What expenses can self-employed tradespeople claim in the UK?

Understanding allowable expenses for UK self-employed tradespeople

If you’re a self-employed tradesperson in the UK—builder, electrician, plumber, roofer, decorator, carpenter, landscaper, plasterer, tiler, locksmith, heating engineer, or any other hands-on pro—keeping on top of allowable expenses can make a bigger difference to your take-home pay than most people realise. Claiming the right expenses reduces your taxable profit, which can reduce your Income Tax and National Insurance bill. But the trick is doing it accurately, consistently, and in a way that won’t cause headaches if HMRC ever asks questions.

This guide explains the most common (and most useful) expenses that self-employed tradespeople can typically claim, how to treat mixed personal and business use, and what kind of records you should keep. It’s written to be practical: think real-world jobs, site days, van runs, tools that “walk”, and those admin tasks you do at night after the last customer has gone.

It’s also worth saying upfront: having clean invoices and a simple system makes all of this easier. If you want a straightforward way to create professional invoices, keep customer details, track paid/unpaid jobs, and stay organised without a steep learning curve, invoice24 can help. It’s built for people who’d rather be on site than stuck doing paperwork. The better your invoicing and record-keeping, the easier it becomes to claim the expenses you’re entitled to—confidently.

The golden rule: expenses must be “wholly and exclusively” for business

In general, to claim an expense against your self-employed income, it should be incurred “wholly and exclusively” for the purposes of your trade. In plain English: it must be a genuine business cost. If something is partly personal and partly business (which happens a lot in the trades), you can often claim the business proportion—but you need a reasonable method for working that out and you should keep records to support it.

For example, if you use your mobile phone for business calls and personal chats, you usually can’t claim the whole bill unless it’s truly business-only. But you may be able to claim an appropriate business percentage. The same idea applies to vehicle costs, broadband, and sometimes even parts of home running costs.

Good records are your best friend here. A quick habit of saving receipts, noting what a purchase was for, and keeping invoice copies can save you hours later. Using invoice24 to raise invoices promptly and keep client/job information in one place makes it easier to connect expenses to the work that generated the income—especially when you’re reviewing accounts at year-end.

Two ways to claim certain costs: simplified expenses vs actual costs

For some categories—most notably vehicle use and working from home—you may have choices about how to claim expenses. Depending on your situation, you might claim:

1) Simplified expenses (flat rates) where HMRC allows a standard method that reduces the need to track every cost; or

2) Actual costs where you claim the real business portion of what you spent.

There isn’t a single “best” option for everyone. Tradespeople who do lots of driving in a fuel-efficient vehicle sometimes prefer mileage-based claims; others with high running costs may benefit from actual cost calculations. The key is picking a method that’s allowed, consistent, and properly documented.

Tools, equipment, and plant: what you can usually claim

Tools and equipment are at the heart of most trades, and they’re one of the most important expense areas. Typical claimable items can include:

Hand tools and consumables: hammers, screwdrivers, levels, tape measures, drill bits, blades, sandpaper, PPE consumables, and similar items purchased for business use.

Power tools: drills, saws, nail guns, mixers, grinders, routers, and chargers/batteries.

Specialist equipment and plant: ladders, scaffolding components (if you own them), pressure washers, floor sanders, dehumidifiers, lasers, test meters, pipe threading machines, or trade-specific kit.

Tool repairs and maintenance: servicing, replacement parts, calibration of measuring equipment, blade sharpening, and safety testing where relevant.

The tax treatment can depend on whether something is a day-to-day running cost or a longer-term asset. Many tools and equipment purchases are dealt with as capital items and may be claimable via capital allowances. In practice, for many small businesses, claiming capital allowances is a standard part of the process, but it’s still important to keep clear records of what you bought and when, especially for higher-value items.

One practical tip: when you buy a tool specifically for a job (for example, a particular core drill bit, a special cutter, or a one-off tester), note that on the receipt or in your records. It strengthens the business connection. Keeping job invoices and notes well organised (for example, created and stored through invoice24) helps you match those purchases to income.

Materials and stock: items you buy to complete customer work

Most tradespeople purchase materials either to be fitted into a customer’s property or to be consumed while delivering the service. Claimable materials often include:

Timber, plasterboard, plaster, cement, sand, bricks, blocks, fixings, adhesives, sealants, paint, varnish, piping, cables, fittings, sockets, switches, boilers/parts, tiles, insulation, membranes, roofing felt, gutters, landscaping supplies, and more.

