Working from home tax relief: the £6 rule

HMRC's flat rate for the extra household costs of working from home is £6 a week — no receipts, no meter readings, no apportioning the broadband bill. The COVID years were far more generous and one of them is still claimable. This is the full picture: today's eligibility, the closing COVID window, what the relief is genuinely worth, and how to claim it free in minutes.

The rule as it stands (2022-23 onwards)

Since 6 April 2022 you can claim only if you have to work from home, which HMRC interprets as one of:

• Your employer has no office you can reasonably use (fully remote employer, closed local office)
• Your job requires you to live too far from the office for daily commuting to be reasonable

What doesn't qualify — and this removed millions of claims: hybrid working by choice or policy. If a usable office exists and you attend it some days, home days are a preference, not a requirement. HMRC rejected large volumes of 2022-23 claims on exactly this ground, and its online checker now asks the question up front.

The COVID-era window still open

During 2020-21 and 2021-22, if you worked from home for any COVID-related reason — even one day of government advice — you could claim the whole year at the full weekly rate. The window for 2020-21 closed in April 2025. The final survivor:

2021-22 closes on 5 April 2026. If you worked from home during that year and never claimed, a full-year basic-rate claim is £62.40, higher-rate £124.80 — claimed in one form, free.

What £6 a week actually adds up to

Again the honest arithmetic — you receive the tax on the expense, not the expense:

Scenario	Expense	Basic-rate (20%) refund	Higher-rate (40%) refund
Full year (52 weeks)	£312	£62.40	£124.80
26 weeks	£156	£31.20	£62.40
10 weeks	£60	£12	£24
2020-21 + 2021-22 both full years	£624	£124.80	£249.60

Small individually, real when combined with the uniform, professional fees and mileage reliefs one P87 form can carry at once.

Flat rate versus actual costs

The £6 is an administrative truce: HMRC accepts household costs exist; you accept not proving them. Alternatives exist for people with genuinely higher costs:

• Actual additional costs — heating and electricity for the working area, business phone calls — claimed with bills, working space details and a defensible apportionment method
• Home broadband is never claimable if you'd have it anyway; a second, dedicated business line can be

Most people should take the £6 and the evening off. Claim actual costs only when they're demonstrably higher and the evidence already exists.

Claiming — the free five-minute route

1. Check eligibility honestly against the "required to" rule (or the COVID rule for 2021-22).
2. Form P87 online — select "using your home as a workplace", enter weeks per year.
3. Declare employer reimbursements if any (they reduce the claim).
4. After a success, HMRC usually codes the relief in, so later years arrive automatically on your payslip for as long as you remain eligible.

Employees who file Self Assessment claim through their return instead — same rules, same rates.

Common mistakes that kill claims

• Claiming post-2021-22 years while hybrid by choice — rejected, and pattern-of-claim flags follow repeat attempts
• Double-dipping: employer pays you a home-working allowance and you claim the relief on the same weeks
• Counting weeks your employer provided a desk you simply didn't use
• Paying a claims firm 30% of a £62 entitlement that took longer to explain than to claim