HGV & Lorry Driver Accountants
Birmingham accountants supporting HGV and lorry drivers across the UK. We handle employee tax-relief claims, Self Assessment and owner-driver accounts. Eligible expenses can generally be claimed for the current and four previous tax years.
Never claimed for nights away?
Employed drivers who have paid for their own overnight meals, licence medicals or union fees may be owed tax back — and a claim can cover four tax years at once.
Employed, self-employed or owner-driver — the answer differs for each.
Overnight costs, medicals, union fees, clothing and vehicle expenses.
Claim or return, filed properly, with the correspondence handled.
Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser in the firm
Agreed before we start, no hourly billing
Wherever in the UK you drive
How Do You Drive?
Employed, self-employed and owner-driver are three genuinely different tax positions. Most confusion in this trade comes from advice aimed at one being applied to another.
Employed HGV drivers
PAYE — but you may still be owed money
Your tax is deducted at source, so you usually have no return to file. What you may have is a rebate claim for work expenses your employer did not reimburse. Claims can go back four tax years.
Self-employed drivers
Self Assessment every year
You register with HMRC, keep records of income and expenses and file a return by 31 January. Nothing is deducted at source, so what you owe comes entirely from your own records.
Owner-drivers and hauliers
A business, not just a job
Vehicle finance, capital allowances, running costs, possibly VAT and possibly employees. The accounting is closer to a small haulage business than to driving.
HGV Driver Tax Rebates: What You Can Claim Back
If you are employed and taxed through PAYE, you probably have no tax return to file. What you may have is a rebate claim — tax relief on work costs you paid for yourself and your employer never reimbursed.
The part that makes it worth doing is the window. Claims can generally cover the current tax year and the four previous tax years. Several years of eligible overnight costs, licence fees and medical expenses can add up.
A claim recovers the tax on those costs rather than the costs themselves, so it will not make you whole — but for drivers who have never claimed, it is money sitting unclaimed with HMRC.
What tends to be claimable
- Meals and accommodation on nights away, where not reimbursed.
- Medical examinations required for licence renewal.
- Union and professional body subscriptions on HMRC's approved list.
- Laundering and replacing protective clothing your employer does not provide.
- Digital tachograph card costs where you pay for them.
Overnight costs
Meals and accommodation on nights away, where your employer has not reimbursed them. What you can claim depends on whether your employer holds an HMRC approval notice for the fixed rates.
Medical examinations
Medicals required for licence renewal, where you paid for them yourself and were not reimbursed.
Union and professional fees
Subscriptions to unions and professional bodies on HMRC's approved list are usually claimable.
Protective clothing
Laundering and replacing specialist or protective clothing, where your employer does not provide or clean it.
Ordinary commuting between home and a regular workplace is never claimable, and you cannot claim anything your employer has already reimbursed. See GOV.UK tax relief for employees and HMRC's LGV licence and medical-expense guidance.
Check whether you have a claimOvernight Subsistence: The Bit Most Pages Get Wrong
The haulage industry scale rate is £26.20 per night when a sleeper cab is used and £34.90 without a sleeper cab. These are maximum employer payments under a specific scheme; they are not an automatic personal tax rebate.
To pay these industry rates free of Income Tax and National Insurance, an employer must hold an HMRC approval notice, operate a checking system and confirm that the driver incurred qualifying costs after starting the journey.
If an employed driver is not fully reimbursed, any personal tax-relief claim is based on qualifying costs actually incurred. A self-employed driver claims reasonable business travel and subsistence costs under the separate trading-expense rules. Keep a log of nights away, dates and routes, plus receipts or other evidence.
Check the current rules in HMRC's lorry-driver subsistence guidance.
HGV and Lorry Driver Services
Rebate claims, tax returns and full accounts, depending on how you work.
HGV Driver Tax Rebate Claims
Claims for employed drivers on unreimbursed work expenses, backdated up to four tax years where they qualify.
Self Assessment Tax Returns
Preparation and online submission of Self Assessment returns for self-employed HGV, lorry and owner-drivers.
Overnight and Subsistence Reviews
Working out what you can genuinely claim for nights away, and which basis applies to your working arrangement.
Owner-Driver Accounts
Vehicle finance, capital allowances, running costs, maintenance and business accounts for owner-drivers and small hauliers.
Bookkeeping and VAT
Digital records, fuel and maintenance tracking, and VAT returns for haulage businesses over the threshold.
Making Tax Digital
Digital record-keeping and MTD for Income Tax preparation using Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent.
Also doing parcel or van work? See our courier and delivery driver page, or read about VAT returns if your haulage turnover is approaching the threshold.
Our HGV Driver Tax Process
Whether it is a rebate claim, a tax return or both.
- Tell us whether you are employed, self-employed or an owner-driver, and which tax years you need looked at.
- Send your payslips or income records, bank statements, overnight logs, fuel and maintenance receipts and any HMRC letters.
- We work out whether you have a rebate claim, a return to file, or both — and roughly what it is worth.
- We prepare the claim or return and explain the figures clearly before anything is submitted.
- We file with HMRC and deal with any correspondence that comes back.
- We set up your record-keeping so future years are quicker and cheaper to handle.
Find Out What You Are Owed
Rebate claims backdated up to four years, Self Assessment returns and owner-driver accounts. Fixed fees, free first conversation, and we will tell you straight if there is nothing to claim.
HGV Driver Tax Questions, Answered
Rebates, overnight expenses, Self Assessment, owner-driver accounts and Making Tax Digital.
HGV driver tax rebates
It is tax relief on work expenses you paid for yourself and your employer did not reimburse. Employed drivers are taxed through PAYE on their gross pay, so if you have been meeting costs out of your own pocket — overnight meals, a medical for your licence renewal, union fees, laundering protective clothing — you may have paid more tax than you needed to. A claim recovers the tax on those costs, not the costs themselves.
You can generally claim for the current tax year and the four previous tax years. Several years of eligible overnight costs, licence fees and related medical expenses can add up, but you receive tax relief on the allowable expense rather than repayment of the whole cost.
Where you stay away overnight for work and your employer does not reimburse you, you may be able to claim relief for qualifying meals and accommodation you paid for. The haulage industry scale rates are £26.20 where a sleeper cab is used and £34.90 without a sleeper cab, but employer payments under those rates require an HMRC approval notice and checking system. A personal tax-relief claim is based on eligible costs actually incurred, supported by evidence.
Not usually. Employed drivers can normally claim qualifying employment expenses through HMRC without a full Self Assessment return. If the expenses claim exceeds £2,500 for a tax year, or you already file a return, the claim must be made through Self Assessment. We will confirm which route applies.
Self-employed and owner-drivers
Yes, if your gross self-employment income was more than £1,000 in a tax year. Register with HMRC by 5 October following the end of the tax year in which you started, and file by 31 January. There is an automatic £100 penalty for late filing even where no tax is owed.
The reasonable cost of meals and accommodation you actually incurred — a hotel, or an evening meal and breakfast when sleeping in the cab. The fixed industry rates work differently for the self-employed, since they belong to an employer-to-employee scheme requiring HMRC approval. Claim genuine costs, keep a log of nights away and routes, and keep the receipts.
Vehicle running costs including fuel, repairs, servicing, tyres and insurance where you own the vehicle, or mileage where appropriate. Also licence and medical costs, digital tachograph cards, work clothing and PPE, tolls, parking, phone and data, and accountancy fees. What applies depends on your arrangement and your records.
It depends on profit levels, vehicle finance and whether you plan to take on other drivers. A company can be more tax-efficient above certain profits and looks different to lenders and clients, but brings more filing and cost. Vehicle capital allowances also work differently. We can model both against your actual figures.
Registration is required once taxable turnover exceeds £90,000 in a rolling 12-month period, which a busy owner-driver can reach. Voluntary registration is sometimes worth considering where your customers are VAT-registered businesses and you have significant fuel and maintenance input VAT — that is a calculation rather than a rule.
Records and Making Tax Digital
Payslips or income records, bank statements, a log of nights away showing dates and routes, receipts for meals and accommodation, fuel and maintenance records, licence and medical costs, digital tachograph card costs, PPE receipts and any HMRC correspondence. Self-employed records must be kept for at least five years after the 31 January filing deadline.
MTD for Income Tax applies to sole traders by qualifying income — gross income, not profit. It already applies above £50,000, dropping to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Owner-drivers frequently exceed these on turnover alone, well before profit gets anywhere near them. Employed drivers on PAYE are not affected.
If both are self-employed, it is one Self Assessment return covering everything, with the income from each kept separate in your own records. If one is employed and one self-employed, you may have both PAYE income and a return to file. See our courier and delivery driver page for the parcel side.
What Bolt Drivers Need to Know About Tax
Bolt does not deduct tax from what you earn. You are self-employed from your first fare, which means registering with HMRC, keeping records and filing a Self Assessment tax return each year.
Register by 5 October
If you earn more than £1,000 from driving in a tax year, you must tell HMRC by 5 October following the end of that tax year. The return itself is due by 31 January.
Set aside 20 to 30%
A rough guide for Income Tax and National Insurance on your profit. Putting it aside weekly is the simplest way to avoid a January surprise.
Claim your mileage
45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles and 25p after that, or actual running costs — whichever works out better for your vehicle.
Working both apps?
Bolt and Uber together is still one tax return. Keep the income from each separated in your records and it stays straightforward.
Two things worth knowing. HMRC receives income data directly from platforms under digital reporting rules, so what you declare needs to match what Bolt reports. And Making Tax Digital for Income Tax already applies to sole traders with gross income over £50,000, dropping to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. The test uses turnover rather than profit, so it catches more full-time drivers than people expect.