Claim Your Work Expenses Back Using the P87 Form
A super-simple guide to getting your money back from HMRC
You can claim up to £2,500 per year using this form
If your expenses are more than £2,500, you’ll need to fill in a longer tax return instead.
What is the P87 Form?
The P87 form is a piece of paper (or PDF) you send to HMRC (the UK tax office) to get some of your work expenses back.
In plain English:
If you spent your own money on work stuff — like uniforms, tools, travel, or working from home — and your job didn’t pay you back, you might be able to get some tax back.
Who Can Use The P87 Form To Claim Tax Money Back?
You can use this form if:
- You’re employed (not self-employed)
- You paid for something you had to buy for your job
- Your employer didn’t give you the money back
- You paid tax that year (if you worked, you did)
- You’re claiming for this tax year or the last 4 years
- You kept the receipts for the purchases you made

What Can You Claim on the P87 Form?

Flat Rate Expense
The HMRC has a list of professions where people are allowed to claim a flat fee each year. In simple terms, if you’re an NHS nurse, you’re allowed to claim £125 without providing any receipts and you will get your tax deduction, no questions asked.
You can, however, opt to claim your expenses with receipts (especially if you’ve paid more than your allowed flat fee). In this case, you will need to provide a receipt/invoice for each purchase & record them in the “Other Expenses Category.
To see the flat rate (HMRC set rate) allowable for your profession, visit THIS LINK.

Subscriptions to Professional Bodies
This category is for anyone and everyone who is a member of a professional body. This will include doctors and nurses, architects, accountants, solicitors, managers, marketers, scientists, teachers, and many others.
As expected, the HMRC has a list of approved Professional Bodies and institutes and you can see it here [LINK TO HMRC LIST].
This category includes:
- The membership fee you pay to the professional body
- Any money you pay as a learning subscription
- Fees for professional journals and/or publications.

Mileage Allowance
When using your own car
When you find yourself using your own vehicle for work trips, you’re immediately eligible to get a tax relief on those trips.
Unlike other categories, when using a car you have a cap on expenses. If you’ve driven less than 10k miles in a year, you’ll get 45p back per mile (for cars). Over that, it’s 25p/mile. For motorcycles it’s 24p/mile and bicycles is 20p/mile.
This category includes:
- Driving to different work locations
- Visiting clients
- Picking up work supplies
- Driving to a conference or exhibition

Hotel & Meal Expenses
If you find yourself travelling because of work, you’re allowed to get the tax back from your hotel, meal, WiFi and other expenses back.
Whilst the category is just named “Hotel & Meal Expenses” it includes everything you may have found yourself paying for when travelling because of work.
You must keep receipts for all expenses, along with the reason for your travel.
This category includes:
- Hotel costs
- Meal costs (for you and clients/colleagues)
- Hotel WiFi

Other Expenses
This is your Miscellaneous category of expenses for everything you found yourself paying for that relates to your job.
It goes without saying that this category requires receipts, reason for every expense made, and may require work contracts or manager instructions (for instance when claiming work from home)
This category includes:
- Parking charges
- Toll fees
- Business phone calls
- Working from home
- Software subscriptions
- Uniforms if you are NOT claiming a flat fee
How Much Money You Can Get Back
If you are using the P87 form to claim expenses
Up to £2500 in Expenses
The P87 Form was created to be fit for people on employment contracts who pay their tax via the PAYE scheme. If your expenses are over that amount, you’ll have to register for Self Assessment and submit a much larger form.
You Get Up To £500 Back
The P87 form will secure you only 20% of what you’ve spent, meaning that the maximum amount you’ll get back is £500. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you claim every year for 30 years, that’s £15,000. Not too shabby…
You’ll Receive 20% Off Your Expenses
To find out how much you’ll be paid back after you submit a P87 form, simple calculate 20%. If your expenses are £1000, you’ll be paid back £200. If they’re £2000, you’ll get back £400. You get the drift.
Why Use The Peseta App To Track Receipts

Track Expenses & Receipts On The Go
Whilst it doesn’t sound like a big deal, keeping track of receipts over the course of 12 months is a tedious and VERY boring task.
The Peseta App enables you to track your expenses and receipts on the go. Just snap a photo of the receipt, add the expense and move on with your life.

Export A Ready-To-Submit Summary
Imagine having to sit down at the end of a financial year, open a spreadsheet and add each expense to a category, and them sum the expenses to fill in the form.
You don’t have to do any of that if you’re using Peseta. Just go to the “Export” section and you’ll receive the table ready.

Support From A Dedicated Team
Digesting the tax jargon of the HMRC can be incredibly challenging, but not if you’re a member of Peseta.
Joining the App means you’re becoming “One of Ours” and whilst we may not know it all, we’re committed enough to finding all answers.
Get a tax return for all of the expenses you make for work.
Expense Tracking App for Busy People
Peseta App is a quick and easy way to track your allowable expenses and export a calculated-for-you, ready-to-submit summary, so you can:
Get Your Money Back.