Working from Home Tax Relief Calculator

Employee tax relief for the extra household costs of working from home ended on 6 April 2026. For 2026/27 onwards an employee cannot claim it at all, whether through a tax code, Self Assessment or form P87. What survives is the look-back: you can still claim for the four previous tax years, 2022/23 to 2025/26, where your employer required you to work from home. The flat rate for those years was £6 per week (£312 per year), with no receipts needed, worth £62.40 a year to a basic-rate taxpayer or £124.80 at the higher rate.

For those past years you can instead claim the exact additional costs of working from home, such as the proportion of your heating, electricity, broadband and phone bills attributable to work. This requires keeping records and calculating the business-use percentage, and HMRC accepts a reasonable apportionment method. It only pays off where the costs genuinely exceed the flat rate. An extra £50 a month on heating and electricity comes to £600 a year, worth £240 of relief at 40%, which is £115.20 more than the flat rate delivers.

Backdated claims go through Self Assessment or form P87, and each year is judged on the rules that applied at the time. Pick the tax year in the calculator: for 2026/27 it shows that no relief is due, and for the earlier years it compares the flat rate with an actual-costs claim, so you can see whether digging out old bills is worth the effort.

The eligibility rule changed and catches people out. Before 2022, anyone working from home could claim, even part-time and by choice. HMRC then tightened the test so that only those required to work from home qualify, meaning no office is available or the contract specifies homeworking. Someone who opted into a hybrid pattern is not eligible. Days spent at home because the office is at capacity are arguably within the rule, but the evidence has to come from you.

Since April 2026 the employer route is the only one left for current costs. An employer can still pay £6 a week, or £26 a month, tax-free to employees who work at home under a homeworking arrangement, with no records required by HMRC. Many UK employers introduced this in 2020-2021, so it is worth asking HR. Where an employer pays more than £6 a week without receipts, the excess becomes a taxable benefit, while reimbursing the exact cost against receipts is tax-free whatever the amount.

Self-employed workers have their own regime. HMRC's simplified expenses give £10 a month for 25-50 hours a month worked at home, £18 a month for 51-100 hours and £26 a month for 101+ hours, with no bills to keep. Actual costs take more effort and sometimes repay it. One room out of five used 80% of the time for business gives 16% of a £2,400 annual utility bill, which is £384 a year, or £32 a month, comfortably above the £26 simplified rate for anyone working at home most days.

Several household costs sit outside the relief altogether. Mortgage interest is excluded, with a separate capital allowance route for asset use, council tax counts as a personal cost however much business use there is, and rent qualifies only in limited business-tenancy situations. Standard broadband is out because private and business use are intermingled, and only a second business line is eligible. Furniture and equipment attract capital allowances on the business-use proportion, while decorating or improving a home office is capital rather than revenue and cannot be deducted. HMRC investigates these claims regularly, so keep a record of the hours actually worked at home.