Employees’ incidental overnight expenses policy

If an employee has to stay away overnight on business, there are some tax and NI-free expense payments you can make. To achieve this you’ll need to have a company policy in place to avoid an employee claiming for the wrong amounts, which is what a visiting tax inspector would go looking for.

Expense payments

If an employee has to stay away overnight on business, then you can pay them up to £5 per night in the UK (£10 per night overseas) tax and NI free, in respect of their miscellaneous personal expenses such as telephone calls home or newspapers. If you want to do this, you need to have procedures in place to make sure you don’t accidentally reimburse the expenses twice - first as part of the hotel bill and second via the employee’s separate expense claim. This can be achieved by following the Employees’ Incidental Overnight Expenses Policy.