Uniform Tax Refund Guide: What You Can Claim

A uniform tax refund is income tax relief on what you spend cleaning, repairing or replacing a work uniform. Each job has an agreed yearly amount, and the relief is that amount at your tax rate: £60 at 20% gives £12. Claims can cover the current tax year and the four before it.

Washing the uniform yourself isn’t the whole test. If your employer pays for its upkeep, or would pay if you asked, HMRC’s manual allows no deduction at all. Where they’ve covered only part of it, or would if you asked, you take off that share and claim the rest.

If you’re an employee paid through PAYE, this guide covers sorting out a work uniform tax refund yourself. Your route changes if you file Self Assessment, work for yourself, serve in the armed forces’ other ranks or as a naval rating, or have more than £2,500 of job expenses in a tax year.

Two other things shape the answer: whether each year still falls inside the four-year time limit, and whether your tax code already carries the allowance.

Three tests decide your uniform tax refund

Who can claim uniform tax relief comes down to three tests, and you need to pass all three for each year you include:

• You wear a uniform that marks out your job, the way a nurse’s or a police officer’s does, or specialist clothing you need for the work, such as overalls.
• You pay to clean, repair or replace it, and your employer doesn’t cover that upkeep and wouldn’t if you asked.
• You paid income tax in that year, because the relief can’t be bigger than the tax you paid.

Ordinary clothes stay outside the rules whatever the dress code says. Plain black trousers for a waiting job are required, but they’re still everyday clothing.

Personal protective equipment is a separate case. You can’t claim relief on PPE, since your employer should provide it free or pay you back for it.

Laundry has its own wrinkle. Where your employer offers free laundering and you choose to wash the uniform at home anyway, the laundering cost isn’t claimable.

Badges are where the grey area sits. According to HMRC’s manual, a badge you can unclip doesn’t turn ordinary clothing into a uniform, but a permanent and conspicuous badge may be enough, with each case judged on its merits.

Uniform flat rate expense: upkeep, not the clothes

The fixed amount is called a flat rate expense, and it’s set per tax year rather than worked out from receipts. It covers the upkeep of the clothing and of any tools your job needs, as a single figure.

What it doesn’t reach is the cost of buying the uniform in the first place.

Claiming tax relief for washing uniform costs at the flat rate means no receipts. GOV.UK confirms you don’t need to send evidence for it.

Your figure depends on your industry and your role, and £60 applies if your job isn’t on HMRC’s list.

The uniform tax refund calculator shows the amount for your job and what it’s worth at your tax rate.

GOV.UK sets out the conditions for the flat rate, and for claiming what you actually spent instead, on its page about uniforms, work clothing and tools.

Flat rate or actual costs: compare both

The flat rate needs no paperwork, but the fixed amount can be lower than what you spent. HMRC’s manual lets you claim what you actually spent instead of the fixed amount, for any year.

Take someone on the £60 rate who spent £150 in a year repairing and replacing worn uniform items. At 20%, the flat rate is worth £12, while the actual cost is worth £30.

The trade-off is proof. You’d need receipts or other evidence that you paid, because the online service asks for evidence whenever a claim goes above the fixed amount, and HMRC checks it before the claim moves forward.

Employer contributions change the sums as well. Say your employer puts £20 a year towards upkeep. Deduct it from the £60 and £40 is left to claim, worth £8 at 20%.

On either basis, a year’s relief is capped at the income tax you paid that year.

