Flat rate expenses for uniforms, work clothing and tools: what it puts on your payslip

The published figures

What it puts on, or takes off, the payslip

The number in your tax code

This is where a flat rate expense actually lands. HMRC adds the agreed amount to the allowances your code is built from, and the code number is those allowances with the last digit dropped. An agreed £140 adds 14, so a standard 1257L becomes 1271L. Nothing else on the payslip announces it, so the code number is the only place to look.

The letter in your tax code

It does not change. The suffix describes your entitlement to the Personal Allowance and a job expense is added to the pot the number measures, not to the letter. That also means a code with no number cannot carry one: on BR, D0 or D1 there is no allowance for the deduction to sit in, so it has to go into the code for your main job or be settled after the tax year ends.

Income Tax, or PAYE, on the payslip

The one figure that moves. A bigger code number means more of your pay falls in the nil rate band, so less tax is taken. At the 20% rate an agreed £140 is £28 over a full year, which is £2.33 on a monthly payslip. Set against a payslip you have not compared to last month's, a change that size is invisible.

National Insurance

Untouched, and this catches people out. National Insurance is charged on your earnings, not on the taxable pay figure that expenses relief reduces, so the NI line is identical before and after the allowance goes in. A claim that appears to have changed your NI has changed something else.

Your coding notice, form P2

Not a payslip, but the document that proves the allowance exists. HMRC's coding guidance uses set descriptions, and a flat rate expense is coded as "Flat rate expenses" rather than under "Job expenses", which is the heading used for mileage, hotel and other costs. Relief for past years appears separately on the same notice as an "Earlier year's adjustment".

Form P87, or the online claim that replaced posting it

The claim itself, and it is not part of payroll at all. Your employer does not see it, cannot make it for you and is not asked to confirm it. HMRC publishes a service that both checks whether your job has an agreed amount and submits the claim; the paper P87 still exists for anyone who wants it.

Form P800, the tax calculation letter

How a backdated claim usually settles. HMRC sends a P800 or a Simple Assessment after the tax year ends if you have paid too much or too little, and they go out between June and March of the following year. If you are registered for Self Assessment you get neither: the bill is adjusted on the return instead.

An employer laundry service, cash allowance or cleaning tokens

The arrangement that removes the entitlement. Where the employer provides laundering facilities no deduction is given even if you do not use them, and where the employer contributes, the agreed amount is reduced by what it contributes. HMRC's own worked example is an officer offered £26 of cleaning tokens: the £140 becomes £114, and it makes no difference whether he takes the tokens.

What goes wrong

An allowance that stays in your code after you leave the trade

This is the one nobody warns you about, and it builds an underpayment rather than a refund. HMRC's coding rules leave a flat rate expense in the code in full for the year the qualifying job ends, and are not apportioned. For the year after, the allowance is removed only if HMRC knows the nature of the employment has changed; where the nature looks the same, or the trade is in the table, it stays. So a welder who becomes a warehouse manager, or a nurse who leaves nursing, can carry £140 or £125 of relief they are no longer entitled to for years. Nothing on the payslip flags it. It surfaces as a P800 asking for the tax back.

Claiming when the employer already provides or launders

Section 367(3) removes the deduction where the employer pays or reimburses the cost, or would do so if asked, and section 367(4) reduces it by whatever is part paid. HMRC's guidance is blunter still: in many cases the employer provides everything required and no deduction should be permitted. Declining an on-site laundry and washing the uniform at home does not restore the entitlement. Nor does buying your own kit when the employer would have supplied it.

Taking £60 when the table gives your trade more

The £60 is the fallback for a job the table does not show, not a default. A nurse who claims it is £65 a year short, a police constable £80, ambulance staff on active service £125, and a pilot £962. The table is arranged by industry and then by occupation inside it, so the mistake is usually looking for a job title and stopping when it is not there, rather than finding the industry and reading its rows.

Reading the wrong industry row for the same job title

The same occupation appears at different amounts in different industries and the heading decides which applies. Welders are £140 under constructional engineering and shipyards, and fall to £80 as "all other workers" in particular engineering, which HMRC defines as factory or workshop work producing components such as wire, springs, nails and locks. Carpenters are £140 in building, £140 in wood and furniture, £140 in shipyards, and £165 on a passenger liner under Seamen.

