What can a tradesperson claim as expenses? The van, the tools, the boots and the phone

One rule sits under all of it. A cost can be deducted from your profits if it's incurred "wholly and exclusively" for the business, in the words of HMRC's own manual. If you use something for the business and privately, you claim the business share.

Everything below is from GOV.UK and HMRC's internal manuals, read for the 2025/26 tax year. That return is due online by 31 January 2027. It isn't tax advice. Where the answer depends on your circumstances, I've said so, and that's where an accountant earns their fee.

First, which basis you're on

Since 6 April 2024, the cash basis has been the default way a sole trader works out their profits. Unless you or your accountant chose traditional accounting, you're on it. It matters most for the big purchases, starting with the van.

The van

Buying it. Under the cash basis, GOV.UK says to claim the cost of a vehicle as an allowable expense, unless it's a car. A car goes through capital allowances instead. HMRC's own example is a van bought for £5,000 and used 90% for the business: £4,500 goes in as an expense. Under traditional accounting you claim capital allowances on a van too. The Annual Investment Allowance covers up to £1 million of spending, but not on cars.

Double-cab pick-ups. Since 6 April 2025, HMRC treats most double-cab pick-ups as cars for capital allowances. There's a transitional rule for one bought under a contract signed before that date, where the spending fell before 1 October 2025. If you're about to buy one, that's the first question for your accountant.

Running it. Insurance, repairs and servicing, fuel, parking, vehicle tax and breakdown cover can all be claimed, as can the interest on a loan or a hire purchase deal. The repayments themselves can't. The old £500 limit on interest under the cash basis was removed from 2024/25.

Or the mileage rate instead. Rather than adding up the real costs, you can claim a flat rate per business mile. For 2025/26 it's 45p for the first 10,000 miles in a car or van, then 25p, or 24p on a motorcycle. From 6 April 2026 the first 10,000 miles go up to 55p. Two catches. Once you use the flat rate for a vehicle, you have to keep using it for as long as that vehicle is in the business. And you can't use it for a van whose price you've already claimed.

Selling it later. Under the cash basis, what you get for a van you claimed counts as income of the business in the year you sell it.

Tools and equipment

GOV.UK's line is that items you'd normally use for less than two years can be claimed as allowable expenses. For equipment you keep, it's an expense under the cash basis and capital allowances under traditional accounting. Repairs to your equipment can be claimed too.

There's no HMRC figure for "small tools" that I could find, so the two-year line is the one to go by. And as with the van, if you sell something you've claimed, the money comes back in as business income.

Workwear

Protective clothing needed for the work, such as safety boots or hard hats, can be claimed, along with cleaning and repairing it. So can overalls and aprons, if you only use them for work. Everyday clothing can't, even if you wear it for work. That's HMRC applying a 1983 case, Mallalieu v Drummond, which is why a plain pair of jeans you keep for jobs doesn't count however muddy it gets.

Your phone, your broadband and the office at home

The business share of your phone and broadband bills counts. GOV.UK's own example is a £200 phone bill with £70 of business calls, of which you claim the £70.

If you do the paperwork at home, HMRC's flat rates are per month. That's £10 for 25 to 50 hours of business use, £18 for 51 to 100 hours and £26 for 101 hours or more. They don't include phone or internet, which you claim separately. You can work out a proportion of your real household costs instead.

The drive to the job

This is where GOV.UK's summary and HMRC's own manual read differently for most trades. GOV.UK's list of things you can't claim includes travel between home and work. HMRC's own manual is more specific. Where home is the base of the business and the trader moves from site to site, travel between home and each site is allowed. The manual's example is a jobbing builder. It rests on a 1971 case about a bricklayer, Horton v Young.

If you have a fixed base elsewhere, such as a yard or a workshop, the manual says travel from home to it isn't allowable. That stays true even if you keep your tools at home. Parking on a job can be claimed either way; a parking fine can't.

Training, memberships and insurance

Training can be claimed if it improves the skills and knowledge you use in the business. Since March 2024, HMRC also counts new skills in your existing business area. Its own examples include a gas boiler fitter training to install heat pumps, and a plumber doing a bookkeeping course, both likely to be allowable. What doesn't count is training to start a different business. HMRC doesn't name the 18th Edition update or gas ACS reassessment. My reading is that both are training in a trade you already work in, but that's my reading, not HMRC's.

