Personal Trainer Expenses

HMRC's allowable categories cover office costs, travel, uniforms, staff and subcontractor costs, stock, financial costs including insurance and bank charges, premises costs, advertising and marketing including website costs, and training courses related to the business.

Translated into a training business, that is: gym rent or floor fees, public liability and professional indemnity insurance, professional body membership, equipment from kettlebells to a laptop, coaching and booking software, music licensing, your website and advertising, the business share of your phone, and the accountancy fee itself.

Requalification and CPD are worth a specific mention because the rule is narrower than people assume. Training that maintains or updates the skills you already use in the business is allowable. Training that qualifies you to do something new is a different matter and is often treated as capital rather than an expense.

The simplified mileage rate for cars and goods vehicles rose from 45p to 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles. Above 10,000 miles it stays at 25p.

The change was published on 17 June 2026 and is retrospective to 6 April 2026. Every business mile driven since the start of the tax year qualifies at the new rate, which matters for any trainer travelling between clients, gyms or outdoor sessions. A trainer doing 6,000 business miles a year is about £600 better off in claimable expenses than the old rate gave them.

Two conditions. Business mileage does not include ordinary commuting to a fixed place of work, and once you use the flat rate for a particular vehicle you have to keep using it for that vehicle rather than switching to actual costs later. Keep a log of the miles as you go, because reconstructing a year of journeys in January is how claims become guesses.

If you do at least 25 hours a month of business work at home, which most trainers do once programme writing, client admin and invoicing are counted, you can use a monthly flat rate instead of apportioning household bills.

The rates are £10 a month for 25 to 50 hours, £18 for 51 to 100 hours, and £26 for 101 or more. The flat rate does not cover telephone or internet, so those are still worked out on the business proportion separately.

Neither the mileage flat rate nor the home working flat rate can be used by a limited company, which is a genuine cost of incorporating that rarely appears in the comparison. There is more on that on the sole trader or limited company page.

This is where trainers most often get it wrong in the claimable direction. A uniform, meaning branded clothing that functions as workwear, is allowable. Ordinary sportswear generally is not, on the basis that it is everyday clothing whatever you use it for and however fast you get through it.

The amounts involved are small and the credibility cost of a return full of trainers and leggings is not. Claim the branded kit, claim the equipment, and leave the rest.

Three recurring ones beyond clothing. Personal gym membership, where the membership is what you would have had anyway. Food during the working day, which is not allowable simply because you were working. And the full cost of a phone or car that is plainly used personally too, where only the business proportion belongs in the claim.

None of these are worth the exposure. HMRC publishes the categories on its expenses if you are self-employed page, and the flat rates are on its simplified expenses guidance.