Home, Office or Somewhere Else? Understanding the Tax Rules on Employee Travel

For many employees, travelling for work is simply part of the job. But from a tax perspective, where you are travelling to and from can make a significant difference.

A recent First-tier Tribunal case, Kwai [2026] TC 09952, has highlighted an important point for employees who work across a number of locations: you do not necessarily need to have one fixed office for an area to be treated as your permanent workplace.

This is particularly relevant for employees who work across a town, city, region or other defined area as part of their role.

So, when can you claim tax relief on work-related travel, and when is a journey simply treated as ordinary commuting?

The starting point: what counts as business travel?

Where an employee incurs expenses travelling as part of their employment, their employer may be able to reimburse those costs without the payment being subject to tax.

Where the employer does not reimburse the expense, the employee may in some circumstances be able to claim tax relief themselves.

However, not all journeys qualify.

The key distinction is whether you are travelling to a permanent workplace, or travelling somewhere else for a temporary work-related purpose.

Travel between home and a permanent workplace is generally regarded as ordinary commuting and does not qualify for tax relief.

Your usual journey to work

Consider an employee who lives 10 miles from their employer's office.

They normally work from the office four days a week and from home on the fifth day. Each week, they drive the 10 miles to the office and 10 miles home again on those four days.

Although the employee is travelling for work, these journeys are simply their normal commute. The office is their permanent workplace, so they cannot claim tax relief on the 80 miles travelled each week.

The fact that the employee also works from home does not, by itself, turn their journeys to the office into allowable business travel.

What if you are sent somewhere else?

The position can be different where an employee is required to work somewhere other than their permanent workplace.

For example, suppose an employee is normally based at their employer's office but is asked to spend two days at another site to help train a new member of staff. If that site is a genuine temporary workplace, the travel may qualify for tax relief.

HMRC's rules distinguish between travel to a permanent workplace, which is generally ordinary commuting, and travel to a temporary workplace, which can qualify as business travel. A temporary workplace is broadly one an employee attends to perform a task of limited duration or for another temporary purpose.

The treatment can become more complicated where the temporary workplace is on, or close to, the employee's normal commuting route. HMRC has specific guidance dealing with journeys that are substantially ordinary commuting, so the facts of the journey need to be considered rather than simply assuming that all travel to a temporary workplace qualifies.

So, what is a permanent workplace?

HMRC generally considers a workplace to be permanent where an employee attends it regularly to perform the duties of their employment.

For many employees, this is straightforward. An office, shop, factory or other fixed location will usually be their permanent workplace.

The position becomes less obvious where someone:

• works from home for part of the week;

• works at several different locations;

• regularly moves between different sites; or

• has responsibility for a particular geographical area rather than one fixed workplace.

This is where the distinction between permanent and temporary workplaces becomes particularly important.

Hybrid working does not automatically make home a permanent workplace

Since the pandemic, many employees have adopted hybrid working arrangements, splitting their time between home and their employer's premises.

Whether home is itself a permanent workplace depends on the facts and the nature of the working arrangement.

Where an employee regularly performs their employment duties from home, and that arrangement is not simply temporary, HMRC may regard the home as a permanent workplace alongside the employer's other workplace.

This does not mean that travelling from home to the employer's office automatically becomes tax deductible.

If the office is also a permanent workplace, travelling between home and that office will generally remain ordinary commuting.

The important point is that having more than one permanent workplace does not make travel between home and those workplaces allowable.

What if you regularly work at two different sites?

It is also possible for an employee to have more than one permanent workplace without working from home.

Take a consultant who regularly works at two different branches during the week.

Both branches could be permanent workplaces because the employee regularly attends each location as part of their normal duties.

Travel from home to either branch would generally be ordinary commuting and would not qualify.

However, travelling directly from one branch to the other is different. The employee is travelling between two workplaces as part of their employment duties, so this journey can generally qualify as business travel.

This distinction is important: the same employee can have allowable and non-allowable journeys depending on where the journey starts and ends.

What about employees who work across an area?

The rules become particularly interesting for employees who do not have one obvious workplace.

For example, a sales representative may regularly visit customers across a particular city or region. Their job may involve travelling to different locations every day rather than attending one office.

In these circumstances, a geographical area can potentially be treated as the employee's permanent workplace.

Broadly, this can apply where:

• there is no single fixed workplace;

• the employee regularly works within the relevant area; and

• their employment duties are based around that geographical area.

This means that an employee's "permanent workplace" does not necessarily have to be a specific building or address.

What does the recent Kwai case tell us?

The recent Kwai [2026] TC 09952 case considered precisely this issue.

The taxpayer travelled from her home in Essex to various locations around London as part of her employment and had claimed tax relief for those journeys.

The Tribunal concluded that London was her permanent workplace.

As a result, travel between different locations within London could qualify as travel undertaken in the performance of her employment duties. However, journeys between her home and London were treated as ordinary commuting and therefore did not qualify.

An important aspect of the case was that HMRC did not need to rely on the taxpayer's contract specifically defining London as her geographical "patch". Instead, the pattern and nature of her work were relevant to determining that London was her permanent workplace.

This is a useful reminder that the tax treatment of travel can depend on the actual working arrangements, rather than simply what is written in an employment contract.

Don't assume every work-related journey is tax deductible

The rules around employee travel can be surprisingly nuanced.

Two employees could both spend their working day travelling between different locations but have different tax outcomes depending on whether they are travelling from home, between permanent workplaces or to a temporary workplace.

It is therefore important to establish what counts as an employee's permanent workplace before deciding whether mileage or other travel costs can be reimbursed tax-free or whether tax relief can be claimed.

This is particularly relevant for employees who work across multiple sites or geographical areas, where the answer may not be as straightforward as simply identifying the office they visit most often.

If you regularly travel for work, understanding how your workplaces are classified can help ensure that any expenses you claim are treated correctly for tax purposes.

Final thoughts

The rules around employee travel can be more complicated than they initially appear. The key question is not simply whether an employee is travelling because of their job, but where they are travelling to, where they are travelling from and whether the destination is a permanent or temporary workplace.

The increase in hybrid working and roles that involve travelling between multiple locations has made these questions particularly relevant. The recent Kwai case also highlights that a permanent workplace can potentially be a geographical area rather than a specific office or building.

For employees, getting the classification of their workplaces right is important before claiming tax relief or accepting tax-free reimbursement of travel expenses.

For employers, having a clear travel expenses policy and checking the tax treatment of different types of journeys can help avoid incorrectly reimbursing ordinary commuting on a tax-free basis.

If you are unsure whether a particular journey qualifies for tax relief, it is worth considering the specific working arrangements and seeking professional advice before making a claim or reimbursing the expense.

This is general guidance rather than advice on your particular situation, and the rules around employee travel have a number of specific conditions and exceptions. If you would like us to check whether your travel expenses or reimbursements are being treated correctly, please get in touch.