Remember what Covid did for homeworking? Seemingly overnight, hundreds of thousands of employees swapped their office desk for the kitchen table. Spare rooms became offices, dining tables became workstations, and working from home quickly became part of everyday business life.
During the pandemic, HMRC made it much easier for employees who were required to work from home to claim tax relief on additional household costs. The underlying rule was still that homeworking had to be required, rather than simply chosen, but the process became simpler and more widely used. Many employees claimed the flat rate amount of £6 per week without needing to provide receipts.
That position is now changing. From 6 April 2026, employees will no longer be able to claim working from home tax relief directly from HMRC for additional household costs that have not been reimbursed by their employer. This applies even where an employee is required to work from home and incurs extra costs such as heating, electricity or business telephone calls.
In practical terms, this means the old route of claiming relief personally through HMRC is being removed. The financial value of the relief was never huge; around £62 per year for a basic rate taxpayer and around £125 per year for a higher rate taxpayer, but for many employees it was still a useful contribution towards the extra costs of working from home.
The key point is that support has not disappeared entirely. Instead, the focus is shifting from employee claims to employer reimbursement. Employers can still reimburse eligible homeworking costs tax-free, provided the arrangement is structured correctly and the costs meet the relevant conditions. This makes employer policy much more important than it has been in the past.
For employers, now is a good time to review your homeworking arrangements. Are employees required to work from home, or is homeworking optional under a flexible or hybrid working policy? Will you reimburse any additional costs? If so, will you use the flat rate amount or reimburse actual costs? It is also important to make sure contracts, policies and payroll processes are clear, consistent and properly documented.
For employees, the first step is to understand whether you are required to work from home or whether you do so by choice. If your employer requires you to work from home, you should speak to them about whether any additional costs will be reimbursed. If you have claimed working from home tax relief in the past, it is also worth checking that previous claims were valid and that you are not relying on a relief that will no longer be available from April 2026.
Self-employed individuals and business owners are in a different position. The 2026 change mainly affects employees. If you are self-employed, you may still be able to claim a reasonable proportion of home office costs, either using simplified expenses or actual costs, provided the claim is properly calculated and supported by evidence. You will however need to understand how the changes affect your employees.
As with many tax changes, the rules are not always as straightforward as they first appear. The right approach will depend on whether you are an employer, employee, director or self-employed business owner, and on how your working arrangements are set up in practice.
We have created a free guide to help you understand what is changing, what action you should take now, and where the common pitfalls are. Download the guide today to check how the new working from home tax relief rules could affect you or your business.
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