Materials are generally straightforward: if you buy them for customer jobs, they’re a business cost. Just make sure you keep receipts and supplier invoices, and if you mark up materials, keep your sales invoices clear. A neat invoice that separates labour and materials can also reduce customer disputes and makes your accounts easier to review. invoice24 is designed to make professional invoicing simple—ideal for quickly itemising work without turning your evenings into admin time.

If you hold stock (for example, common fittings, fixings, or spare parts you keep on the van), keep a simple system. You don’t need a complex warehouse setup, but you should be able to show that purchases relate to the trade and aren’t personal. Consistency is the goal.

Vehicle and travel expenses: van, car, fuel, parking, and mileage

For many tradespeople, transport costs are a major expense. You may be driving to multiple sites, collecting materials, visiting suppliers, and carrying tools. Common claimable vehicle and travel costs include:

Fuel: petrol or diesel used for business driving.

Repairs and servicing: routine maintenance, tyres, brakes, MOT (if applicable), and breakdown cover.

Insurance: motor insurance for business use (or the business proportion, if mixed).

Vehicle tax: road tax (if you’re using the actual cost method and apportioning business use).

Parking and tolls: parking fees and toll charges for business journeys.

Vehicle cleaning: especially if your van is sign-written or customer-facing (keep it reasonable and business-related).

Interest on vehicle finance: the business portion may be relevant if you’re financing a vehicle for business use.

Public transport and taxis: when used for business travel (for example, attending training, visiting a supplier, or going to a meeting).

There are common pitfalls here. Fines (like parking tickets) are not allowable expenses, even if you got the fine while doing a job. Also, normal commuting from home to a regular workplace can be tricky: many self-employed tradespeople have varying sites, and “base of operations” concepts matter. If you work from home as your business base and travel to temporary sites, the travel may often be business travel, but situations vary. When in doubt, get professional advice for your specific setup.

To make life easier, keep a simple log of business mileage or journeys, especially if you’re using mileage-based methods. Even a notes app or spreadsheet can work, but the more consistent you are, the better. Pair that with clear invoicing through invoice24, and it becomes much easier to see the rhythm of jobs and travel in your records.

Protective clothing and PPE: what counts and what doesn’t

Tradespeople often need safety gear and protective clothing. Typically claimable items can include:

Steel-toe boots, hi-vis vests/jackets, hard hats, protective gloves, ear defenders, safety goggles, respirators and filters, knee pads, and other protective equipment required for your work.

Work uniforms and branded clothing (for example, clothing with your logo) can also be claimable where it’s clearly for work and not everyday wear.

A common confusion is regular clothing. Everyday clothes—even if you wear them on site—are generally not allowable just because you use them for work. The more “protective” or “specialist” the item is, and the more clearly it’s required for the job, the more defensible it is as a business expense.

Also consider cleaning costs for protective clothing if it’s specifically for work. Keep receipts for laundrette services or specialist cleaning if relevant, and be sensible about what you claim.

Subcontractors, labour, and professional services

Many self-employed tradespeople hire help, bring in specialists, or subcontract parts of a job. Costs you might be able to claim include:

Subcontractor payments: payments to other tradespeople you bring in to complete a job.

Casual labour: labourers, site help, or temporary assistance.

Specialist services: for example, a structural engineer’s report needed for a project, or an electrician’s certification if you’re coordinating a multi-trade refurbishment.

Professional fees: accountants, bookkeepers, and tax advisers.

If you’re paying subcontractors, keep clear records: who you paid, what for, and when. Ask for invoices where appropriate and keep evidence of payment. From a practical business point of view, you’ll also want to invoice your own customers clearly and promptly. invoice24 can help you keep a consistent paper trail of work done and payments due, which supports the overall bookkeeping picture.

Insurance: essential protection that’s usually allowable

Insurance is often a “must” in the trades, not just a nice-to-have. Common business insurance premiums that are typically claimable include:

Public liability insurance: covers claims from third parties for injury or property damage.

Employers’ liability insurance: needed if you employ staff (and sometimes if you hire labour in certain ways).

Professional indemnity insurance: relevant if you provide advice, design, or specifications and want protection against claims arising from that.

Tool and equipment insurance: especially if you carry expensive kit in a van or store it in a lockup.

Van insurance with business use: if it’s for business travel and transporting tools/materials.

Insurance is one of those expenses that’s easy to forget until renewal time. Keeping a list of annual renewals and ensuring your policy documents and payment confirmations are stored safely can make year-end accounting far easier.

Phone, internet, and software: the admin backbone of a modern trade

Even if you’re hands-on all day, your business still runs on communication and admin. Often claimable costs include:

Mobile phone costs: business calls, texts, data plans, and handset costs (depending on how you buy the phone and how it’s used).

