Is Subsistence an Allowable Expense?

Subsistence (meals while working) is only tax‑deductible in specific situations. The key distinction is between everyday meals at or near your normal workplace (not allowable) and extra meal costs caused by genuine business travel (usually allowable).

When subsistence is not allowable

Everyday food and drink you consume while working at your usual place of work is not an allowable expense for tax purposes. HMRC treats this as a normal personal cost you would incur whether or not you were working, so it cannot be claimed through the business.

This means you generally cannot claim the cost of your usual lunch bought near your regular office or workplace.

When subsistence is allowable (travel)

Subsistence becomes an allowable expense where it is necessarily incurred because of qualifying business travel, typically when you travel to a temporary workplace or on business journeys that are not ordinary commuting.

Key points:

• The travel must itself qualify as business travel (for example, visiting a client site, attending a business meeting away from your normal base, or working at a temporary workplace).
• The food or drink must be purchased as part of that trip – for example, a meal at a restaurant, café or takeaway while travelling to, from or at the temporary location, not a pre‑packed lunch you brought from home.
• The relief is for the additional cost of meals due to business travel, not your normal daily food costs.

You can find HMRC’s general guidance on travel and subsistence expenses here:
https://www.gov.uk/expenses-and-benefits-travel​

Employers, employees and HMRC subsistence rates

Where a company pays for employees’ subsistence on qualifying business travel, there are two main approaches:

• Reimbursing actual costs backed by receipts.
• Paying scale‑rate allowances (fixed amounts per qualifying journey) instead of checking every receipt.

HMRC publishes benchmark subsistence scale rates that employers can use without seeking advance approval, provided all conditions are met (such as minimum journey time and evidence that travel actually took place). If an employer wants to pay higher bespoke rates, they must normally agree these with HMRC in advance.

If payments exceed the approved scale rates or are made where conditions are not met, the excess is treated as taxable earnings and may attract Income Tax and National Insurance for the employee.

Staff meals vs client entertainment

It is important to distinguish subsistence from business entertainment:

• Staff meals / staff entertaining (for example, taking employees out for a team meal or staff party) are usually treated as employee entertaining. These costs are generally allowable for corporation tax, although there are separate rules on whether there is a taxable benefit for employees and how the annual staff party exemption works.
• Client entertaining (for example, taking a client out for lunch or dinner) is normally disallowed for corporation tax; you cannot deduct these costs when calculating taxable profits and VAT is generally not recoverable.

If you would like any further advice on claiming subsistence, or other expenses you can claim, please do not hesitate to contact us.