Paying a refund firm a share of a claim that costs nothing to make

A flat rate expense needs no receipts and no evidence. When HMRC tightened the rules on 14 October 2024 and required supporting evidence before it would progress a PAYE expenses claim, it carved these out by name: no evidence is required for flat rate expenses claims. HMRC publishes a free service that checks your entitlement and submits the claim, and its coding guidance says no formal claim is even necessary, because where an employee qualifies the allowance should be awarded for the current year anyway. A firm charging a percentage is charging it on that.

Signing a deed of assignment rather than a nomination

An assignment transfers legal ownership of the repayment to the firm, and it is not limited to the claim you asked about: HMRC's own account of the practice is that it let repayment agents benefit from other repayments their clients were unaware of, and that an assignment cannot be unilaterally rescinded. Section 333 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023 now makes every assignment of an individual's right to an income tax repayment void, for assignments HMRC received notice of on or after 15 March 2023. A nomination does the opposite job: it directs a single repayment and you can withdraw it.

Claiming the same agreed amount twice in one tax year

Two jobs can each carry a flat rate expense, but only where each genuinely needs its own tools or clothing; where the same kit serves both, the amount is given once. Changing employer mid year and staying in a similar role is the common version of this. HMRC's guidance says plainly that an employee cannot claim the agreed flat rate expense twice in a year simply because they have changed employment.

What to check on your next payslip

• An allowance already granted sits behind the number in your tax code and appears on the PAYE coding notice as a line called "Flat rate expenses". This is the only way to find out whether you already have the allowance. HMRC's current year service shows the code, the allowances behind it and any change made to it. Claiming again when it is already in the code wastes your time; assuming it is there when it is not costs you the tax every year.
• The table at EIM32712 is ordered by industry and then by the occupations inside each one, so the heading above a row is part of what the row means. The table is organised industry first for a reason: several industries have three or four rows at different amounts, and most end with an "all other workers" figure that covers anyone the named occupations miss. Searching for a job title alone is what sends people to the £60 fallback when their industry pays £120 or £140.
• What the employer provides, launders or contributes towards is the fact the deduction turns on, and the employer is the only party who knows it. The answer decides whether you have a claim at all and how much of it survives. Full provision removes the deduction under section 367(3); a part contribution reduces it pound for pound. An answer in writing is also what settles the point if HMRC asks later.
• The duty to tell HMRC sits with you, and it is triggered by a change of trade, a change of employer or the end of any need for your own kit. The removal rules mean an allowance you have stopped earning is not taken out automatically unless HMRC can see the nature of the work has changed. Every month it stays, you underpay a little, and the reckoning arrives as a bill rather than as a correction.
• The fixed sum is not the only route open to you: a year of unusually high spending can be claimed at its actual cost instead, on receipts, for that year alone. You are allowed to take the actual expense under section 336 instead of the fixed sum, and taking it one year does not stop you going back to the flat rate the next. HMRC's own example is a joiner whose toolbox is stolen: £350 with receipts for that year, £140 again afterwards.
• A refund firm sends either a nomination or an assignment, and the two do different things: one directs a single repayment, the other transfers the right to repayments the signer may never hear about. An assignment of an income tax repayment is void if HMRC received notice of it on or after 15 March 2023, but a document can still be drafted as one, and the older ones covered repayments the signer never knew about. A nomination can be withdrawn.
• Box 18 of the SA102 employment page is where the deduction goes for anyone who files a Self Assessment return, and it replaces the separate claim rather than sitting alongside it. HMRC's guidance says that anyone who completes a return must claim through it. Sending a separate claim as well is how the same deduction ends up counted twice, which HMRC unwinds later with interest on the difference.

The 24 occupations this reaches, and how

Each line is specific to that trade. Where a scheme depends on how you are engaged rather than on the work itself, the line says so.

Bus Driver

"Conductors and drivers" is a named row under public transport, worth £60, and it is the same amount as the fallback anyone unlisted can claim. What being named buys you is that the entitlement is agreed rather than argued. Two things can take it away: depot staff have their own higher line, garage hands including cleaners at £80, and if the operator issues and launders your uniform there is nothing left to deduct.

Cabin Crew

£720 a year, agreed between HMRC and Unite for all uniformed cabin staff and applying from 2013/14, which swept away every locally agreed figure that airlines had before. It pays for cleaning and laundering the uniform and not for the uniform itself. Most carriers issue one, but where an airline requires a uniform and does not supply it, the cost of replacing items, though never of buying the first set, is deductible on top of the £720.

