The vehicle is usually the biggest single claim a tradesperson makes, and the one HMRC looks at most closely. The rules are simpler than they look once you decide which of two methods you are using.
Business miles or commuting?
Travel between customers, to a job site, to a supplier and back is business travel. Driving from home to a permanent workplace is commuting, and isn't allowable. For most tradespeople, a customer's house is a temporary workplace, so the trip from home counts. The exception is a site where you spend most of your working time for more than 24 months. Keep a mileage log: date, start, finish, miles and the job. A phone app does it with a tap.
Method one: simplified mileage
You claim a flat rate per business mile: 45p for the first 10,000 miles in the tax year and 25p after that, for cars and vans. Motorcycles are 24p and bicycles 20p. The rate covers fuel, insurance, servicing, repairs, road tax and the vehicle's fall in value. You can add parking and tolls on top. You can't claim the purchase cost separately.
It suits a lower-mileage car or a vehicle you also use privately. You don't need to keep every fuel receipt, only the mileage log.
Method two: actual costs
You claim the business share of what the vehicle really costs to run: fuel, insurance, repairs, servicing, tax and MOT. If you also use it privately, you claim only the business proportion, worked out from your mileage log. On top of that you can claim the cost of buying it through capital allowances.
For a van, the Annual Investment Allowance usually lets you deduct the whole business share of the price in the year you buy it, up to the annual limit. A car does not qualify for that allowance. It gets a slower yearly writing-down allowance instead, though some zero-emission cars have faster relief, so check the current rules before you buy.
You pick one method per vehicle, and stay with it
Once you've chosen simplified mileage or actual costs for a vehicle, you stay with that method for as long as you use it in the business. So choose on the day you buy, not at the end of the year. A high-mileage diesel van is usually better on actual costs. A runaround car doing 4,000 business miles is usually better on mileage.
Is it a van or a car?
For tax, a van is designed to carry goods. A pick-up is not always treated as one. Double-cab pick-ups used to be vans if they could carry more than a tonne, but the rules changed in April 2025 and most are now treated as cars for capital allowances. If you're thinking of buying one, ask before you sign. That's general guidance, so check gov.uk for the current position.
Neither
If you have no vehicle, you can still claim public transport, taxis, bike hire and a hire van for business trips, on the same business-versus-commuting test. If you use your own car occasionally, the 45p rate is the simple route.
What you can't claim
- Parking fines and speeding fines, whatever the reason
- The private share of any running cost
- Commuting to a permanent workplace
- Both the mileage rate and actual costs for the same vehicle
If you have a company
A company van used privately by a director creates a taxable benefit, and the company reports it. Private use includes the drive home if it isn't a business trip. Funmi can show you how it works for your own company before you buy.
General guidance, not advice on your own position. Mileage rates and thresholds checked against gov.uk on 18 September 2026.
Not sure which method suits your vehicle?
Tell us the make, the price and roughly how many miles you do. We'll say which method wins, before you buy.