Subsistence rates: the HMRC benchmark scale rates and the conditions for paying them

Somebody works a long day in another city, buys a sandwich and a coffee, and comes back with no receipt. Does the employer owe them £10 free of tax, or £10 with tax deducted? The answer turns on three facts that have nothing to do with the receipt: whether the travel itself qualified, how many hours they were away, and whether they bought any food at all.

This post sets out the United Kingdom subsistence rates, where each figure comes from, and the two rules that most often turn a tax free payment into taxable pay. Every figure was read on the publisher's own page on the date in the updated line. It is general information about the position in the United Kingdom and not tax or legal advice.

Subsistence is an approval problem before it is a tax problem. Where New Dynamics workflows help is in fixing who confirms a journey, in what order, with the record kept alongside the claim rather than in somebody's sent items.

What a subsistence rate is

GOV.UK's guidance on expenses and benefits: travel and subsistence gives the wide definition first. "Subsistence includes meals and any other necessary costs of travelling, for example parking charges, tolls, congestion charges or business phone calls."

A subsistence rate is narrower. It is a fixed amount an employer may pay for a meal on a qualifying journey without the employee proving what they spent. HMRC calls these scale rate payments. GOV.UK's page on cash sum payments to employees describes one as "a set amount of cash to pay for some common business expenses like travel and meals", set up either by agreeing a rate with HMRC or by "using HMRC's benchmark scale rates for subsistence costs". Those benchmark rates are the published set for meals in the United Kingdom, and the rest of this post is about them.

The benchmark subsistence rates for meals in the UK

The current rates are not a rate card that changes each April. They sit in a statutory instrument, The Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015. Regulation 1(2) states that the regulations "have effect in relation to payments made in the tax year 2016-17 and subsequent tax years", and regulation 2(2) sets one meal allowance per day, paid for one instance of qualifying travel, the amount of which does not exceed:

Regulation 2(3) adds the part people miss when they copy the table alone: "An additional meal allowance not exceeding £10 per day paid where a meal allowance in sub-paragraph (2)(a) or (b) is paid and the qualifying travel in respect of which that allowance is paid is ongoing at 8pm."

HMRC's Employment Income Manual repeats those amounts and bands at EIM30240 and puts the supplement in plainer words: "Where a scale rate of £5 or £10 is paid and the qualifying journey in respect of which it is paid lasts beyond 8pm a supplementary rate of £10 can be paid to cover the additional expenses necessarily incurred as a result of working late." The same page fixes what the figures mean. "These rates are the maximum tax and NICs free amounts that can be paid by employers who choose to use the system. An employer can pay less than these rates if it wants to do so."

Have the subsistence rates changed?

No. The amounts have applied since the 2016 to 2017 tax year and still apply for 2026 to 2027. The legislation.gov.uk record shows three dated versions of the regulations, in December 2015 and twice in 2019, and states that "There are currently no known outstanding effects for The Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015". The 2019 amendment inserted regulation 3, which put the overseas rates on a statutory footing. It left the £5, £10 and £25 figures alone.

That matters for a policy document, because it is the opposite of the mileage position. Our post on mileage rates covers the separate approved mileage and advisory fuel figures, including review dates that subsistence does not have. Keep the two tables in separate sections.

The qualifying conditions, including the one employers miss

EIM30240 lists three conditions, and all three must be met.

1. "the travel must be in the performance of an employee's duties or to a temporary place of work, on a journey that is not substantially ordinary commuting."
2. "the employee should be absent from his normal place of work or home for a continuous period in excess of five hours or ten hours."
3. "the employee should have incurred a cost on a meal (food and drink) after starting the journey and retained appropriate evidence of their expenditure"

The second is the one people read. The third is the one they skip, and it is where most policies go wrong. The exemption applies to an amount paid "in respect of meals purchased by the employee in the course of qualifying travel", in the words of regulation 2(1). If nobody bought anything, nothing has been purchased and the band is irrelevant. A worker who takes a packed lunch on a 12 hour journey has no entitlement to the £10. Pay it anyway and you have paid earnings.

