How to claim work-from-home tax relief for earlier years

By UK Tax Drag · Reviewed 19 September 2026

From 6 April 2026 employees cannot claim tax relief for working from home, so there is nothing to claim for 2026/27. If you had to work from home in any of the 4 previous tax years (2022/23 to 2025/26) and have not claimed, you can still claim £6 a week, which is £312 for a full year and worth about £62 at the basic rate or £125 at the higher rate. HMRC now asks for evidence that working from home was required. Your employer can still pay you up to £6 a week (£26 a month) tax-free towards homeworking costs, and the self-employed still claim a flat £10, £18 or £26 a month or a share of their actual costs.

What changed on 6 April 2026

Until 5 April 2026, an employee who had to work from home could claim a deduction from HMRC for the extra household costs, either as a flat £6 a week or as the exact amount spent. That deduction was removed at Budget 2025 with effect from 6 April 2026. GOV.UK now says that from the tax year 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027 you cannot claim tax relief for working from home.

What has gone: any employee claim for 2026/27 or later, whether at £6 a week or for exact costs. It makes no difference that your contract requires you to work from home.
What is still open: claims for the 4 previous tax years (2022/23 to 2025/26), if you qualified in those years and have not already claimed.
What has not changed: tax-free homeworking payments from your employer, the rules for the self-employed, and tax relief for business travel.

Why it was removed. HMRC's policy paper says that, after checking claims, more than half were found to be ineligible. It estimates that about 300,000 people are affected, at a cost of about £62 a year for a basic-rate taxpayer and £124 a year for a higher-rate taxpayer.

Who can still claim for earlier years

You can claim for a past year only if you had to work from home in that year. GOV.UK gives two examples: your job required you to live far away from your office, or your employer did not have an office.

You cannot claim if you chose to work from home. HMRC says that includes where:

your employment contract lets you work from home some or all of the time
your employer has an office, but you sometimes could not go there because it was full

You must also have paid tax in the year you are claiming for, and you cannot claim for costs your employer has already paid back.

Tax year	Flat rate	Claim by
2022/23	£6 a week	5 April 2027
2023/24	£6 a week	5 April 2028
2024/25	£6 a week	5 April 2029
2025/26	£6 a week	5 April 2030
2026/27 onwards	No relief for employees	Not applicable

The deadlines come from the rule that a claim must be made within 4 years of the end of the tax year it is for.

2021/22 and earlier are out of time. For 2020/21 and 2021/22, the relief was widened to employees who had to work at home because of the pandemic. The last of those years closed for claims on 5 April 2026, so nothing can now be claimed for them.

Hybrid working by choice does not qualify. If your employer had an office you could use and you worked from home under a hybrid policy, you chose to work from home and cannot claim, even for the earlier years.

How much the relief is worth

The flat rate has been £6 a week since 2020/21, so it is the same for all four years that are still open. A full tax year is £312. You do not receive £312: you get tax relief on it at the rate of tax you paid.

Your tax rate	Full year at £6 a week	Tax saved for that year
20% basic rate	£312	£62.40
40% higher rate	£312	£124.80
45% additional rate	£312	£140.40

The relief cannot be more than the tax you paid in that year. You get relief at the rate at which you pay tax, so the figures differ if you pay Scottish rates of Income Tax.

£6 a week or your exact costs

For each year you can claim tax relief on either:

£6 a week — no receipts or bills needed, but for 2022/23 or later you must send evidence that you had to work from home
the exact amount you spent — you must send evidence that you had to work from home and evidence of the costs, such as copies of receipts or bills

Only costs to do with your work count, such as business phone calls and the gas and electricity for your work area. You cannot claim for things you use for both private and business purposes, such as rent or broadband.

Example: flat rate or exact costs

Sarah's contract required her to work from home throughout 2025/26. Comparing her bills with the year before, she puts the extra gas and electricity for her work room at about £8 a month.

Exact costs: £8 × 12 = £96 for the year, and she would need to send the bills
Flat rate: £6 × 52 = £312 for the year, with no bills needed
The flat rate is higher. As a basic-rate taxpayer it is worth £62.40 to her, against £19.20 for the exact costs.

Step-by-step: claiming online or by post

Use this route if you do not file a Self Assessment tax return. Claiming is free.

Step 1: Check which years are still open. Only 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 can be claimed, and 2022/23 closes on 5 April 2027. Leave out any year you have already claimed for.

Step 2: Check you qualify. You must have had to work from home in that year and have paid tax in it. If working from home was your choice, do not claim. If your employer paid part of the costs, you can only claim for the part they did not pay.

Step 3: Gather your evidence. HMRC asks for evidence that you had to work from home, such as a copy of your employment contract. If the contract does not say so, send something else that proves you had to work from home. For exact costs, add copies of receipts or bills.

Step 4: Make the claim. HMRC's online service on GOV.UK checks whether you can claim and takes you to the claim, where you send the evidence. To claim by post you must use form P87: HMRC rejects postal claims that are not on it. Either way, you can only claim outside a tax return if your job expenses for the year total £2,500 or less. Above that you have to file a Self Assessment tax return.

Step 5: Wait for HMRC to check it. HMRC checks the evidence and tells you whether you are entitled to the relief. For earlier tax years it either adjusts your tax code or sends you a refund.

Claiming through Self Assessment

If you complete a Self Assessment tax return, HMRC says you must claim through the return instead of the online service or form P87.

2025/26: enter the amount in box 20, "Other expenses and capital allowances", on the employment page (SA102) of the return. The online return is due by 31 January 2027.
2024/25: you can still amend that return until 31 January 2027.
2022/23 and 2023/24: the time for amending those returns has passed, so you have to write to HMRC and claim overpayment relief. That must be done within 4 years of the end of the tax year, so by 5 April 2027 for 2022/23 and by 5 April 2028 for 2023/24.
2026/27 onwards: leave working-from-home costs out of the employment pages. There is no relief to claim.

