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Download the HMRC scale rates (Excel)When an employee is travelling for work and buys a meal, an employer can reimburse it without checking every receipt by using HMRC’s benchmark scale rates. These are fixed, tax-free amounts tied to how long the employee is away. This cheat sheet puts the current rates on one page so a policy or an approver can apply them without digging through the Employment Income Manual.
The download is a single table: the rate, the minimum journey time that unlocks it, the maximum tax-free amount, and the conditions.
The current HMRC benchmark rates
These rates come from the Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015 and are the maximum tax and National Insurance free amounts an employer can pay:
| Minimum journey time | Maximum meal allowance |
|---|---|
| 5 hours | £5 |
| 10 hours | £10 |
| 15 hours (and ongoing at 8pm) | £25 |
On top of these, where a £5 or £10 rate is paid and the qualifying journey lasts beyond 8pm, a supplementary £10 can be paid to cover the cost of working late. Payments are capped at a maximum of three meal rates in any single day or 24-hour period.
The conditions that make them tax-free
The rates are only tax-free when the qualifying conditions are met. The travel has to be in the performance of the employee’s duties or to a temporary workplace, on a journey that is not substantially ordinary commuting. The employee has to be away from their normal workplace or home for a continuous period of more than 5 or 10 hours. And they have to actually incur a cost on a meal after the journey starts, keeping evidence of it. Paying the scale rate when no meal was bought, or for an ordinary commute, breaks the exemption.
More or less than the benchmark
An employer can pay less than these rates if it wants to. If it pays more without agreeing a bespoke scale rate with HMRC, the excess is taxable and subject to National Insurance, and has to be reported. This is why many employers set their policy exactly at the benchmark rates: it keeps subsistence tax-free with no extra reporting. The rates cover meals only; there is no benchmark rate for overnight accommodation, which needs either a bespoke agreed rate or reimbursement of actual cost.
How to use the cheat sheet
- Match the employee’s qualifying travel time to the right rate: 5, 10, or 15 hours.
- Add the £10 late supplement only where the journey runs beyond 8pm and a £5 or £10 rate already applies.
- Confirm a meal was actually bought and the travel qualifies before paying tax-free.
- Set your expense policy at or below these rates to keep subsistence free of tax and NIC.
Common mistakes
- Paying the scale rate for ordinary commuting. The journey must be qualifying business travel.
- Paying above the rate without a bespoke agreement, creating a taxable excess.
- Paying a rate when no meal was actually bought.
- Treating the meal rates as covering accommodation. They do not.
When the rates apply themselves
A cheat sheet is a reference; applying it consistently across every claim is the harder part. Tools that help:
- Expensify can enforce per diem rules on submitted claims.
- ExpenseFlow reads each subsistence receipt, codes it, and applies the right treatment as it posts into Xero or QuickBooks Online, so the policy you set against these rates is enforced in the coding rather than checked by hand.
- Pleo sets card limits aligned to the scale rates before the spend happens.
Keep this sheet with your expense policy, set the policy at the benchmark rates, and let captured-at-source coding keep subsistence claims consistent.