HMRC issues new guidance on commuting and private travel

New guidance has been issued by HMRC to explain the rules around claiming tax relief for flexible and hybrid workers when commuting.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, only around one in eight working adults reported working from home.

Annual population survey data for the 12-month period from January to December 2019, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showed that around 12% of working adults reported working from home at some point in the previous week to when their interview for the survey was conducted.

Looking at data from its public opinions and social trends survey, levels of working from home peaked during the pandemic, with almost half of working adults (49%) reporting having worked from home at some point in the past seven days in the first half of 2020.

Two years later, when guidance to work from home was lifted in Great Britain, around 38% of working adults reported having worked from home.

In the most recent available ONS statistics for the start of 2023, around 40% of working adults reported having worked from home at some point in the past seven days.

Separate, more recent analysis of hybrid working by TravelPerk. found that 30% of UK companies are working fully on-site today, as opposed to 57% before the pandemic.

In a survey of 1,000 UK office workers, more than 40% of respondents said that their companies had shifted to a hybrid model since the pandemic.

In response, HMRC has issued a new section (3.39) in its guidance for ‘ordinary commuting and private travel’.

It says: “Modern information and communications technology has allowed many more employees to work from home on a flexible or hybrid basis.

“Under such arrangements, the employee will have a base office and journeys from home to that location will be ordinary commuting.”

It gives the following example for employees who work at home.

Elliot’s employer has decided to offer hybrid working to its employees. This allows employees to mix working at home with working in the Bristol office. This flexible way of working is voluntary for Elliot, so he is not required to work from home as part of his role.

Elliot decides to split his time between working at home and in the Bristol office. Elliot’s office will remain his permanent workplace when he begins to work in a hybrid way.

This means Elliot cannot claim tax relief on journeys made from his home to the office because such journeys are ordinary commuting.

The updated tax advice can be found on the HMRC website, where there is further advice and examples of different travel scenarios.