Tax on travel expenses paid to employees visiting a temporary site - Construction

Most of our employees have the office as a main place of work and they receive a travel allowance. Both their salary and travel allowance are taxed through the PAYE system as normal. If one of these employees travels by train to one of our many construction sites 3 times a week and their train ticket is reimbursed to them in full how should this be treated for tax purposes? Thank you

Hi Tom Ekers,

I suggest you check Ordinary commuting and private travel (490: Chapter 3) to establish if the travel to and from the sites would be exempt.
If you have any further questions please contact us on 0300 200 3200.

Thank you.

Hi, this chapter does explain a temporary workplace, however I am not sure it gives me the answer I need. I have heard rumours that individuals who have the main office as an ordinary place of work, who then travel to a temporary site and claim the train fares as expenses will need to pay tax on a portion of the train fare that would have taken them to the office. Can you please confirm if this is true? Or because it is a temporary place of work are the train fares completely tax free? Thank you

Hi,

Any travel expenses claimed as an expenses from HMRC are liable to tax relief at your highest rate of tax, you can find guidance here  -

Claim tax relief for your job expenses

If the expenses are paid by your employer as areimbursement, you can make a claim under S336 as being necessary expenses please see-

PAYE12045 - Coding: coding deductions and expenses: expenses

Thank you.