How much is the uniform tax allowance for chefs and catering staff?

£60 a year. That is the amount HMRC takes off your taxable income, not the amount you receive. At the basic rate it is worth £12 a year in tax, and at the higher rate £24 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

How far back can chefs and catering staff claim it?

The current tax year and the four before it, so 2026/27 plus 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26. A first claim covering all five is worth about £60 at the basic rate. The oldest of those years closes on 5 April 2027.

Is it worth paying a refund company to do it?

HMRC publishes a worked example of what that costs: a refund of £200, of which the company took £80 in fees, and a year later HMRC decided the claim was not valid and asked for the full £200 back plus interest. Claiming direct through HMRC is free and takes minutes, and you keep all of it.

Do I get less if I live in Scotland?

You get a different amount, because Scotland sets its own income tax bands. A Scottish higher-rate taxpayer gets 42% of the allowance rather than 40%, so £25.20 rather than £24 on this figure, and there is an intermediate 21% band with no equivalent in the rest of the UK.

What if my employer washes my uniform?

Then there is nothing to claim. The relief covers costs you have borne yourself. If your employer launders it, replaces it free or pays you a laundry allowance, you have not paid for anything, and the same applies if a free laundry service is available and you choose not to use it.

Uniform allowance · Chefs and catering staff

Uniform tax relief for chefs and catering staff

Catering pays £60 a year in the food industry and £125 in a hospital, for the same whites and the same washing.

What you actually get back

£12

a year at the basic rate, or about £60 if this is your first claim and it covers all 5 open years

HMRC calls its figure £60 a year. That is the amount taken off your taxable income, not a payment. £60 at 20% tax is £12.

What it is worth at each tax rate

Same allowance, different cash, depending on the rate you pay. The first table is England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Cash value of the £60 allowance for chefs and catering staff at each rest-of-UK income tax rate
Rest of UK band	Income	A year	All 5 open years
Basic rate 20%	£12,571 to £50,270	£12	£60
Higher rate 40%	£50,271 to £125,140	£24	£120
Additional rate 45%	Over £125,140	£27	£135

Scotland sets its own bands, and two of the differences are big enough to change the answer. A Scottish higher-rate taxpayer gets 42% of the allowance rather than 40%, and there is an intermediate band at 21% with no equivalent elsewhere in the UK.

Cash value of the £60 allowance for chefs and catering staff at each Scottish income tax rate
Scottish band	Income	A year	All 5 open years
Starter rate 19%	£12,571 to £16,537	£11.40	£57
Basic rate 20%	£16,538 to £29,526	£12	£60
Intermediate rate 21%	£29,527 to £43,662	£12.60	£63
Higher rate 42%	£43,663 to £75,000	£25.20	£126
Advanced rate 45%	£75,001 to £125,140	£27	£135
Top rate 48%	Over £125,140	£28.80	£144

Rates for 2026/27. Scottish rates from gov.uk. Which set applies is decided by where you live, not by where you work.

How HMRC words your job

HMRC does not sort its table by job title. It sorts by industry first, and the row you are on is this one.

Industry

Food

Job

All workers

Amount a year

£60

Wording quoted from HMRC's published table, unedited. If none of it describes what you do, the row is not yours, and choosing it anyway is what makes a claim collapse later.

Why this figure

HMRC gives the food industry a single row: all workers, £60 a year. That is the same as the fallback for a job the table does not list, so a chef in a restaurant or a factory gains nothing from being on the list.

Hospital catering staff are somewhere else entirely. They sit on the health and care row at £125, alongside porters, ward clerks and hospital domestics, which is more than twice the food-industry figure.

Where you cook decides it, not what you cook. The same person moving from a restaurant kitchen to a hospital kitchen moves from £60 to £125.

The rows next to yours

Worth checking, because a job title that sounds close can sit on a different figure.

Plaster room orderlies, hospital porters, ward clerks, sterile supply workers, hospital domestics and hospital catering staff£125
All other workers£60

Before you claim

Chefs’ whites are usually laundered by the kitchen, and where that is the case there is nothing to claim. Where you take them home, wash them and replace them yourself, there is.