What your employer can still pay tax-free

The April 2026 change only removed the claim that employees make to HMRC. The separate exemption for payments made by employers is still in place.

Your employer can pay you up to £6 a week, or £26 a month if you are paid monthly, towards additional household expenses such as gas and electricity, with no tax or National Insurance to pay and no receipts needed.
The condition is that you regularly work from home under arrangements agreed with your employer. HMRC's manual says this can include hybrid working, so it is a wider test than the one for employee claims.
Your employer can pay more than that tax-free only if they can show the payment is no more than your additional household costs. Anything above that is taxed as earnings through payroll.
Equipment, services and supplies your employer provides so you can work from home, such as a laptop or office furniture, are not taxed if any private use is insignificant.

It is the employer's choice. Nothing obliges an employer to pay a homeworking allowance. HMRC's policy paper notes that employers may come under pressure to change their reimbursement policies now that the employee claim has gone.

Self-employed rules

None of this affects the self-employed. If you are a sole trader or a partner and work from home, you still claim the cost as a business expense on the self-employment pages of your tax return, not through form P87. There are two methods.

Simplified expenses. A flat monthly amount based on the hours you work from home. You can only use it if you work from home for 25 hours or more a month.

Hours worked from home in the month	Flat rate for that month
25 to 50 hours	£10
51 to 100 hours	£18
101 hours or more	£26

The flat rate does not include telephone or internet costs, so you can claim the business share of those bills on top. Twelve months at the top rate comes to £312.

Actual costs. Or work out the business share of your actual household bills, such as heating, electricity, Council Tax, and mortgage interest or rent. GOV.UK asks for a reasonable method of dividing the costs, for example by the number of rooms you use for business or the amount of time you spend working from home.

Directors of their own company are employees. If you work through your own limited company, the employee rules above apply to you: no claim to HMRC for 2026/27, but the company can pay you the tax-free £6 a week or £26 a month if you regularly work from home.

Common mistakes

Mistake 1: Claiming for 2026/27. Guides written before the change still describe £6 a week as a current relief. For employees it ended on 5 April 2026, so there is nothing to claim for 2026/27.

Mistake 2: Claiming when you were hybrid by choice. If your employer offered hybrid working but did not require you to work from home, you did not qualify in the earlier years either. HMRC now asks for evidence before it pays.

Mistake 3: Missing the 2022/23 deadline. The oldest open year closes on 5 April 2027. After that date only three years can be claimed.

Mistake 4: Paying a refund company. Some firms offer to make the claim for a share of the refund. Claiming directly from HMRC is free, and you are still responsible for the claim being correct.

Mistake 5: Claiming costs your employer already paid. If your employer paid you a homeworking allowance, you can only claim for costs above what they paid. Check your payslips for those years first.

Mistake 6: Mixing up the employee and self-employed routes. Employees claim earlier years through HMRC's online service, form P87 or the employment pages of a tax return. The self-employed claim working-from-home costs as a business expense, and that has not changed.

Frequently asked questions

Can I claim work-from-home tax relief for 2026/27?

No, not if you are an employee. From 6 April 2026 employees cannot claim tax relief for working from home, whether at £6 a week or for exact costs. You can still claim for the 4 previous tax years, 2022/23 to 2025/26, if you had to work from home in those years and have not already claimed. Your employer can still choose to pay you a tax-free homeworking allowance, and the self-employed can still claim their own working-from-home costs.

Which earlier years can I still claim for, and by when?

A claim has to be made within 4 years of the end of the tax year. That means 2022/23 can be claimed until 5 April 2027, 2023/24 until 5 April 2028, 2024/25 until 5 April 2029 and 2025/26 until 5 April 2030. 2021/22 and earlier years are now out of time.

How much is the £6 a week relief worth?

£6 a week is £312 for a full tax year. You do not receive £312: you get tax relief on it at the rate of tax you paid, so a full year is worth £62.40 at the 20% basic rate, £124.80 at the 40% higher rate and £140.40 at the 45% additional rate. You must have paid tax in the year you claim for, and the relief cannot be more than the tax you paid.

Can my employer still pay me a tax-free allowance for working from home?

Yes. Employers can still pay up to £6 a week, or £26 a month for monthly-paid staff, towards additional household expenses without deducting tax or National Insurance and without asking for receipts, as long as you regularly work from home under arrangements agreed with them. They can pay more tax-free only if they can show it is no more than your additional household costs. Paying it is the employer's choice, not a right.

I am self-employed. Did anything change for me?

No. The April 2026 change only affects employees. If you are self-employed and work from home for 25 hours or more a month you can claim a flat £10, £18 or £26 a month depending on your hours, or a share of your actual household costs, on your tax return.

If your employer pays your homeworking costs

Payments above the tax-free amount, and equipment with significant private use, are taxed as benefits or earnings. The benefit-in-kind guide explains how they are taxed and what your employer reports on a P11D.

Read how benefits in kind are taxed →

Sources and references

Employee rules, the 6 April 2026 change, amounts and evidence: GOV.UK: claim tax relief for working from home and GOV.UK: claim tax relief for your job expenses by post (form P87). The removal of the relief: HMRC policy paper, 26 November 2025 and HMRC Employment Income Manual EIM32759. Employer payments: GOV.UK: homeworking expenses that are exempt from tax and EIM01472. Correcting a tax return and overpayment relief: GOV.UK: Self Assessment corrections. Self-employed flat rates: GOV.UK: simplified expenses for working from home, and actual costs: GOV.UK: expenses if you're self-employed.

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