Tax relief for working from home: the £6 a week flat rate

The tax relief for working from home has been abolished. From 6 April 2026, it is not possible to claim tax relief for expenses incurred for working from home, such as heating and electricity¹. Before that date, employees whose job required them to work from home could claim either a flat rate of £6 a week or the exact amount they spent¹.

The £6 was a deduction from your taxable pay, not a payment. It reduced the amount of income that Income Tax was charged on, so its value depended on your rate of tax. The relief was only ever for people whose employer required them to work from home, not for those who chose to.

If you are self-employed, the picture is different. You may still be able to claim a proportion of your household costs as a business expense, and the rules for that have not changed². This page covers what the employee relief was, what it was worth, who could claim it, what you can still claim instead, and how far back old claims can go.

The working from home relief has been abolished: what it means for you

The change took effect from April 2026. The government scrapped the tax relief you could claim if you work from home and your employer does not cover your extra costs⁵. From April 2026 it is no longer possible to claim this relief³.

For most employees, this means the end of a small but straightforward annual claim. The relief was never paid as cash. It reduced your taxable pay, so its value depended on your rate of tax. The flat rate was £6 a week, or the exact amount spent, for employees required to work from home⁶.

The abolition does not affect claims for earlier tax years that are still within the backdating window. If you were eligible in a year when the relief existed and did not claim, you may still be able to claim for that year. In most cases, tax reliefs can be backdated up to four years³.

Nothing about the change affects your employment contract or your employer's ability to reimburse your costs. If your employer pays you an allowance for working from home, that is a separate matter from tax relief. The relief was for costs your employer did not cover.

What the flat rate was worth

Under the old rules, employees who were required to work from home were able to claim either a flat rate of £6 a week, or the exact amount they spent¹. The flat rate was designed to avoid the need to keep receipts for small, hard-to-itemise costs such as extra heating and electricity.

Because it was a tax deduction, the cash value depended on your rate of tax. The table below shows what the £6 a week was worth at each rate.

The same principle applies across the tax system. If you are a basic rate taxpayer and buy something for work for £100, you can claim £20 relief, because it is 20% of the total paid¹. A uniform flat-rate deduction of £60 gives a basic rate taxpayer £12 of relief¹.

The £6 figure was a flat rate, not a reimbursement. It did not go up if your bills went up, and it did not go down if they fell. You could claim the exact amount instead if your costs were higher and you had evidence.

Who could claim: only those required to work from home

The test was whether your employer required you to work from home, not whether you chose to. Employees whose job required them to work from home could claim the flat rate or the exact amount¹. If you chose to work from home, or your employer simply allowed it without requiring it, you could not claim.

This distinction mattered for hybrid workers. If your employer required you to work from home even one day a week, you could claim the flat rate for the whole period. The relief did not depend on how many days you actually worked from home, only on whether the arrangement was required.

The same principle runs through job expenses generally. You cannot claim tax relief for commuting from your home to your usual place of work³. Ordinary commuting is not a business expense, however far you travel.

For the self-employed, the rules are different and still apply. You may be able to claim a proportion of your costs for things like heating, electricity, Council Tax, mortgage interest or rent, internet and telephone use, divided by a reasonable method². If you work for 25 hours or more a month from home, you may be able to use HMRC's simplified expenses system⁷.

Where the relief did not apply

The relief was narrow. It did not cover ordinary commuting, and it did not cover costs your employer reimbursed. It was only for the extra costs of working from home that your employer required and did not pay for.

Several other reliefs have similar limits, which show how HMRC draws the line between business and private use. You can only claim replacement of domestic items relief for a like-for-like replacement, and the cost can be deducted from your income tax profit for the year³. Taper relief does not reduce the tax due on your estate as a whole⁶. Pension tax relief is not applied to employer contributions⁸. Agricultural Relief does not apply to agricultural property in the Channel Islands, Isle of Man or European Economic Area from 6 April 2024⁹.

For employees, the key exclusion was choice. If you chose to work from home, the relief did not apply. If your employer required it, it did. That single test decided eligibility.

The relief also did not apply to costs that were not extra. If your heating bill was the same whether you worked at home or in an office, there was no extra cost to claim. The flat rate was a simplification that assumed some extra cost, but the exact-amount route required you to show it.

Claiming actual costs instead of the £6 flat rate

Instead of the flat rate, you could claim the exact amount of your extra costs. This route suited people whose costs were clearly higher than £6 a week, but it required evidence.

For the self-employed, the method is to claim a proportion of your household costs. You may be able to claim a proportion of your costs for heating, electricity, Council Tax, mortgage interest or rent, internet and telephone use, divided by a reasonable method². A worked example: if you use 50 of 500 square metres for business, five of seven days, on a £150 monthly electricity bill, that would provide you with a £10.65 tax relief on your monthly bill⁷. Another example: you could claim £40 as allowable expenses if you work only one day a week from home, based on £280 divided by 7².

For employees, the exact-amount route worked in a similar way, but the relief has now been abolished. If you claimed more than £2,500 in expenses and did not currently file a tax return, HMRC would need you to file a Self Assessment tax return¹⁰.

The flat rate and the exact-amount route were alternatives. You could not claim both for the same costs. The flat rate was simpler; the exact-amount route could be worth more if your costs were high, but it required records.

Claims for earlier years and the evidence HMRC asks for

The relief has been abolished, but claims for earlier years may still be possible. In most cases, tax reliefs can be backdated up to four years³. That means if you were eligible in a year when the relief existed and did not claim, you may still be able to claim for that year, within the window.

HMRC can ask for your records for the previous four years if it thinks that the right amount of income has not been reported⁴. If you claimed the exact amount rather than the flat rate, you needed evidence of the extra costs. If you claimed the flat rate, no receipts were needed.

If you are claiming a refund, you can check and claim online on GOV.UK, or on the HMRC app, or by asking HMRC to send you a cheque¹¹. HMRC may also reduce the tax collected from future wages instead. If you are unsure whether you are owed anything, contact HMRC to check¹².

For the self-employed, records matter for a different reason. If you work from home, you may want to include a proportion of your household gas, electricity and phone bills in the outgoings section of your business budget¹³. If you apply for a mortgage as a self-employed person, you will need statements from an accountant, tax return form SA302, plus supporting information such as bank statements and receipts¹⁴.

What you can still claim

The employee relief for working from home has gone, but other reliefs remain. If you are self-employed, you may still be able to claim a proportion of your household costs as a business expense². If you work for 25 hours or more a month from home, you may be able to use HMRC's simplified expenses system⁷.

For employees, the main remaining route for job expenses is claiming for things your employer requires you to buy and does not reimburse, such as uniforms or tools¹⁵. If you work from home, you may also be able to claim some of your household costs, as well as business phone calls, if you are self-employed¹⁵.

Other reliefs that may be relevant include Marriage Allowance, which can save a couple £214 in tax in a worked example with incomes of £11,500 and £20,000¹⁶. If you do not pay income tax because you are on a low income, you automatically get tax relief on workplace pension contributions¹⁷.

The general principle is that relief follows business use, not private use. You can claim the business proportion of a cost you also use privately, but not the whole cost. That is why the self-employed method divides household bills by a reasonable measure of business use.