Memberships and scheme fees. GOV.UK allows trade body or professional membership related to your business. HMRC doesn't name Gas Safe Register, NICEIC or the other schemes. Its manual says payments to a regulator to cover its costs will normally be allowable. It also says a professional body's annual subscription may be allowed but its entrance fee normally isn't. Which of those a scheme's fees fall under is a question for your accountant.

Insurance. GOV.UK says you can claim any insurance policy for the business, with public liability as its example, and vehicle insurance is on its list for the van.

What you can't claim

• Fines and penalty charges, parking tickets included.
• Entertaining clients, suppliers or customers, usually.
• Money you take out for yourself. Your drawings aren't an expense.
• Everyday food. HMRC's manual says the cost of meals isn't allowable "since everyone must eat in order to live". There are narrow exceptions for meals while travelling outside your normal pattern, and GOV.UK allows meals on overnight business trips. Lunch on a normal job isn't one.
• The cost of preparing and submitting your own Self Assessment return. GOV.UK lists it as not claimable, while an accountant hired for business reasons can be.

The £1,000 shortcut

You can take the £1,000 trading allowance instead of claiming expenses, but not both. It only helps if your real expenses come to less than £1,000, which for most trades with a van they won't.

Keeping the records

GOV.UK says to keep records for at least five years after the 31 January deadline of the tax year they belong to. For 2025/26 that's until at least the end of January 2032. You don't send proof with your return, but HMRC can ask for it.

Photos and scans are fine. HMRC's guidance says paper records can be discarded once the information is held electronically, as long as everything needed is there and readable. The exception is CIS. A contractor's written statement of a payment, showing the gross, the deduction and the net, has to be kept in its original form. If you work as a subcontractor, keep those statements.

How to set records up from the start is in going self-employed as a tradesperson.

The deadline

The online return for 2025/26, and the tax, are due by 31 January 2027. Miss the return and there's a £100 penalty. After three months, £10 a day is added, up to £900. If last year's bill was £1,000 or more, you'll also make payments on account. Each is half of last year's tax, due on 31 January and 31 July.

Making Tax Digital adds quarterly updates on top for some traders. It started on 6 April 2026 for income over £50,000, counted before expenses. From 6 April 2027 it applies if your 2025/26 return shows over £30,000. What that means in practice is in Making Tax Digital for tradespeople. If you're VAT registered, the VAT on what you buy is handled separately, which the VAT threshold post covers.

Where grafter.ly fits

grafter.ly has an Expenses page. You photograph the receipt and record who it was from, the amount and the VAT within it. Then you say what it was for: materials, fuel, tools, a subcontractor, the vehicle or something else. And you say whether it belongs to a job or to the business generally. It adds the spending up by category and shows what each job really cost. The VAT page reads your expenses for the quarter.

What it doesn't do, said plainly. It doesn't track mileage, it doesn't send expenses to Xero, and its totals aren't split by tax year. And it doesn't decide what's allowable. It's the record you hand your accountant, with the receipt attached, in place of the carrier bag of paper in the van.

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Sources. GOV.UK on expenses if you're self-employed and its pages on travel and vehicles, office, property and equipment, clothing, legal and financial costs, marketing, entertainment and subscriptions, subscriptions, training and how to claim; the cash basis as the default and the removal of the interest limit; simplified expenses for vehicles and for working from home; the Annual Investment Allowance; checking whether training is allowable (6 March 2024); the trading allowance; how long to keep records and what to keep; Self Assessment deadlines, penalties and payments on account; Making Tax Digital for Income Tax and when you need to use it. HMRC's Business Income Manual: BIM37000 (wholly and exclusively), BIM37605 and BIM37620 (travel), BIM37910 (clothing), BIM35660 (training), BIM42515 (fines and regulators), BIM47415 (subscriptions), BIM47705 (meals), BIM72020 and BIM72035 (vans and cars under the cash basis), BIM75005 (mileage rates); the Capital Allowances Manual, CA23511 (double-cab pick-ups); the Compliance Handbook, CH13100 and CH13300 (records). All checked 19 October 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Nothing here is tax advice: rates and rules change, and your own circumstances decide most of the edge cases.