Claiming back the money you spend on food is allowed if you're self-employed – but you can't just claim everything you eat. So, what's the deal with claiming lunch as a business expense?

The rules on claiming food and drink expenses

Being self-employed gives you the ability to claim back allowable business expenses. If you work through your own limited company, this reduces your company's profit, and therefore its Corporation Tax bill.

For the 2025/26 financial year, the Corporation Tax rate is 19% for companies with profits of £50,000 or less, and 25% for profits over £250,000. Companies with profits between these amounts can claim marginal relief. With rates like these, it's well worth reducing your profits by claiming every allowable expense.

If you work as a sole trader rather than through a limited company, allowable business expenses will reduce your profits, meaning you'll pay less Income Tax and National Insurance when you complete your Self Assessment.

HMRC's general rule is that you can only claim expenses that are "wholly and exclusively" for the purposes of your business. This is why food and drink expenses can be tricky – after all, everyone needs to eat to survive.

The key is that you can claim for a meal as a 'subsistence' cost, but it has to be incurred while you're on a business journey that is outside your normal working routine. If you're just heading to your usual place of work, you can't claim for your lunch.

To make things even trickier, the rules are different depending on whether you operate as a sole trader or a limited company.

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Claiming food expenses as a sole trader

As a sole trader, you can claim the cost of food and drink when you're travelling for business. For example, if you travel to another city for a client meeting, the lunch you buy would be an allowable expense.

However, there's a common misconception that you can claim a flat daily rate. This isn't true. HMRC does not provide a fixed daily food allowance for self-employed individuals. You must claim the actual cost of your meal, it must be 'reasonable', and you must keep the receipt to prove it.

Claiming food expenses as a limited company

If you're the director of a limited company, you're also an employee. This means you have two options for claiming subsistence. You can either claim the actual cost of your meal (and keep the receipt!) or use HMRC's benchmark scale rates.

These rates can be paid to you by your company without needing to keep a receipt for the meal itself, as long as you were on a qualifying business trip. The current rates are:

• £5 if your business trip lasts for 5 hours or more
• £10 if your business trip lasts for 10 hours or more
• £15 for a late evening meal if you have to work later than usual and finish after 8pm

Your company must have a system in place to check that employees are actually on qualifying business journeys when they claim these rates.

What makes a workplace 'temporary'?

Whether you're a sole trader or a limited company director, you can only claim for subsistence when you're travelling to a 'temporary workplace'.

HMRC's rules on this are complex. A workplace is considered temporary if you go there only to perform a task of limited duration or for a temporary purpose.

However, if you spend more than 40% of your working time at a client's site and your contract there lasts (or is expected to last) for more than 24 months, it is no longer considered temporary.

Once a workplace becomes permanent under the 24-month rule, you can no longer claim for travel or subsistence expenses for your journey there.

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The golden rule: Keep your records

Whether you're claiming the actual cost of a meal or your company is using benchmark rates, good record-keeping is essential.

For any expense claim, you must keep records to prove it. For meal expenses, this means holding onto original receipts that show the date, the name of the establishment, and what you bought.

HMRC is increasingly focused on ensuring taxpayers don't claim for personal spending, so having clear evidence is your best defence. In general, you must keep all your business records for at least three years from the end of the tax year they relate to.

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