Cleaner

One job title, three amounts, decided entirely by the premises. Clean a hospital and you are a hospital domestic at £125. Clean vehicles in a bus or coach depot and you are a garage hand at £80. Clean an office, a school or a private house and no row names you, so the figure is £60 for laundering your own tabard or overalls, which HMRC accepts as protective clothing. In all three the claim dies if the employer supplies and washes the kit.

CNC Machinist

No metalworking machinist appears by name anywhere in the table; the only machinists it lists are woodcutting machinists, at £140 under wood and furniture. You are picked up instead by whichever industry your shop belongs to and its catch all line. A machine shop turning out components is particular engineering, so £80. A works serving other engineering firms is trades ancillary to engineering, so £120. Which of the two your employer is decides the amount, and the employer is the only source for that.

Dental Nurse

You are named in the £125 row by job title, in the same breath as chiropodists, phlebotomists and radiographers, and HMRC counts a dental nurse as a nurse for the separate shoe and hosiery allowances of £12 and £6. The complication is the heading above the row, which lists the employers it covers. A high street practice holding an NHS contract is not the same thing as being employed by the NHS, so your £125 rests on the occupation being named rather than on the practice being one of those employers.

Firefighter

The fire service row is £80 for uniformed fire fighters and fire officers, and the manual is specific about what it buys: the upkeep of undress uniform, meaning the station wear you look after yourself. Turnout gear is not in it. Structural kit, helmet, boots and gloves are personal protective equipment the service must supply under health and safety law, and relief is never available on PPE an employer is obliged to provide. Rank and role map grade make no difference to the £80.

Neonatal Nurse

Specialty makes no difference to the amount. The table sets its figures by employer sector and broad job family, not by unit, so neonatal, intensive care and general ward nursing all draw the same £125. Band makes no difference either: the agreement is written for nurses and midwives of every grade, students and auxiliaries included. What does change the figure is a prescribed shoe or hosiery rule on your unit, which adds £12 and £6.

Nurse

£125 a year, agreed for nurses who must bear the cost of laundering their uniforms and unchanged since 2014/15, when it rose from £100. Two smaller allowances sit on top and are separately claimable: £12 a year for shoes and £6 a year for stockings, tights or socks, each due only where a prescribed style or colour is obligatory where you work. HMRC treats midwives, auxiliaries, students and healthcare assistants as nurses for all three. The row is headed by employer type, National Health Service, private hospitals, local authorities and independent care providers, so registration alone does not carry the £125; a nurse employed outside those four falls back to the £60 laundry figure.

Occupational Health Nurse

Occupational health is the clearest case of a nurse who may not get a nurse's amount. If the service is run by an NHS trust you are in the £125 row. If your contract is with a manufacturer, an airline, a police force or a commercial occupational health provider, your employer is not one of the four types the row heading lists, and the fallback of £60 applies to laundering your own tunic. Nothing about your registration or your caseload changes that.

Paramedic

"Ambulance staff on active service" is the most generous line in the whole health and care block at £185, well above the £125 for ward nursing, and it has stood at that level since 6 April 2014 having been £140 before. The qualifying words are "on active service". A secondment into a control room, an education post or a long period of restricted duties is not operational, and the figure that follows you into a non responding role is the one for the work you are actually doing.

Pilot

£1,022 is the largest figure in the table, negotiated with the British Airline Pilots' Association and running from 2013/14 for every uniformed commercial pilot, co-pilot and helicopter pilot working in the UK, and for other uniformed flight deck crew. A second and separate deduction of £110 covers travel to certain regular specified activities. Neither reaches stewards or stewardesses, who are covered by a different agreement, and both replaced whatever your airline had arranged locally.

Pipefitter

"Pipe fitters and plumbers" is a row of its own, at £120, under the heating industry, and that is the figure for a fitter on domestic or commercial heating and pipework. Site based process and structural work is a different heading: constructional engineering names fitters at £140 among the erectors, platers and riveters. The £20 between them is decided by the industry your employer trades in, not by the size of the pipe or the certification behind the weld.

