Commuting vs business mileage

The most common mistake in a mileage claim is counting the drive to work. For HMRC, ordinary commuting is private travel, however far it is. But not every trip from home is a commute: a journey to a temporary workplace can be business mileage. This guide explains where HMRC draws the line, using its own guidance and examples.

Updated October 2026

Ordinary commuting is not business travel

HMRC's guide for employers, Ordinary commuting and private travel (490: Chapter 3), defines ordinary commuting as travel between a permanent workplace and home, or any other place that is not a workplace. No tax relief is available for it.

A permanent workplace is a place you attend regularly to do your job, unless it is a temporary workplace. For most employees that is simply the office, depot or shop they go to every week. GOV.UK's page for employees says the same in one line: relief for vehicles you use for work does not include travelling to and from your work, unless it's a temporary place of work.

HMRC's example (James, section 3.3): he works at an office in central Birmingham. On some Thursdays he stays overnight with a friend and drives to the office from there the next morning. That journey is still ordinary commuting – starting somewhere other than home doesn't make it business travel.

Temporary workplaces can be business mileage

Booklet 490 describes a temporary workplace as somewhere the employee goes only to perform a task of limited duration or for a temporary purpose. Travel to it from home can be business travel. Typical cases are a client's premises, a training course or a site you are sent to for a project.

A place you visit regularly can still be temporary if each visit has its own purpose. HMRC's example (Fred, section 3.16): a safety officer based in Nottingham visits a factory in Derby every week for a safety check. He has done so for 20 years, but each visit is self-contained and arranged for a particular reason, so Derby is a temporary workplace and he gets relief for the travel.

The 24-month rule and the 40% test

A workplace stops being temporary when two things come together (sections 3.18 to 3.22):

• you work there over a continuous period that lasts, or is expected to last, more than 24 months, and
• you spend 40% or more of your working time there.

Both parts must be met. HMRC's examples:

The test looks at what is expected at the time. If a posting is extended so that it is now expected to last more than 24 months, the workplace becomes permanent from the date the expectation changes – and from then on the drive there is ordinary commuting.

When a trip to a temporary workplace still counts as commuting

HMRC's internal manual (EIM32300) adds a safeguard: a journey to a temporary workplace is treated as ordinary commuting if it is substantially the same as your normal commute – in broadly the same direction and of similar length. HMRC calls it a common-sense rule against turning a private journey into a business one. A trip in a completely different direction is not caught.

Calling at the office on the way

If you drive from home to your permanent workplace, do real work there and then go on to a temporary workplace, that is two journeys: the first leg is ordinary commuting, and only the leg from the office to the temporary workplace is business travel (sections 3.48–3.49). Arranging a stop just to turn the journey into business travel does not work.

Working from home

Working from home doesn't by itself turn the drive to the office into business travel. According to 490 (sections 3.36–3.39), home only counts as a workplace when working there is an objective requirement of the job – not when you choose to work from home – and relief is then only for the days home is a workplace. Hybrid workers with a base office are commuting when they go to it.

The self-employed

For the self-employed, GOV.UK lists travel between home and work, and non-business driving, as costs you cannot claim. How that applies depends on how and where you run the business, so check the guidance or ask an accountant about your own pattern of travel.

How Körlogg helps

Körlogg records every trip automatically, and you swipe it business or private. Switch on work hours and save your home and workplace, and Körlogg marks new trips between the two as private – ordinary commuting – whatever the time of day. A trip to a client or a temporary site you mark as business, with its reason. Only business miles in your own car count towards HMRC's approved amount, at 55p for the first 10,000 miles of the tax year and 25p after. You can change any trip afterwards, and changes are listed in the exported log. Körlogg has no affiliation with HMRC. Körlogg on the App Store