How to claim uniform tax relief online or by post

For a PAYE employee claiming only the flat rate, GOV.UK points to HMRC’s online service. Each route below says who it suits, starting with that one:

• If you’re paid through PAYE, don’t file Self Assessment and your job expenses for the tax year are £2,500 or less, you claim the flat rate through HMRC’s online service under uniform, work clothing and tools, with no evidence needed for it.
• If you’re claiming other job expenses at the same time (mileage in your own vehicle or professional fees, for example), the online service lets you select them all in one claim. HMRC asks for evidence of those other expenses, and the employment expenses tax relief guide covers claiming them.
• If you’d rather use paper, form P87 takes the same claim by post, again only for job expenses of £2,500 or less in the tax year.
• If you already send a Self Assessment return, or your job expenses for the tax year come to more than £2,500, you must claim on the return rather than through the online service or a P87. The amount goes on the employment page (SA102), with a separate page for each job.
• If you’re self-employed, you claim uniforms and protective clothing as business expenses on your Self Assessment return, where buying them counts too, though everyday clothing still doesn’t.
• If you serve in the other ranks of the Army, RAF or Royal Marines, or as a Royal Navy rating (a regular, a mobilised reservist or a reservist on full-time reserve service), HMRC’s manual says relief for laundering a uniform that isn’t cleaned at public expense comes through a net pay arrangement run by the Ministry of Defence, so there’s no individual claim to make.

Form P87 is a PDF you can fill in on screen or print and complete by hand before posting it to HMRC. One P87 uniform claim can cover several tax years and more than one employment.

Before you start, gather your National Insurance number (if you have one), your job title and the employer’s PAYE reference, which appears on your P45 or P60 and in your personal tax account. A refund on a paper P87 arrives as a cheque.

If you’re filling one in, the P87 form guide includes a checklist for completing it.

Backdate uniform tax refund claims by four years

A tax year ends on 5 April, and you have four years from that date to claim for it. In practice you can backdate uniform tax refund claims to cover the year you’re in plus four earlier tax years.

Every year the window moves on. Once 5 April passes, the oldest of those years can no longer be claimed, and a new tax year joins at the other end.

The four-year limit appears alongside the other conditions in GOV.UK’s guidance on claiming by post.

List each eligible year in one claim, with the job it relates to. Every 5 April that passes without a claim removes your chance to claim tax back on uniform costs for the oldest year in the window.

Spot the uniform allowance in your tax code

For the year you’re in, a successful claim usually shows up as a change to your tax code. Earlier years are settled through a code adjustment or a refund.

Here’s the mechanism. The flat rate is added to the amount you can earn tax free, and the number in your code is usually that amount with the last digit dropped.

Take a code of 1257L, which stands for £12,570 of tax-free income. Add a £60 uniform allowance and the tax-free amount becomes £12,630, so the code reads 1263L.

A rise of six after a £60 claim is the uniform allowance tax code change at work. Other allowances or deductions in your code move the number as well.

The service to check your Income Tax for the current year shows your tax code and Personal Allowance, and the HMRC app shows them too. You’ll have a separate code for each job.

Opting into paperless notifications gets you an email from HMRC each time the code is updated. Paying the right amount of tax is down to you, so if you stop paying for the upkeep yourself, check that the allowance comes out of your code.

Before you claim your uniform tax refund

Start with the three tests: a uniform or specialist clothing, upkeep you pay for yourself, less anything your employer covers or would cover, and income tax paid in each year you include.

Next, pick your route. The online service suits a flat rate claim on its own, a P87 by post is there if you’d rather use paper, and a Self Assessment return takes over if you already file one or your job expenses come to more than £2,500.

Put the current year and the four before it into one uniform tax claim, and check afterwards that your tax code reflects the allowance.

The guide to the personal tax account explains how to sign in and find your code.

Key Takeaways

• A uniform tax refund is relief on cleaning, repairing or replacing a work uniform, worked out as a fixed amount for your job at your rate of tax.
• You need a uniform or specialist clothing, upkeep you pay for yourself, and income tax paid in the year, with anything your employer pays or would pay taken off, while PPE and everyday clothes don’t qualify.
• A flat rate claim needs no receipts and £60 applies where your job isn’t on HMRC’s list, but you can claim actual costs instead if you have proof of payment.
• A claim can reach back over the current tax year and the four before it, with the oldest year dropping out after each 5 April.
• PAYE employees can use the online service or a P87 by post, while Self Assessment filers and anyone with more than £2,500 of job expenses claim on a return.