You drive to your rental property to meet a plumber.
Another day, you travel there to inspect some damage.
You keep a record of the mileage. You also keep all your petrol receipts.
So can you claim the mileage and the fuel?
And what about the journey itself? Is every trip to your rental property automatically a landlord expense?
Not necessarily.
Travel costs can be allowable when running a property business, but there are two separate questions to consider:
Was the journey itself for the purposes of the property business?
And, if it was:
How are you calculating the vehicle cost?
Those two questions can easily get mixed together.
First: why did you make the journey?
The starting point is generally whether the travel expense was incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the property business.
For example, you might travel to a rental property to:
- inspect damage reported by a tenant
- meet a contractor carrying out repairs
- carry out a property inspection
- deal with something relating specifically to the tenancy
- travel between properties as part of managing your rental business
Travel between different rental properties solely for the purposes of the property business can be allowable.
But simply saying:
“I drove to my rental property.”
doesn’t automatically make the journey deductible.
The purpose of the journey matters.
HMRC guidance: Travel costs – Property Income Manual
What if you travel from home to the rental property?
This is where it becomes more nuanced.
HMRC’s guidance says travel from home to the let property and back can be allowable where the purpose of making that journey is exclusively a business one.
Where the property business is actually carried on can also matter.
For example, if you genuinely administer your property business from home and have no separate office, that can be relevant when considering the business base.
On the other hand, where there is a separate business office, journeys between home and that office or the rental property will not normally qualify in the same way.
There is another situation worth considering.
If a letting agent carries out all, or virtually all, of the work involved in running the property, HMRC says the business base is likely to be the agent’s office. In those circumstances, travel from the landlord’s home will not normally be allowable.
So this isn’t simply:
Rental property = business journey.
The facts matter.
What if you combine the journey with something personal?
Imagine you drive to your rental property specifically to inspect a leaking bathroom.
You deal with the problem and drive home.
That’s very different from deciding to visit friends who live nearby and thinking:
“While I’m there, I’ll pop into the rental property as well.”
Where a journey has both a business and a private purpose, the tax position needs to be considered carefully.
An incidental personal benefit is different. For example, briefly stopping somewhere during an otherwise genuine business journey doesn’t necessarily change the underlying purpose of that journey.
The important question remains:
Why was the journey actually made?
“I’ve recorded my mileage – and I’ve kept all my fuel receipts”
This is a misunderstanding I see more often than people might expect.
Someone carefully records all their business mileage.
They also keep every petrol receipt.
Then, when they’re calculating their expenses, they assume they can claim:
Mileage allowance + petrol + other vehicle running costs.
But that isn’t how the flat-rate mileage method works.
For an eligible unincorporated landlord, the fixed mileage rate is an alternative way of calculating the relevant vehicle costs.
The mileage rate is intended to represent the costs associated with acquiring, owning and using the vehicle.
So you don’t simply calculate a mileage deduction and then add your petrol receipts on top.
You haven’t discovered a second expense just because you kept both records.
Related reading
If you’re unsure which other property costs can actually be deducted, read Landlord Expenses: Just Because You Paid for It Doesn’t Mean It’s Tax Deductible.
How much is the mileage rate?
There has been an important change here.
For the 2026/27 tax year, the fixed mileage rates for eligible unincorporated landlords using cars and goods vehicles are:
- 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles
- 25p per mile after the first 10,000 business miles
For motorcycles, the rate is 24p per mile.
Up to and including 2025/26, the rate for the first 10,000 business miles for cars and goods vehicles was 45p per mile.
That historic distinction can be particularly important if you’re reviewing rental-property expenses from earlier years.
Don’t take today’s mileage rate and automatically apply it backwards.
Mileage or actual vehicle costs?
The fixed mileage method isn’t necessarily the only way vehicle costs can be dealt with.
Depending on the circumstances, actual vehicle running costs may instead be considered, with the appropriate business proportion identified where the vehicle has both business and private use.
But this isn’t something to switch casually simply according to which method happens to produce the largest deduction.
There are rules governing when the simplified mileage method can be used and how it interacts with the treatment previously adopted for the vehicle.
You therefore need to know which method you’re using, rather than collecting every possible vehicle cost and adding everything together.
GOV.UK guidance: Simplified expenses for vehicles
Related video
Not every cost connected with your rental property is automatically tax deductible. In this video, I look at seven landlord expenses that can cause confusion and explain why the circumstances matter.
What about parking and train fares?
The mileage rate relates to the vehicle itself.
Other qualifying travel costs can still be considered separately.
For example, depending on the circumstances, this could include:
- parking for a qualifying business journey
- train fares
- other qualifying public transport costs
So don’t confuse petrol, which is represented within the mileage calculation, with a separate qualifying travel cost such as parking.
The underlying journey must, of course, still be for the purposes of the property business.
What records should landlords keep?
If you’re claiming travel expenses, don’t rely on a pile of petrol receipts to tell the story.
Keep a record of things such as:
- the date of the journey
- where you travelled from and to
- the property visited
- the number of business miles, where relevant
- why the journey was made
- supporting parking, train or other travel receipts where applicable
The reason for the journey is particularly important.
Six years later:
“Hemel – London, 48 miles”
doesn’t necessarily tell you why you went there.
But:
“Met plumber at rental property following tenant report of leaking shower”
tells a much clearer story.
What if you’re dealing with rental income from earlier years?
This is where travel expenses can become particularly difficult.
Perhaps the rental income wasn’t reported at the time and you’re now trying to establish the correct position for several historic years.
There may have been genuine property-business journeys during those years.
But before simply estimating a mileage figure, you need to establish what evidence is available and which rules and rates applied to the relevant tax year.
Bank statements, emails with contractors, tenancy correspondence, calendars, invoices and other contemporaneous records can sometimes help reconstruct what was happening.
The objective isn’t to create the largest possible expense figure.
It’s to establish a reasonable and supportable tax position based on the available evidence.
Related reading
If you’re trying to reconstruct earlier rental years and some of the paperwork is missing, read Undeclared Rental Income: What If I Can’t Find My Records?.
Three questions to ask before claiming landlord travel
When considering landlord travel expenses, work through these questions in order:
1. Why did I make the journey?
Was it genuinely for the purposes of the property business?
2. How am I calculating the vehicle expense?
Am I using the applicable mileage method or actual vehicle costs?
3. Am I claiming the same cost twice?
If mileage has already represented the vehicle running costs, don’t simply add petrol and other covered vehicle costs again.
That’s a much safer starting point than assuming:
“I went to the rental property, so I can claim it.”
Or:
“I’ve kept the fuel receipt, so I can claim that as well as my mileage.”
Need help reviewing your rental property tax position?
If you’re a UK landlord and you’re unsure what expenses can properly be claimed, or you’re dealing with rental income from earlier years and need help establishing the correct tax position, you can book a Paid Tax & Property Consultation with Grace Certified Accountants.
We’ll look at your circumstances and help you understand the appropriate next steps.