Updated August 2026

An earlier version of this article gave the overnight allowance as £34.90 for drivers sleeping in the cab. Not quite right. £34.90 is the full agreed rate; drivers using a sleeper cab get 75% of it, £26.20. Corrected below.

HGV drivers and owner-operators

  • Fuel and AdBlue, backed by receipts or a mileage log
  • Overnight subsistence for employed drivers under the agreed industry rate: £34.90 a night, or £26.20 with a sleeper cab. The operator needs HMRC approval to pay it tax-free. Self-employed owner-drivers claim actual costs instead
  • Meals on long-distance runs
  • Operator licence fees, Driver CPC, tacho downloads
  • PPE, hi-vis, safety boots
  • Phone, business proportion
  • RHA or Logistics UK subscriptions, and accountancy fees

CIS subcontractors

  • Tools and small kit; bigger equipment goes through capital allowances or full expensing
  • Van running costs: lease, fuel, insurance, MOT, repairs
  • Public liability insurance
  • Trade memberships, training, CSCS renewals
  • Home office use for quoting and paperwork
  • Accountancy fees

What HMRC rejects

  • Ordinary clothes, even ones you only wear for work
  • Travel from home to a permanent workplace
  • A personal phone contract with no evidence of business use
  • Lunch on a normal working day

Keeping the records

Photograph receipts the day you get them. We set clients up with Briefcase, which captures receipts and posts them into QuickBooks on its own, so the shoebox era genuinely ends.

Overnight rates: HMRC Employment Income Manual EIM66110 and EIM66130. Correct as at August 2026.