Two more conditions apply everywhere. The clothing has to be recognisable as a uniform or as specialised work clothing, so a plain shirt in the company colours does not count however strict the dress code is. And safety equipment is outside this relief altogether: your employer is expected to supply it free or pay you back for it.

Claiming direct is free

Search for this relief and most of what comes back is a company offering to claim it for you in exchange for a share of the money. HMRC runs a campaign page about exactly that, with a worked example about a uniform refund company.

In HMRC's example, a healthcare worker is told by a refund calculator that he can claim £200. The company takes £80 of that as fees. A year later HMRC tells him he was not eligible for what was claimed on his behalf, and that he owes the full £200 back, plus interest.

Two things to take from it. The fee is a share of your refund rather than a price, so on this allowance it comes out of a figure that was never large to begin with. And the liability stays with you: a claim made in your name is your claim, whoever filled the form in.

Doing it yourself costs nothing and takes minutes. HMRC's own page on this is worth two minutes before you sign anything.

How to claim it

Check you actually bear the cost: you wash, repair or replace the clothing yourself and your employer does not do it or pay you for it
Use HMRC's online service for job expenses, or the P87 form by post if you would rather not go online
Choose uniforms, work clothing and tools, and give the industry and job HMRC lists above
Tick every year you were doing the job, back to 2022/23
Send it. No receipts are needed for the flat-rate allowance, which is the whole point of it
HMRC changes your tax code for the current year and pays the earlier years back separately

Claim on gov.uk, free

If your total expenses claim for a tax year comes to more than £2,500 you have to use a Self Assessment return instead, and if you already file one you claim through that whatever the amount.

Backdating, and then leaving it alone

You can claim for the current tax year and the four before it, which today means 2026/27 plus 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26. The oldest of those closes on 5 April 2027, and once it does it does not reopen.

After the first claim there is usually nothing to repeat. HMRC builds the allowance into your tax code and it carries on year after year. That does mean checking your code still looks right if you change job, because an allowance for work you no longer do is one you will be asked to pay back.

Common questions

How much is the uniform tax allowance for chefs and catering staff?: £60 a year. That is the amount HMRC takes off your taxable income, not the amount you receive. At the basic rate it is worth £12 a year in tax, and at the higher rate £24 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
How far back can chefs and catering staff claim it?: The current tax year and the four before it, so 2026/27 plus 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26. A first claim covering all five is worth about £60 at the basic rate. The oldest of those years closes on 5 April 2027.
Is it worth paying a refund company to do it?: HMRC publishes a worked example of what that costs: a refund of £200, of which the company took £80 in fees, and a year later HMRC decided the claim was not valid and asked for the full £200 back plus interest. Claiming direct through HMRC is free and takes minutes, and you keep all of it.
Do I get less if I live in Scotland?: You get a different amount, because Scotland sets its own income tax bands. A Scottish higher-rate taxpayer gets 42% of the allowance rather than 40%, so £25.20 rather than £24 on this figure, and there is an intermediate 21% band with no equivalent in the rest of the UK.
What if my employer washes my uniform?: Then there is nothing to claim. The relief covers costs you have borne yourself. If your employer launders it, replaces it free or pays you a laundry allowance, you have not paid for anything, and the same applies if a free laundry service is available and you choose not to use it.

Five years of it, in one total

The arithmetic on this page is the easy part. The bit people get wrong is which years they were actually doing the job and what the total comes to across all of them. Untap asks, works it out, and points you at the gov.uk form. Free with a sign-in, and we take no percentage: the claim itself stays yours.

Check your uniform allowance Or read the full occupation table

Other occupations

All 83 occupations, and how the relief works

Amounts and job wording from HMRC, job expenses for uniforms, work clothing and tools, last updated 14 November 2024. Income tax rates from gov.uk and Scottish income tax, 2026/27. The refund-company example is HMRC's own, from its campaign page on claiming expenses. Untap helps people in the UK find money they are already owed. We do not file claims and we do not take a share of any refund.