Police Chief Inspector (CI)

Yours is the last rank the row reaches: it runs to and including Chief Inspector and stops there, so promotion to superintendent ends the entitlement outright. That matters more than it sounds, because HMRC leaves a flat rate expense in the code in full for the year a qualifying job ends and removes it later only if it can see the work has changed. A promotion inside the same force does not look like a change, so the £140 can go on reducing your tax after you cease to qualify.

Police Constable (PC)

£140 a year, and you should not have to ask for it. HMRC's coding instructions say no formal claim is necessary where an officer qualifies and the allowance should be put in the code for the current year even if nobody applied. So on joining, the code is where the answer already is rather than a claim on your first payslip and see whether the £140 is already behind it. Community support officers receive the same amount.

Police Inspector

How your force delivers it decides whether a missing line means anything. HMRC's coding manual records that a force may hold an arrangement differing from the national figure, net pay schemes included, noted against the employer record. Where one operates, the relief is settled through force payroll instead of your tax code, and an inspector who finds no £140 in the code may already be getting it. Where none operates, the code is the only route and an absent allowance is a real one.

Police Sergeant (PS)

The police entry behaves unlike every other row in the table. Everywhere else the deduction depends on an expense being necessarily incurred, but HMRC states that the officers' allowance can be given irrespective of whether current duties require a uniform to be worn. A sergeant posted to a plain clothes unit, a training role or a desk keeps the £140 through the posting, and does not need to tell HMRC that the tunic is in a locker for the year.

School Nurse

The heading above the £125 is about who employs you: health and care staff employed by the National Health Service, private hospitals, local authorities and independent care providers. A school nurse on a local authority or NHS trust contract is inside that list and claims £125. One employed directly by an independent school is employed by none of the four, and drops to the £60 laundry figure for a uniform no national agreement covers. The payslip logo tells you which you are.

Shopfitter

Shopfitting is not a heading and no row mentions it, so what you claim depends on what you are by trade rather than what the contract is called. Joiners and carpenters are named at £140 in the building industry and again at £140 under wood and furniture, so a time served joiner doing fit out work takes £140 either way. A shopfitter who is not a joiner falls to the building industry's all other workers line at £120.

Theatre Nurse

Theatre work is where the £125 most often fails, and the reason is laundry rather than grade. Scrubs are issued, worn and washed by the hospital, and HMRC's rule is that where the employer provides laundering facilities no deduction can be given even if the nurse does not use them. A theatre nurse who scrubs in and hands everything back at the end of the list has no cost to deduct; one who also takes a tunic home for clinics or on calls does.

Toolmaker

Your trade is named exactly once, and narrowly: "toolmakers in the lock making industry" sit at £120 under particular engineering, which HMRC defines as work done commercially in a factory or workshop producing components such as wire, springs, nails and locks. Make tooling for anything other than locks and you drop to that industry's all other workers line at £80, or to £120 if the shop counts as trades ancillary to engineering. The industry heading decides the row before the occupation does, and the amount follows the row you land in.

Train Driver

The railways entry does something unusual. Instead of listing occupations it sends craftsmen away to their own industries, engineers to engineering and vehicle staff to vehicles, and gives everyone else £100. A driver is not a craftsman in that sense, so £100 is the figure. It is £40 more than the public transport row that covers bus and coach drivers, which is why it matters that the employer is a railway rather than a road operator.

Tram Driver

Light rail sits awkwardly between two headings and they pay differently. Public transport gives conductors and drivers £60. Railways gives all other workers £100. Nothing HMRC publishes says which one a tram operator belongs to, so the honest answer is that the figure follows your employer's classification and HMRC is the only body that can settle which of the two rows a light rail operator falls in, and picking the larger number is not a settlement. Once settled it carries forward in your code without a further claim.

Veterinary Nurse

The health and care rates are for hospitals, care providers and the NHS, and a veterinary practice is none of them. No veterinary industry appears in the table either, so the £125 a human nurse claims is not available to you and the gap is £65 a year. What you can claim is the £60 that applies where no national agreement covers the job, because an RVN tunic is recognisably a uniform and the test is met, provided the practice does not wash it for you.

Welder

Welders are listed by name twice, both times at £140: once in the long constructional engineering line alongside burners, platers and riggers, and once in the shipyards line alongside boilermakers and shipwrights. Constructional engineering means engineering on a construction site, including buildings, shipyards, bridges and roads. The same ticket earns £80 in a components factory, where no welding occupation is named and you take the all other workers figure. Where you strike the arc decides which of the two you claim.

Questions

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