EIM05250 – Employment income: scale rate expenses payments: accommodation and subsistence payments to employees travelling outside the UK: tables of benchmark rates

Subsistence expenses are a common example of expenses which employers choose to reimburse by means of a scale rate payment (see EIM05200). EIM05210 contains guidance about the evidence HMRC may require in support of a dispensation request for scale rate subsistence payments to employees travelling within the UK. The sampling technique described in that guidance is not usually appropriate for employees who travel outside the UK, because most employers will not have enough internationally mobile employees to enable them to undertake a meaningful sampling exercise.

HMRC has therefore agreed that employers may use the benchmark rates published by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office when paying accommodation and subsistence expenses to employees whose duties require them to travel abroad, without the need for the employees to produce expenses receipts. The rates can be found in the HMRC internet library at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/employers/emp-income-scale-rates.htm Accommodation and subsistence payments at or below the published rates will not be liable for income tax or National Insurance Contributions for employees who travel abroad

• in the performance of their duties (see EIM32350 onwards) or
• to a temporary workplace (see EIM32000 onwards).

In such cases, employers need not include payments at or below the published rates on forms P11D. However, if an employer decides to pay less than the published rates its employees are not automatically entitled to tax relief for the shortfall. They can only obtain relief under the employee travel rules (see EIM31800 onwards) for their actual, vouched expenses, less any amounts paid by their employer. By “vouched expenses” we mean expenses which are supported by receipts, or some other contemporaneous record of the amounts spent.

These tax/NIC free amounts are in addition to the incidental overnight expenses that employers may reimburse tax/NIC free under Section 240 ITEPA 2003 and the corresponding NICs disregard (see EIM02710 and NIM06015).

Employers are not obliged to use the published rates. It is always open to an employer to reimburse their employees’ actual, vouched expenses, or to negotiate a scale rate amount which they believe more accurately reflects their employees’ spending patterns. Employers wishing to negotiate such an amount must of course be able provide HMRC with evidence in support of their figures.

Further guidance can be found as follows: