Mileage & ExpenseTracker for Tradesmen

No. HMRC requires you to choose one method for each vehicle for the entire tax year. If you claim the flat mileage allowance (Approved Mileage Allowance Payments — AMAPs), you cannot also claim actual running costs such as fuel, insurance, servicing, or road tax for that vehicle. The mileage rate is designed to cover all of these. You must pick the method that gives you the best deduction and stick with it for the whole tax year.

Yes — HMRC requires you to keep a mileage log for every business trip you claim. This should include the date of each journey, the start and end points (or a description of the purpose), the number of miles driven, and the running total for the tax year. A simple spreadsheet, a notebook, or a dedicated mileage app all work. HMRC can request these records during an enquiry, so keep them for at least five years after your Self Assessment deadline.

The 45p/mile rate applies to the first 10,000 business miles you drive in a car or van in a single tax year (6 April to 5 April). Once you pass 10,000 miles, the rate drops to 25p/mile for every additional mile. This is a fixed HMRC rule — it exists because the government recognises that vehicles used heavily for business have lower per-mile costs due to the volume of use. Motorcycles and bicycles have flat rates with no threshold.

No. HMRC does not allow you to claim mileage for travel between your home and a permanent workplace (called 'ordinary commuting'). However, as a tradesman visiting different customer sites, each site is generally a temporary workplace, which means the journey from home to the customer's property is fully claimable. If you work on a single site for more than 24 months and it becomes your regular place of work, you lose the mileage deduction for that commute.