I'm just about to start a new job where I will be working away from home 3/4 nights a week and will be staying in a B&B for those nights. This is not something that my employer will cover which I understood before taking the position (the cost is offset by a higher salary \ better conditions).
My question is can I claim the costs of the B&B and potentially other living expenses if I am in full time employee?
The key question is whether the location(s) you'll be staying away from home are fixed ones that could be considered a "permanent workplace". If the locations are permanent, then you can't deduct them from taxes; if they are temporary then you can deduct them.
Note that you can have multiple permanent workplaces, so it's not enough to say that you have a single permanent workplace near your own home so the other places are temporary.
The key HMRC guide setting this out is here.
As a full time employee in the UK, getting to your regular workplace is up to you and not tax deductible. If you have to go to another place, then travel from your workplace to that other place is tax deductible.
If you got a position for example where you work at the company's offices at A every monday, and then from tuesday to friday you go off to a different place, one week to B, one week to C, and so on, then the travel to A is not tax deductible, but the travel to B and C is.
On the other hand, if you decided to get a job 300 miles away from home, and you can work one or two days a week from home but then go three or four days to your regular workplace 300 miles away, that's solely your problem. Nothing is tax deductible.
On the other hand, should you decide to become self employed or start your own limited company, then all this cost is tax deductible.