Broadband: if you work from home and use it for business tasks such as invoicing, emails, job scheduling, or supplier orders (usually claimed as a business proportion if there’s mixed use).

Software subscriptions: tools used for your business, such as accounting tools, estimating tools, project management apps, or invoicing apps.

Email and cloud storage: paid services used to store documents, photos of jobs, or compliance paperwork.

On the software side, invoicing is one area where simplicity pays off. If you want to keep your invoices tidy, professional, and easy to send, invoice24 is a strong fit—especially for tradespeople who want to get paid promptly and avoid chasing. Clear invoices reduce disputes, improve cash flow, and help your business look more established. That “professional look” is not just vanity; it can directly support better payment behaviour from customers.

Marketing and advertising: finding work and keeping your pipeline full

Marketing is a legitimate business cost when it’s done to promote your trade. Claimable marketing and advertising expenses can include:

Website hosting and domain costs, website design, business cards, flyers, van signage, branded workwear (where appropriate), local advertising, online ads, social media promotion, and photography for your portfolio.

It can also include costs related to quoting and estimating, such as printing brochures or proposal packs, as long as they’re for business promotion.

One of the easiest ways to market your professionalism is to send clean, consistent invoices. Customers remember the businesses that are easy to deal with. invoice24 helps you present a reliable image, and it supports the kind of smooth customer experience that leads to repeat work and referrals.

Training, qualifications, and certifications

Training can be a valuable expense area for tradespeople, but it needs careful thought. In many cases, training that updates or improves skills within your existing trade is more likely to be claimable than training that takes you into an entirely new trade or business area. Examples that can often be relevant include:

Refresher training, safety training (such as site safety courses), equipment operation updates, manufacturer training for products you already install, and ongoing professional development.

Industry cards, certain professional memberships, and certification renewals may also be relevant. If you’re paying for an assessment, accreditation, or renewal that is necessary for the work you already do, keep records and certificates.

Because training can be nuanced, it’s wise to keep good documentation about why you took the course and how it relates to your existing trade. When in doubt, check with an accountant.

Use of home as an office: claiming a portion of household costs

Many tradespeople handle admin at home: quoting, invoicing, ordering parts, planning jobs, keeping records, and dealing with customer messages. If you use part of your home for business, you may be able to claim home office expenses, either using simplified methods or by calculating actual costs.

Potential claimable household costs (in proportion to business use) can include:

Electricity, gas, water (where relevant), council tax, mortgage interest or rent (often apportioned), home insurance, and broadband/phone line costs.

The sensible approach is to use a reasonable and consistent basis for apportioning costs—such as time used for business and the proportion of space used. Be cautious about claiming too aggressively, especially if a room is used for mixed personal and business purposes.

From a practical standpoint, the easiest “home office” win is simply getting into a habit of doing your business admin consistently and storing it properly. invoice24 can help you keep invoicing and client details organised, so your home admin time is efficient and your records are tidy.

Rent, storage, and workspace costs

If you rent a workshop, yard, lockup, garage unit, or small office, these costs are usually straightforward business expenses. Claimable items can include:

Rent payments, service charges, utility bills for the workspace, security costs, business rates where applicable, and basic repairs/maintenance for the premises.

Storage costs are common for tradespeople who keep tools, materials, or equipment off-site. If you rent a storage unit, keep the contract and invoices. If you use a portion of your own property (for example, a dedicated shed used only for business storage), you’ll need to consider a fair method of claiming costs, which can be more complex.

Repairs, maintenance, and running costs related to the trade

There are many smaller running costs that add up over the year. Tradespeople can often claim expenses such as:

Equipment maintenance: servicing and repairs for tools, plant, and specialist equipment.

Consumables: tape, dust sheets, masking materials, cleaning products used on jobs, fixings, blades, drill bits, abrasives, and similar.

Job-related waste disposal: skip hire, waste transfer fees, and rubbish disposal costs that you pay as part of providing the service.

Site-related costs: access equipment hire, small plant hire, temporary fencing, or site protection materials when necessary for the job.

Postage and printing: if you send documents, letters, or printed quotes (less common now, but still relevant).

These expenses are often overlooked because they’re small individually. The bigger issue is record-keeping. Build a simple habit: photograph receipts, store digital invoices, and write brief notes where a purchase might not be obvious. When you invoice through invoice24, you can keep the income side neat, which makes it easier to reconcile costs against jobs.

