EIM32370 | Travel expenses: travel in the performance of the duties: travel to and from home where it is a place of work

Section 337 ITEPA 2003

Where an employee’s home is itself a place of work, the cost of travel between there and other permanent workplaces may sometimes be deductible under Section 337 as travel in the performance of the duties. A detailed explanation of the circumstances in which you can accept that an employee’s home is a place of work is at EIM32760.

Note though that the fact that an employee’s home is treated as a workplace for tax purposes is not enough, on its own, to enable the employee to obtain relief under Section 337 for the expenses of travelling to another permanent workplace. For most people, the place where they live is a matter of personal choice. So the expense of travelling from home to any other place is a consequence of that personal choice, not an objective requirement of their job. The case law discussed in the following pages demonstrates that the expenses of travelling from home to another workplace do not qualify for relief under Section 337 unless the location of the employee’s home is itself dictated by the requirements of the job.

Even where that condition is met, the cost of travel between the employee’s home and another permanent workplace is only deductible during those times when the home is a place of work, see EIM32170.

Employees who work at home are of course entitled to a deduction for the expenses of travelling to a temporary workplace in the same way as any other employee, see EIM32170.