There's a version of this story where I discovered I'd been leaving money on the table for four years. That's the accurate version. PAYE driver, agency work, regular shifts across three or four different hirers. Nobody at the agency ever mentioned employment expenses. My accountant — who I didn't have, because I thought PAYE meant I didn't need one — wasn't there either. So I just didn't claim anything.
The figure I'd missed over those four years wasn't enormous. But it was real. And none of it required anything complicated to recover — just a P87 form, some records, and a bit of patience with HMRC's processing times.
This is specific to PAYE drivers. If you're operating through an umbrella company, limited company, or as a self-employed sole trader, the rules are different in ways I'm not going to get into here. This is the straightforward PAYE situation: your agency or employer deducts tax and National Insurance before you see the money, and you don't submit a self-assessment return.
The basic rule: expenses incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily
HMRC's test for whether an employment expense is deductible is that it must have been incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily in the performance of the duties of the employment. That phrasing is important — necessary means you couldn't do the job without the expense. It's a harder test than it sounds.
Most personal spending — food, accommodation, transport to a fixed workplace — fails that test for ordinary employment. The position for HGV drivers doing agency or tramping work is different in some respects because the nature of the work means ordinary rules on workplace travel don't always apply the same way.
The clearest category to start with is professional memberships and subscriptions relevant to the employment.
Union subscriptions and professional fees
If you're a member of Unite, the GMB, or another trade union relevant to your employment, the annual subscription is a tax-deductible expense against employment income. HMRC maintains a list of approved professional organisations and the deductible amounts — you claim a flat-rate deduction, not necessarily the full subscription amount, depending on what HMRC have agreed with the union. Worth checking the approved amounts; they're published on the HMRC website and they're trade-union-specific.
The same principle applies to professional body memberships where membership is relevant to doing the job. Less common in HGV work than in some industries, but worth checking if you hold any.
Driver CPC training costs — the complex one
Whether CPC periodic training costs are deductible as employment expenses depends on who pays and what the arrangement is. If your employer pays, no issue — it doesn't come out of your income. If you pay it yourself and your employer doesn't reimburse, the question is whether it meets the 'wholly, exclusively and necessarily' test.
The HMRC position on training expenses for PAYE employees is that training to acquire new skills or qualifications generally doesn't qualify. Training to maintain existing qualifications relevant to your current employment can qualify in some circumstances. CPC periodic training is maintaining a qualification you already hold and that the law requires you to hold to do your job — that puts it in better territory than 'acquiring new skills'. But it's not straightforwardly clear, and the rules on training expenses are genuinely complicated.
If you're self-paying CPC periodic training, take advice before claiming it as a PAYE expense deduction. It may be claimable; it may not be. Getting it wrong is recoverable, but it's easier to get right first time.
Overnight subsistence: the approved benchmark
For drivers who genuinely need to stay away from home overnight as part of their work — tramping, night trunking away from your home base — there's an HMRC-approved overnight subsistence rate for lorry drivers. The rate exists because DVLA/HMRC recognise that HGV cab accommodation is a legitimate arrangement and that drivers staying away incur costs above ordinary commuting.
The approved rate I've covered separately on this site — the £34.90 benchmark and how the sleeper cab distinction works. The short version: if your employer pays you less than the approved benchmark per night away, you can claim the difference as an employment expense. If they pay the full benchmark or more, nothing to claim from HMRC — it's already been covered tax-free.
The claim requires records. Not receipts for every coffee and sandwich, but a record of which nights you were away from home and where. A daily log, route sheets, or your tacho record can all support this. The tacho record is actually useful here — it shows where you were parked, what time your rest period started and ended, and implicitly whether you were away from base overnight. Keep your download records.
Tools, PPE, and work-specific equipment
Protective equipment you're required to provide yourself as a condition of the job — steel-capped boots, hi-vis jackets — can be a deductible employment expense if your employer doesn't provide them. Not all PPE costs qualify; it depends on whether you were required to provide it yourself and whether you actually needed it for the specific duties. A blanket claim for all PPE without that analysis may not hold up.
Work tools in the HGV context: things like a quality torch for walkaround checks, a tyre pressure gauge if you supply your own — these could qualify if they're specifically necessary for the job and not provided by the employer. The amounts are usually small individually. Across a few years, less small.
What you can't claim
Ordinary commuting — the journey from home to your regular depot — is not a deductible expense. Even if it's far, even if you do it in your own car. The test of 'wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in the performance of the duties' doesn't cover getting yourself to work. That's personal expense.
Meals and refreshments during an ordinary working day are generally not deductible either. The exception is where you're away from home overnight on a qualifying basis. A bacon roll at the services between your home depot and the delivery yard doesn't qualify. A meal during an overnight stay where you're genuinely away from base and it meets the overnight subsistence criteria — different situation.
The line between legitimate claim and disallowed expense is real and HMRC do check. Claiming something you're not entitled to is correctable but not consequence-free. Stick to the categories that clearly qualify.
How to actually make the claim
If you're a PAYE driver and you have qualifying employment expenses for a tax year, you claim them via a P87 form. You can submit online through your HMRC Personal Tax Account, or in writing. You can claim back four tax years. So if you've had allowable expenses in recent years and never claimed, you can go back and recover what you missed.
For ongoing claims — if you have similar expenses each year — you can get a PAYE tax code adjustment so the relief is applied in-year rather than recovered afterward. Worth setting up if you have consistent qualifying expenses each year.
Keep records. HMRC can ask to see evidence of the expenses you've claimed. Records of overnight stays, union membership receipts, PPE purchase receipts. Not permanently — four years is the relevant window. But keep something.
If you're logging shifts, overnight stays, and availability for compliance purposes anyway, ShiftOwt gives you an accessible record of your working time and rest periods — which doubles as the kind of evidence HMRC would want for an overnight subsistence claim. £5.99/mo for drivers.