The tail of that third condition, about retaining evidence, is the part the same page overtakes further down, and it is worth knowing which half still bites. The purchase requirement is in the regulations and still applies. The evidence requirement was the old checking rule, and that changed in April 2019.

The first condition carries its own limit. No rate is payable for a journey that is substantially ordinary commuting, which is why a claim depends on the destination being a temporary workplace.

The checking requirement, and what replaced dispensations

Two regime changes sit behind the current rules, three years apart, and they get confused.

The first was in 2016. HMRC's guidance on the exemption for paid or reimbursed expenses states it flatly: "From 6 April 2016 all dispensations stopped. Almost all expenses or benefits that might previously have been covered by a dispensation will be within an exemption and will not need to be reported." Before that date an employer applied for a dispensation under section 65 ITEPA 2003 to keep reimbursed expenses off form P11D. Afterwards a statutory exemption does the same job with no application, and travel including subsistence is named among the common items it covers. The exemption does not apply where the payment is made under a salary sacrifice arrangement.

The second was in 2019. Until 5 April 2019 an employer using the benchmark rates had to run a checking system on what employees actually spent. HMRC's EIM30225 records what replaced it: "From 6 April 2019, employers will no longer be required to check receipts or other forms of documentary evidence of the amounts spent by employees when using the HMRC benchmark scale rates to pay or reimburse their employee's qualifying subsistence expenses free of tax." In its place, section 289A(4A) ITEPA 2003 sets Condition C, which "requires employers to operate a system for checking that employees were engaged in qualifying travel in relation to the amount paid or reimbursed", and adds that neither the payer nor anyone operating the system "knows or suspects, or could reasonably be expected to know or suspect, that the travel was not undertaken".

That is a transfer of effort, not a removal of it. Receipt collection stopped. Journey verification did not, and it cannot be done by the claimant. A bespoke rate agreed with HMRC is different again: there, a checking system is still required, because the agreed amount has to stay representative of what people really spend.

Overseas scale rates

For travel outside the United Kingdom, HMRC publishes a separate country by country table, expenses rates for employees travelling outside the UK. Each named city gets an over 5 hours rate, an over 10 hours rate, a 24 hour rate expressed as an amount plus a room rate, and a breakdown covering room rate, breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks and hotel to office travel, in the local currency.

The list runs to hundreds of cities, so link it rather than copying it. Two rules on that page belong in a policy: if the destination is not shown, you can use the rates for the closest city shown for that country, and if the country is not shown either, you can use the rates for the closest city geographically that is shown. An employer who prefers not to use the published figures can apply for a bespoke rate and include the payments on a P11D form, or pay actual vouched expenses instead.

A round sum allowance is pay, not an expense

If a payment is not tied to the conditions, it is not a subsistence payment. GOV.UK defines a round sum allowance as "a set amount of cash for employees regardless of how they spend it", and the consequence is unambiguous. It "counts as earnings", so the full amount goes into the employee's other earnings for PAYE through payroll, and the amount less any specific business expenses it covered goes into the Class 1 National Insurance calculation. HMRC's expenses guide says the same from the other direction: the exemption does not apply to round sum expense allowances.

This is how a well meant policy creates arrears. A flat £15 a day for anyone away from the office, paid whether or not they ate, is a round sum allowance with a subsistence label on it.

The 24 month rule, and the trap inside it

A rate is payable only for qualifying travel, and travel to a workplace the employee attends regularly qualifies only while that workplace is temporary. Section 339(3) ITEPA 2003 makes a place a temporary workplace where the employee attends "for the purpose of performing a task of limited duration, or for some other temporary purpose". Section 339(5) takes that status away where attendance is in the course of a period of continuous work at the place "lasting more than 24 months", or at a time when it is reasonable to assume it will be.

HMRC's EIM32080 puts a figure on continuous work: "you should treat duties as performed to a significant extent at any workplace if the employee spends 40% or more of his or her working time at that place". So the test is whether the employee has spent, or is likely to spend, 40% or more of their working time at that workplace over a period lasting or likely to last more than 24 months.

