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What can I claim as a cleaner?

Tick off what you have spent and we will show you what actually comes off your tax bill — including the things people try to claim and cannot. Free, no sign-up, and we will tell you when the £1,000 allowance beats itemising.

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This calculator needs JavaScript. The rules it uses are all explained below, or ask us and we'll work it out for you — free.

What you have spent

Leave anything blank that does not apply. Where a cost is part business, put the business share in the % box — that is only offered where the law actually allows it.

Cleaning products, cloths, bin bags and refills—

Keep the receipts even for £3 supermarket spends — they add up to hundreds over a year.

Vacuum, steam cleaner, mop systems, carpet machine—

If you also use it at home, claim only the business share.

Travel between clients—

Mileage at 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, 25p after. Home to your first job of the day is usually not business travel.

Public liability insurance and key-holder cover—

Cover for your own home contents is not a business cost.

Overalls, tabards, gloves and non-slip shoes—

Protective and branded workwear only.

DBS check where a client or agency requires one—

Agency or platform commission—

Report the gross fee as turnover and deduct the commission separately.

Accountancy and bookkeeping fees—

Mobile phone—

Only the business share. If you can't identify it, you can't claim it.

Working from home—

You can use the flat monthly rate instead — £10, £18 or £26 a month depending on hours — often easier and sometimes more.

Things people try to claim

Put a figure in if you have spent it — we will show you £0 and tell you why. Better to know now than after HMRC asks.

Ordinary clothes you happen to clean in£0.00

Ordinary clothing is never allowable, even if you only wear it for work. Overalls and tabards are different.

Cleaning products for your own home£0.00

Private, not business. Only what you use on clients' jobs counts — keep the receipts separate.

Passport or ID renewal£0.00

Personal documents are a private cost even where a client asks to see them. A DBS check required for the work is different.

Taking a client out£0.00

Client entertaining is blocked by statute, not by judgement. It is never allowable, however clearly it won you the work.

Parking fines and penalties£0.00

A penalty for breaking the law isn't a cost of trading, so it's never allowable. Parking charges where you paid to park legitimately are.

To work out what it saves you

Your income before expenses

Optional. Without it we can still total your expenses, but not the tax they save. England, Wales and Northern Ireland rates.

I spent money getting started, before my first saleAnything in the seven years before you started trading counts, and first-timers routinely miss it.

2026/27Cash basisChecked 12 Sep 2026Estimate, not advice

The rules behind the list

Wholly and exclusively — and why there is no general percentage

An expense comes off your profit only if it was incurred solely for the trade. Splitting a cost is allowed only where a definite part of it is itself wholly for the business — your phone bill has an identifiable business share, so it can be apportioned. Where a cost is genuinely dual-purpose with no severable business part, the whole thing is disallowed. There is no "business proportion" of a cost that fails the test, which is why the % box only appears on some lines here and not on others.

Clothing is the one that catches everybody

Ordinary clothing is never allowable, however smart, and even if you only ever wear it for work and dislike wearing it. The House of Lords settled it: ordinary clothes carry an inescapable private purpose of warmth and decency. What is allowable is a genuine uniform, protective clothing, and a performance costume that would not function as everyday wear. The dividing line is the character of the garment, not the occasion you wore it for.

Equipment is simply deducted when you pay for it

The cash basis is the default for sole traders, with no turnover limit and no election needed, and under it a laptop, a camera, your tools, a till or a van are ordinary deductions in the year you pay for them. No capital allowances computation. The exception that matters is a car — it is excluded, and goes through capital allowances or the mileage rate instead. Vans and motorcycles are not cars for this purpose.

Meals, travel and entertaining

Client entertaining is barred by statute, so it fails even when it plainly won you the work. Food is disallowed as a general rule — you must eat to live, not to work — but reasonable meals are allowed where your trade is genuinely itinerant, or the journey falls outside your normal pattern, and overnight trips are allowable including the hotel. Travel from home to a fixed place of work is ordinary commuting. Where the trade is itinerant and home is the real base of operations, home-to-site travel is allowable.

The trading allowance is strictly either/or. If you claim the flat £1,000 you can deduct nothing else at all — no expenses, no capital allowances. That is why it is worth totalling your costs before deciding, and why we tell you which way round you are better off.

Guide

The full tax guide for cleaners

Rates, dates, the expenses people miss and a worked 2026/27 example for cleaners.

Read the guide → Estimator

How much tax will I pay for 2026/27?

Put your profit in and see the tax, the National Insurance and the payment on account — with the working.

Open the calculator →

Sources — all checked 12 September 2026

General information for the 2026/27 tax year, not personal tax advice. Expenses turn on the facts of your own trade — ask us and we will go through yours properly, free.

Most people under-claim. We go looking.

£25 a month covers everything, and the first month is free. We ask the questions that find the expenses you did not know about.