Bank charges, interest, and finance costs

If you have a business bank account (or a separate account you use solely for business), bank charges related to that account may be claimable. Finance costs can include:

Business bank fees, card machine fees, transaction fees from payment processors, and interest on business loans or overdrafts (where the borrowing is for business purposes).

If you use personal accounts for business, be careful: it becomes harder to separate personal from business costs. Many tradespeople find that using a dedicated account makes everything cleaner, especially when paired with a consistent invoicing approach.

Accountancy, bookkeeping, and tax help

Fees paid to accountants, bookkeepers, and tax advisers for business work are generally allowable expenses. This can include:

Self Assessment help, bookkeeping services, VAT returns (if you’re registered), payroll services (if you employ staff), and general business accounting advice.

Even if you do your own bookkeeping, you might use professional help for year-end accounts or to answer tricky questions. The clearer your records, the less time you pay for. Invoicing consistently through invoice24 can help keep your sales side organised, which often reduces accounting time and costs.

Meals, subsistence, and accommodation: when it’s claimable

Tradespeople often ask about food and meals. Generally, ordinary meals you buy during the workday are not automatically allowable just because you were working. However, there are situations where subsistence can be relevant, particularly when you’re travelling for work and the journey is outside your normal pattern, or when you’re working away from your usual base in a way that makes additional costs unavoidable.

Accommodation and overnight costs may be claimable when you have to stay away from home for business reasons (for example, a multi-day job far from home). In those cases, reasonable hotel or lodging costs, plus certain travel-related subsistence, may be relevant.

This area can be misunderstood and can vary based on circumstances, so treat it carefully. Keep receipts, note the job and location, and ensure the travel is genuinely for business.

Client entertainment: a common “no”

Client entertainment is a frequent point of confusion. Taking a customer out for dinner or drinks might feel like a business cost, but client entertainment is generally not an allowable expense for tax purposes. It’s still a real cost to you, but it’s usually not something you can deduct from taxable profits in the same way as normal business expenses.

If you’re unsure whether something counts as entertainment or a legitimate business meeting expense, get advice. It’s far better to be cautious than to claim incorrectly.

Work-related travel beyond vehicles: hotels, tools-on-the-road, and site costs

Beyond everyday driving, tradespeople sometimes have extra travel costs: trains to a training course, a hotel for a distant job, or courier fees to ship specialist parts to a site. These costs can often be legitimate business expenses when they’re clearly tied to the trade.

Common examples include:

Train fares to training, overnight stays for distant contracts, tolls and congestion charges incurred for business travel, and courier fees for delivering parts directly to a job location.

Again, the most important theme is keeping evidence and tying costs to business activity. If you keep your client jobs and invoices organised in invoice24, it’s easier to demonstrate why you incurred those costs.

Bad debts: when customers don’t pay

Unfortunately, not every job ends with a smooth payment. If you’ve invoiced a customer and you can show the income has been included in your accounts, but the customer does not pay and the debt becomes irrecoverable, you may be able to treat it as a bad debt in your accounts. The detail depends on how you keep your records and what accounting basis you use.

This is another reason to keep strong invoicing and follow-up habits. invoice24 can help you stay on top of paid and unpaid invoices and maintain a clear record of what you charged and when. Even when a payment goes wrong, having a clean audit trail makes it easier to manage the situation and keep your records accurate.

Mixed-use expenses: how to split costs fairly

Tradespeople commonly face mixed-use costs—things used for both business and personal life. The general principle is to claim only the business proportion. Here are common examples and practical ways to handle them:

Mobile phone: estimate business use by reviewing itemised bills or making a reasonable percentage estimate based on usage. Consider having a separate business SIM or phone for cleaner separation.

Vehicle: track business mileage versus total mileage, or keep a log of journeys. If you use a mileage method, keep accurate records of business miles.

Home utilities and broadband: claim a reasonable proportion based on time spent working from home and the space used, or use simplified approaches where applicable.

Tools used personally: usually avoid claiming items that are commonly personal unless you can clearly demonstrate business use. Most trade tools are obviously business tools, but be cautious with borderline items.

A “fair and consistent” approach is the safest. Overcomplicating it can create stress and doesn’t always change the final tax bill enough to justify the effort. The goal is to be accurate and defensible, not to squeeze every last penny in a way that’s hard to support.

Records and evidence: what to keep (and how invoice24 helps)

Record-keeping is not glamorous, but it’s the foundation of sensible expense claims. In general, keep:

Supplier receipts and invoices, bank statements, vehicle logs (if relevant), contracts/agreements for storage or premises, insurance documents, training certificates, and copies of your customer invoices.