How much is the uniform tax allowance for teachers?

£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.

Are teachers on HMRC's list of occupations?

No. HMRC's table has 83 rows covering industries from agriculture to wood and furniture, and there is no education heading. Where your industry and job are not shown, the fallback allowance is £60 a year.

How far back can teachers 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 · Teachers

Uniform tax relief for teachers

Teaching is not on HMRC’s list at all, so the answer is the £60 fallback, and the claim you are probably looking for is a different one.

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 teachers 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 teachers 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.

Why there is no figure for your job

HMRC publishes 83 rows, grouped by industry, and none of them covers this work. Where your industry and job are not shown, the published fallback is £60 a year.

Why this figure

There is no education heading in HMRC’s table. Not for teachers, not for teaching assistants, not for PE staff. The 83 rows run from agriculture to wood and furniture and skip schools entirely.

That leaves the fallback. Where HMRC does not list your industry and job, you can claim £60 a year, which is £12 back at the basic rate.

Even that only works if you actually wear a recognisable uniform and pay to keep it clean. Ordinary clothing does not qualify, however specific your school is about what staff wear, so for most classroom teachers this particular relief comes to nothing.

Before you claim

Departmental clothing worn for PE, art or design and technology can qualify if it is genuinely specialised work clothing rather than your own clothes worn for work. A tracksuit you also wear at the weekend is your own clothes.

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 your industry and job so HMRC can apply the standard amount
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.

The other claim worth making

Union subscriptions and professional fees are a separate relief, and for teachers they are almost always the bigger claim of the two.

Professional subscriptions relief →

Common questions

How much is the uniform tax allowance for teachers?: £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.
Are teachers on HMRC's list of occupations?: No. HMRC's table has 83 rows covering industries from agriculture to wood and furniture, and there is no education heading. Where your industry and job are not shown, the fallback allowance is £60 a year.
How far back can teachers 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.