The trap is in the words "likely to last". Entitlement turns on expectation, not on what eventually happens. EIM32080 states that "The effect of the rule is not altered where the expectation does not match the outcome", and that it "can be altered when there is a change of expectation". Two consequences follow:

• A secondment expected to run three years fails from day one, even if it is cut short at 18 months. Nothing was ever payable.
• A secondment expected to run 18 months qualifies, and stops qualifying on the day it is extended past 24 months, not 24 months after it began. The extension is the change of expectation.

Check this before a long placement is approved. The cost of getting it wrong is every meal allowance paid since the expectation changed, plus the tax and National Insurance on it.

Frequently asked questions

What are the HMRC subsistence rates for 2026 to 2027?

The benchmark meal allowance rates in the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015 are up to £5 where qualifying travel in the day is 5 hours or more, up to £10 where it is 10 hours or more, and up to £25 where it is 15 hours or more and is ongoing at 8pm, plus up to £10 more where a 5 or 10 hour allowance is paid and the travel is ongoing at 8pm. The regulations have effect for the 2016 to 2017 tax year and subsequent tax years, and legislation.gov.uk records no outstanding effects on them.

Can an employee claim a subsistence rate without a receipt?

Yes, for the benchmark rates. HMRC's EIM30225 states that from 6 April 2019 employers are no longer required to check receipts or other documentary evidence of the amounts spent when using the benchmark scale rates. The employee still has to have bought a meal, because the exemption applies to an amount paid in respect of meals purchased in the course of qualifying travel. For a bespoke rate agreed with HMRC, a checking system is still required.

Does a packed lunch qualify for the meal allowance?

No. The third qualifying condition at EIM30240 is that the employee should have incurred a cost on a meal, meaning food and drink, after starting the journey. HMRC adds that a meal "is defined as a combination of food and drink and would take a normal dictionary meaning". No purchase means no qualifying payment, however long the journey.

How many meal rates can be paid in one day?

Regulation 2(2) allows one meal allowance per day for one instance of qualifying travel, at the band the hours support, and regulation 2(3) allows one additional allowance of up to £10 where the £5 or £10 band applies and the travel is still ongoing at 8pm. EIM30240 adds that an employee can only be reimbursed for a meal once, so a meal already covered inside an overnight accommodation cost cannot also attract a benchmark rate.

Is there a subsistence rate for an overnight stay?

There is no benchmark rate for the accommodation itself. EIM30240 states that a benchmark rate has not been set for overnight accommodation costs and that an employer wanting one should apply through the bespoke rate process. For the meals, the page says the over 15 hour rate "will generally apply where an employee is required to stay away overnight, provided the cost of any meals is not also included in an accommodation payment".

What happens if an employer pays more than the published rate?

The excess is taxable. EIM30240 states that if a higher payment or reimbursement is made without agreeing a bespoke scale rate with HMRC, any excess over the published rate should be subject to tax and National Insurance. Paying less is allowed. The employee then cannot claim relief on the gap between the policy rate and the published rate, but can claim a deduction for the difference between what they actually spent and what was reimbursed, with appropriate evidence.

Your next step: fix the conditions, not just the figures

1. Find every document that quotes a subsistence figure, including the expense form, and reduce them to one source.
2. Write the hours test as a continuous absence with recorded start and end times, not as "a full day away".
3. Put the purchase condition on the claim itself, as a statement the claimant makes, so the condition is on the record.
4. Name the person who confirms the journey, and check it is never the claimant. That is Condition C in practice.
5. Replace any flat daily allowance paid regardless of spending. That is a round sum allowance and belongs in payroll.
6. List the placements running past a year, record the expected end date against each, and review any that pass 40% of working time.

For the policy frame around pay, allowances and expenses, read and download our compensation policy guide. The guide is free to read, and the PDF uses our short download form.

Want expense approvals, journey confirmations and the records behind them to sit in one process instead of three inboxes? Book a New Dynamics demo and bring your current subsistence policy. You can also email contact@new-dynamics.com.