on mileage or actual costs for each vehicle, and keep a mileage log either way.
5. Total your costs by category before each quarterly update or your tax return.
6. Check them against the table above. If unsure, GOV.UK says to ask HMRC.

The free MTD check shows when MTD starts for you, and the trades section has more guides for tradespeople.