Blogs 01233 628648

Average Claim £3,000

We'll tell you straight away what you're owed

Free to enquire

It's free to find out if you have a claim

No Hidden Costs

All aftercare is included

Temporary Workplace Rules

If your job takes you to 'temporary workplaces', you'll be able to claim temporary workplace relief for essential travel. What does this actually mean? Well, according to HMRC’s temporary workplace rules, travelling to different worksites, and working there for less than 24 months, earns you some tax back for your travel costs. However, there are a few reasons why people can't claim temporary workplace relief, so it’s important to understand the rules.

What is HMRC's temporary workplace relief?

The travel tax rebate rules say you can get tax relief on journeys to and from temporary workplaces, where you'll be working for 24 months or less on the trot. It seems simple enough but, as with most tax rules, it can sometimes get fiddly. For instance, if you switch worksites, but your journey and travel costs don't change much between them, the temporary workplace rules might not let you make a tax refund claim. Similarly, if the season ticket you bought works for both sites, HMRC might say the workplaces don't really count as separate.

Here's what the rules actually say:

“The basic principle is that a change in the location or boundaries of a workplace will give rise to a new workplace where the change has a significant effect on:
the journey an employee has to make to get to work, and in particular
the cost of that journey.”

HMRC booklet 490: Employee travel, section 4.7

So, for a new workplace to count as separate from your old one, both the travel cost and physical journey made must be different. Obviously enough, there's quite a lot of wiggle room in the definitions here. Of the two factors, though, the cost is usually the main decider. If you think you may have been travelling to different temporary worksites in the last 4 years, use our quick and free mileage calculator to see how much you could be entitled to claim back in temporary workplace relief.

Temporary Work PlacesHow far apart do workplaces have to be to count as separate for the temporary workplace rules??

For a workplace to count for temporary workplace relief, the first thing to consider is whether you’re there for under 24 months. When you move to another site, HMRC’s temporary workplace rules will determine whether it counts as separate. If it's too close, or the travel costs are too similar, it might end up not counting. The trap here is that you may be considered to have accepted a permanent workplace when you agreed to move to the new site. Worse still, this can mean your old site suddenly no longer counts as temporary either.

Here's an example:

Bob starts at site A in Folkestone, he’s told from the outset that he’ll be there for 18 months.
After 12 months, he’s told that once his 18 months at site A are up, he’ll be moving to site B in Hythe. Site B's just a short hop from his current route to site A, and around the same distance from his home in Canterbury.
He’s told he’ll be at site B for 18 months.
Bob’s looking at about half an hour in the car to either site, and around 17 miles of travel distance from home to work. Since there’s no major difference in the length or cost of Bob's journey, HMRC tells Bob they're basically the same site.
At the 12-month point, Bob’s expecting his total time on sites A and B to be 36 months. The taxman says this is over the 24-month limit of the temporary workplace rules.
Bob can claim for the first 12 months at site A, but not the last 6. From the moment he agreed to work on site B, his worksite became permanent.

Another example would be if you posted at the Naval base in Portsmouth or Plymouth and have to visit different parts of each town. Those locations would not count due to the distance, so and you wouldn't be able to claim.

Temporary WorkplacesHow can I be sure whether my workplace is ''temporary''?

HMRC's rules about temporary workplaces might seem straightforward at first glance, but things can get complicated fast. One thing that trips people up is that there are often strange little catches and complexities with certain kinds of work. Working offshore or overseas, for instance, can lead to some tricky tax situations. If you work outside of the UK for part or all of the year, get in touch with RIFT to find out where you stand.

In some cases an entire area might be considered your temporary workplace, rather than a specific site. Someone working in sales, for example, might find themselves travelling all over a given region to do their job. If they lived outside the area and travelled in, it could well count as an ordinary commute and they'd get nothing back from the taxman for it. However, strangely enough, the travelling they did inside the work area itself might qualify for temporary workplace relief.

Having a geographical area defined as your workplace won't always entitle you to tax relief, though. For instance, someone providing cover to a number of offices around an area wouldn't usually qualify. Travel to and from whichever office they were called to on any given day would only count as a normal commute.

Keep in mind that HMRC's idea of a temporary workplace is rooted more in ‘legalese’ language than common sense. If you're at all unsure how the rules apply to your work travel, talk to RIFT. We'll quickly let you know what you can and can't claim for.

Start your claim for free > Tax Calculator

Can I claim temporary workplace relief if I use the same season ticket for 2 different workplaces?

Season tickets can be pretty expensive, and they're definitely worth including in your temporary workplace relief claim where possible. It's important to know what you can actually claim for, though. If you're using your ticket for travel to temporary workplaces, then obviously you're entitled to tax relief on its cost. However, if you move to another site while your ticket's still valid, you can't just claim for it again. You only paid the cost once, so you only get the tax relief once.

Part of the problem with the HMRC temporary workplace rules is that season tickets can cover very different journeys with no change in cost. Let's look at London, for example. If you're working at one end of the city, then get moved to a site on the other side, things get interesting. Your journey's very different now, and you've been at both sites for under 24 months. On the other hand, your travel costs could well be very similar either way.

Even outside of London, the situation can be tricky to work out. Bus tickets that cover you for travel over a wide area cost the same wherever you get off. If you switch to a workplace at the other end of town, the same ticket still works. Your journey changes but your costs don't.

The bottom line is that it's certainly possible to claim temporary workplace relief for some season ticket costs, but it's easy to get tripped up by technicalities. We have to look at each case on its own, as there's really no hard-and-fast answer. Just remember that HMRC might try to lump your workplaces together as ‘permanent’ if your costs aren't changing.

I ended up staying longer than expected at my site. Does it still count for temporary workplace relief?

If you end up staying longer than you originally expected, your claim for the first 24 months could still be valid. After that, you'll stop getting your temporary workplace relief. Watch out, though—even agreeing to stay at your temporary workplace for longer could mean the site gets classed as permanent by HMRC. As soon as it becomes clear that you’ll be at your workplace for over 2 years, you have to stop claiming tax relief for your travel.

HMRC’s temporary workplace rules are some of the hardest things to get your head around in tax refund law, and there are many grey areas and pitfalls in the rules to watch out for. Every case is likely to be different, but if there's a genuine claim to be made, we'll always battle HMRC to get your refund paid.

RIFT will always fight your corner, and we'll never waste your time trying to claim more than you're entitled to. That's how you know your refund's safe. Even if the taxman ever changed his mind and demanded some of it back, we'd pay it ourselves. That's our unique RIFT Guarantee. If we say you're owed money, you can take it to the bank.

Our GuaranteeOur guarantee means you'll never lose a penny

When you claim your tax refund with RIFT, our unique RIFT Guarantee means that you don't have to worry about the taxman reclaiming any of your money. So long as you give us full and accurate information, if HMRC disagrees with the amount that we’ve claimed and ask for the money back, we’ll pay it. It won’t cost you a penny.

RIFT Guarantee

The LatestKeep up to date with the RIFT Tax Refunds blog

13th May 2025

The Real Cost of Housing

Households still feeling the squeeze as cost of running a home climbs by £695 per year The latest analysis from finan...

07th May 2025

How can I utilise unused pension allowances from previous years to maximise tax relief?

Many UK taxpayers miss out on valuable tax savings simply because they don’t realise they have unused pension allowan...

06th May 2025

Real-World RIFT Reviews

The RIFT Customer Charter sits at the very heart of everything we do. It’s a code we work by, and it means you can an...

RIFTPROD1 - Subscriber

Temporary Workplace Rules​