What can you put through your company? A doctor's guide to everyday expenses

If you work through your own limited company — a private practice, locum company, expert-witness or consultancy — costs you already pay for personally can often be paid by the company instead. That means Corporation Tax relief for the company and, in many cases, no personal tax for you. Here's a quick run-through of what you can start claiming, and the catch to watch on each.

📱 1. Mobile phone

• 📱 ✅ Claim: one company mobile per person — handset, line rental and private calls, all tax-free. Smartphones count.
• 📱 ⚠️ Catch: the contract must be in the company's name and the company pays the bill. A personal contract it reimburses won't do.

🏠 2. Home office equipment

• 💼 ✅ Claim: laptop, tablet, computer, desk, furniture, stationery and supplies bought by the company for you to use — no Income Tax or NI, and the company gets relief. Some private use is fine.
• 💼 ⚠️ Catch: the company must buy it (invoice in the company's name). Buying it yourself and reclaiming doesn't qualify.

💻 3. Working from home

Two ways to get paid tax-free for working from home. Take the flat rate for simplicity, or actual costs if you run the company mainly from home.

• 🏡 ✅ Flat rate: £26 a month (£6 a week if paid weekly) — no records or receipts needed.
• 🔌 ✅ Actual costs: a fair share of variable running costs — electricity, gas, metered water and cleaning — apportioned by rooms and hours.
• 🚫 ⚠️ Not claimable: rent/mortgage, Council Tax, insurance, repairs — and broadband (you'd pay it anyway). A dedicated business line is claimable.
• ✍️ ⚠️ Catch: put the arrangement in writing, and keep some private use of the room so you don't lose Capital Gains Tax relief on your home.

📚 4. Professional subscriptions & journals

• 📚 ✅ Claim: GMC registration, medical defence/indemnity, royal college and professional body memberships, and medical journals (print or online) — full relief, no benefit-in-kind.
• ⛳ ⚠️ Catch: it must relate to your role. General club memberships (golf, etc.) don't qualify.

👓 5. Eye tests & screen glasses

• 👓 ✅ Claim: an eye test, tax-free (you use screens) — plus glasses where a specific prescription is needed for screen-distance work.
• 👓 ⚠️ Catch: glasses for general use aren't covered. Keep the optician's note specifying screen use.

🎓 6. Training

• 🎓 ✅ Claim: courses that are useful to your role or make you better qualified — plus related travel, subsistence and materials, with no Income Tax.
• 🎓 ⚠️ Catch: it must be genuine training, not a recreational trip dressed up as a course.

🎁 7. Small gifts to yourself (trivial benefits)

• 🎁 ✅ Claim: gifts of £50 or less each — birthday and Christmas presents, vouchers — tax-free and unreported. Up to £300 a year per director (so £300 each for a couple who both direct the company).
• 💷 ⚠️ Catch: not cash, and not a reward for work. Go £1 over £50 and the whole of that gift is taxable.

🎉 8. Staff Christmas party

• 🎉 ✅ Claim: up to £150 per head on an annual function — food, drink, transport, hotel — tax-free and fully deductible. Counts guests too, so a director plus partner is a £300 budget.
• 🥂 ✅ You can split it across more than one event a year, as long as the total stays within £150 a head.
• ⛔ ⚠️ Catch: hard cliff-edge — hit £151 and the entire cost becomes taxable, not just the excess. Must be annual and open to all staff.

🍽️ 9. Client entertaining & business gifts

• 🍽️ ⚠️ No relief: client entertaining gets no Corporation Tax relief and no VAT recovery — but still pay it through the company (funding a £750 dinner personally costs a higher-rate taxpayer about £1,132 in dividends).
• 🎀 ✅ One gift exception: business gifts qualify if they cost £50 or less per person a year AND carry your practice name — but not food, drink, tobacco or vouchers.

✈️ 10. Travel & meals away from base

• ✈️ ✅ Claim: travel to a temporary location (an occasional clinic, court, conference) plus reasonable meals and refreshments while you're away from your normal base.
• 🏡 ⚠️ Catch: once you're back on your own patch it's personal. A short hop you could've eaten at home for doesn't count. Keep receipts and note the purpose.

🏨 11. Conferences, courses & CPD trips

Going to a conference, congress or study day that's relevant to your work? The trip and the cost of getting there and staying over are a business expense — the whole package, not just the ticket.

• 🎫 ✅ Claim: the conference or registration fee itself, plus any workshop or course costs while you're there.
• ✈️ ✅ Claim: travel to get there — train, flights, taxis, airport parking, or 55p/mile (first 10,000 miles) if you drive your own car.
• 🏨 ✅ Claim: the hotel or overnight accommodation when the event is far enough that you need to stay over, including reasonable evening meals and breakfast.
• 🍽️ ✅ Claim: reasonable meals and refreshments (subsistence) across the days you're away from base.
• 🌍 ✅ Overseas conferences count too, if the purpose is genuinely professional — same rules on flights, hotels and subsistence.

🩺 12. Health & wellbeing

• 🩺 ✅ One health screening and one medical check-up a year, tax-free.
• 💊 ✅ Up to £500 a year of treatment to help you return to work after a 28-day-plus health absence, on a professional's recommendation.
• 👂 ✅ Hearing aids and similar equipment for an employee with a disability — valuable, as private ones run to thousands.
• 🛡️ ✅ 'Relevant life' insurance, often payable by the company as a tax-efficient alternative to personal cover.

🥼 13. Uniforms & protective clothing

• 🥼 ✅ Claim: scrubs, theatre wear and clogs, lab coats, PPE and disposable aprons, and logo'd uniforms — plus cleaning and replacing them.
• 👔 ⚠️ Not claimable: everyday clothes — a suit, shirt or 'work' shoes — even bought purely for work. If you could wear it down the high street, it's personal.

The golden rule

Two things decide almost every claim: the cost must be genuinely for the business (or for you doing your job), and for the tax-free benefits the company must own the asset or hold the contract and pay the supplier directly. Get those right and a surprising amount of what you already spend can be paid more efficiently.

This is a general guide, not personal advice — the right answer depends on how you trade. If you'd like us to review what you could legitimately be claiming, that's exactly what we help medical professionals with. Get in touch.